If you want to hear how the Bible can make you a millionaire, you’re in the wrong place. If you want to hear that you can give 10% and you’ve done your duty to God, you’re in the wrong place. If you want to hear how easy life is going to be as a Christian, you should go do another Google search because you’re not going to find that here.

       Provident Planning is not a place for people with itching ears.

       But if you want to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ, you’ve come to the right place. If you want to know what the Bible – not man – teaches about money, you’ve come to the right place. If you desire to be a lover of God rather than a lover of money, then I invite you to join me as I seek God’s Truth for personal finances.

       ³ For the time will come when they will not listen to the sound doctrine, but, having itching ears, will heap up for themselves teachers after their own lusts; ⁴ and will turn away their ears from the truth, and turn aside to fables.

2 Timothy 4:3-4 (WEB)

       A lot of the most popular teaching about personal finance for Christians emphasizes how Biblical financial principles can make you rich. This naturally appeals to many people because the love of money is so prevalent in our society. Those who teach how the Bible can make you rich while putting little emphasis on God’s true purpose for those riches are doing nothing but scratching the itching ears.

       God’s Word is not a guide on how to get rich and enjoy all the fine things of the World. God doesn’t want rich Christians to splurge on luxuries while their brothers and sisters die from hunger and thirst. The Gospel is not about how you can prosper in this life. Jesus didn’t die on the cross so you can retire early.

       Jesus warned us of the dangers of greed. He taught us to give generously to anyone in need. He taught us to seek God’s Kingdom first – to make it our top priority in life. All of God’s Word testifies to the fact that our best life will be an eternal life in Heaven – not here on Earth. He has warned us that this life will be full of trials, tribulations, hard times, and difficulties. But He has promised us the most wonderful blessing – eternal life with Him for anyone who believes in His Son, Jesus Christ.

       ³ If anyone teaches a different doctrine, and doesn’t consent to sound words, the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness, ⁴ he is conceited, knowing nothing, but obsessed with arguments, disputes, and word battles, from which come envy, strife, insulting, evil suspicions, ⁵ constant friction of people of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. Withdraw yourself from such.

1 Timothy 6:3-5 (WEB)

       Many false teachers talk about how God will bless you if you’re a Christian. Or they tell you to send them a love gift or plant a seed and God will pour out miraculous financial blessings for you. These people do not teach the whole Word of God! We are to have nothing to do with those who twist the Scriptures for their own financial gain or teach a gospel different from the one Jesus taught.

       As Christians, we are rich – but you can’t measure our wealth in dollars. We have eternal life with God as our promised reward for faith in Jesus. That reward outweighs anything you can imagine for yourself in this life – and that reward is why contentment and giving should be our primary concerns when it comes to money. Reflect on these words from the Bible:

       ⁶ But godliness with contentment is great gain. ⁷ For we brought nothing into the world, and we certainly can’t carry anything out. ⁸ But having food and clothing, we will be content with that.

       ⁹ But those who are determined to be rich fall into a temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful lusts, such as drown men in ruin and destruction. ¹⁰ For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some have been led astray from the faith in their greed, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

       ¹¹ But you, man of God, flee these things, and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, and gentleness. ¹² Fight the good fight of faith. Lay hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you confessed the good confession in the sight of many witnesses. ¹³ I command you before God, who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate testified the good confession, ¹⁴ that you keep the commandment without spot, blameless, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ; ¹⁵ which in its own times he will show, who is the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; ¹⁶ who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light; whom no man has seen, nor can see: to whom be honor and eternal power. Amen.

       ¹⁷ Charge those who are rich in this present world that they not be haughty, nor have their hope set on the uncertainty of riches, but on the living God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy; ¹⁸ that they do good, that they be rich in good works, that they be ready to distribute, willing to communicate; ¹⁹ laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold of eternal life.

1 Timothy 6:6-19 (WEB)

       So if you want to learn what God says about money and what the Bible teaches about personal finance, then please sign up for free updates to Provident Planning. And if you ever find me teaching anything contrary to the Scripture or the Gospel of Jesus Christ, please contact me and let me know.

       But if you just want someone to tell you the things you want to hear, you’ll have to go somewhere else to get your ears scratched.

       If you haven’t found it already, I’ve recently created a page listing all the free stuff you can find here at Provident Planning. Check it out to make sure you haven’t missed out on some great free stuff!

       Although I generally love everything about Vanguard, I wish they had an easy way to rebalance your portfolio. Since they don’t, I’ve created this free portfolio rebalancing calculator to make it a bit easier.

       All you have to do is enter your total portfolio value, the current amount of each investment, and your target allocation for each investment. Entering investment names and symbols is optional. I’ve pre-entered the investment names and symbols for the Vanguard funds you’ll find in my free portfolio allocation calculator, but you can use this calculator for any portfolio with up to 20 investments. If you need to figure out how many shares to buy or sell, simply divide the result by the current price per share. (This isn’t necessary when using Vanguard’s website. They let you buy in dollar amounts.)

       The calculator will tell you how much to buy or sell of each investment to reach your target asset allocation. If you’re adding cash to the portfolio, simply add the amount you’re going to deposit to your “Total Portfolio Value”. If you’re planning to withdraw cash from the portfolio, simply subtract that amount from your “Total Portfolio Value”. Then enter everything else like normal.

       Any odd cents will be added to or subtracted from the last investment listed on the spreadsheet. You’re responsible for double-checking the calculator’s results. I can’t fix user error, and I can’t guarantee that this calculator is error-free (though I’m fairly sure it works fine). If you have any questions or suggestions, leave them in the comments below and I’ll try to help you. You’ll want to expand it to full screen view or save it as an Excel file to see everything at once.

*Note: Click the ‘Click to Edit’ button to use the calculator with your own numbers.

       If you’re interested in reading other personal finance blogs by Christians, I’ve compiled a list of all the ones I could find. If you’re a Christian personal finance blogger and you don’t see your website on this list, please leave a comment below and I’ll add you. If you know of a Christian personal finance blog I haven’t included, please do the same. Thanks!

Personal Finance Blogs Written by Christians:

• All Financial Matters

       

• Bible Money Matters

       

• Borrow From None

       

• Christian Personal Finance

       

• Clever Dude

       

• Debt Free Adventure

       

• Dollars and Doctrine

       

• Free Money Finance

       

• Fiscal Geek

       

• Gather Little by Little

       

• Green Panda Treehouse

       

• Keeping the Kingdom First

       

• Mighty Bargain Hunter

       

• Money Help for Christians

       

• No Credit Needed

       

• One Money Design

       

• Out of Your Rut

       

• Personal Finance by the Book

       

• PT Money

       

• Redeeming Riches

       

• Rich Christian, Poor Christian

       

• The Simple Dollar

       

• Wealth from the Bible

Christian Personal Finance Blogs That Haven’t Posted in a While:

• Bob’s Occasional Musings

       

• Christian Money Mountain

       

• I Todd You So! – just announced he won’t be posting any more

       

• Managing Money God’s Way

       

• Sensible Steward

       Given that most everyone was busy celebrating Christmas on Friday, I waited to do my “weekend reading” post until today. I had articles in two carnivals last week. Here they are:

• Carnival of Personal Finance – Tithing in the Bible: Summary

 

• Money Hacks Carnival – ETFs Can Be a Terrible Choice for Monthly Investors

       I’m also changing the format of these weekend reading posts. I used to highlight just one good article. But the problem is I find more than just one good article a week. So now you’ll see a list of my favorite articles from the past week.

• Money Help for Christian’s November Special Report was released recently. If you haven’t done it yet, you should sign up to receive those special reports. You’ll get monthly highlights from multiple Christian personal finance blogs including Provident Planning.

 

• Trent at The Simple Dollar asks How Much Life Insurance Do You Really Need?

 

• Lazy Man and Money highlights the top 10 sneakiest business tricks.

 

• Kyle at Amateur Asset Allocator talks about changing your oil every 3,000 miles and 5 other car-care myths.

 

• Five Cent Nickel asks can you retire with a million dollars?

 

• Mike at The Oblivious Investors explains asset allocation for beginners.

 

• Mighty Bargain Hunter discusses why not getting a COLA can be a good thing.

 

• Five Cent Nickel asks when should you use your emergency fund?

 

• Kyle at Amateur Asset Allocator highlights Morningstar’s manager of the year nominees and why you shouldn’t care.

 

• Pete at Bible Money Matters shares his experience of using social media to get good customer service.

 

• Craig at Money Help for Christians wrote a great article asking how can Christians find a right savings balance?

 

• Stew at Gather Little by Little shares financial challenges from Proverbs 22.

 

• Jim at Bargaineering gave us 10 quick ecofriendly things you can do right now.

 

• Matt at Debt Free Adventure points out how you can save money buying sale items in bulk.

 

• Mike at The Oblivious Investor raises a good point about the best bond fund or ETF.

 

• Craig at Money Help for Christians had a guest post at Christian Personal Finance on how to avoid work at home scams.

       Have a great week!

       With Christmas coming in just a few days, I won’t be posting for the rest of the week. Be sure to come back on Monday for more free content. Have a merry Christmas, and enjoy the time with your family and friends. May God bless you as you worship Him and remember the birth of His Son, Jesus Christ!

       So far, I have already discussed the first three concepts behind Advent Conspiracy – Worship Fully, Spend Less, and Give More. Today, we’re going to look at the fourth and final concept – Love All. Here’s the Advent Conspiracy video in case you missed it:

Love All

       All of the concepts we’ve been discussing lead up to this final goal – Love All. When you choose to Worship Fully, Spend Less, and Give More, you enable yourself to Love All.

       God loved the world and gave His only Son so that anyone who believes in Him will not die but will have eternal life. Jesus showed love while He was on the earth – he cared for the poor, healed the sick, reached out to the forgotten, and showed mercy on the sinner. And then He willingly gave up His life so that we all would have the chance to choose Him over the world – to choose eternal life with God.

       When we choose to make Christmas about celebrating Christ and the love God has shown to us by sending His only Son, we give ourselves the opportunity to love like He did. Because we have chosen to Spend Less, we can join Jesus in Loving All people by giving resources to those who need help the most. We also reflect God’s love at Christmas by emphasizing relationships and presence instead of stuff and presents when we Give More.

       Your choice to buy just one less gift this year can also be a choice to show more love to someone in need. Take the money you saved from not buying that one gift and give it away to the poor. If we all buy one less gift, we can give one unbelievable present in the name of Jesus Christ.

       Advent Conspiracy is not trying to raise money for any project of their own. No money goes through them. They have partnered with Living Water International to dig wells for those who don’t have access to clean water, but you are free to give to whatever need the Spirit leads you. If you have a favorite charity, then give that extra money to them.

       This simple act of buying one less gift and giving that money to someone in need can change the world. And it just starts here. As you begin to Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More, and Love All every day of your life, you’ll be walking in the footsteps of Christ. Your life will be a shining example of the power of God to change hearts, and you’ll change lives with small, simple choices. Join the conspiracy and enter the Story.