Does God Care About How I Use Money?

Do you think you are bad with finances? Does budgeting make you cringe? In fact, while we're at it, should I even care if I am?

Believe me, I've been there--I've been there very recently, spending $200 a month eating out, gathering a collection of premium Bibles, adding to the Amazon cart with whatever strikes my fancy. It was easy not to care, because I just assumed life would work out in the end. Of course, as I continued to do that, I slowly watched whatever money I did have disappear.

Does God really care about how I use money? Doesn't he have more important concerns to deal with? Why do my shopping habits matter to him?

Actually, God cares very much about how I steward my money. So much more, our Savior Jesus directly spoke about financial stewardship. For a moment, go read Luke 16:1-13, especially v.8-13, and then tell me if Jesus thinks financial wisdom is important. Every good and perfect gift we receive comes from our heavenly Father, and that includes our wealth.

Now that's all well and good, but what am I supposed to do with that information? We are called to honor the Lord with our wealth (Proverbs 3:9), but what does that even mean? As a Christian, we may think this is just about the money we give, but this goes above and beyond just what we give back to God; we're even called to honor God with how we spend our money. I used to be the first person to mock budgeting programs, ignore financial advice, and spend money however I saw fit. The problem is that this mentality dishonors God just as much as if I’m good with money but hoard it to myself.

All of us are on a budget, whether we write it out or not. As someone who did not care about how my money was spent, that was a lesson that took a long time to learn. But as a perpetual learner, I realized that this is something Scripture does regularly speak and care deeply about, and it is not reserved for the financial advisers; it is something that we should all consider deeply. If Jesus thought it was important to give an entire parable about, we should all pause and reflect about how we use our own money.

*If you are interested in learning more about budgeting, Dave Ramsey offers great insights and resources for all life-long learners (https://www.ramseysolutions.com/).