Scripture to Memorize
Give her the reward she has earned,
and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.
Proverbs 31:31
Passage to Read
The man who had received the five talents brought the other five. “Master,” he said, “you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.”
His master replied, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!”
The man with the two talents also came. “Master,” he said, “you entrusted me with two talents; see, I have gained two more.”
His master replied, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!”
Then the man who had received the one talent came. “Master,” he said, “I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.”
His master replied, “You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.
“Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Matthew 25:20–30
Guided Prayer
Dear Lord, this passage containing the parable of the talents challenges me. My natural inclination is to see someone who doesn’t have many financial resources and give to that person. I don’t always stop and think: maybe that person doesn’t have financial resources because he or she has been foolish with money or unwilling to do the hard work it takes to make wise investments.
It amazes me that Jesus didn’t express compassion toward the servant who didn’t invest his money. He rebuked him sharply and called him lazy. Forgive me, Lord, if I have been lazy in any way about investments or financial management. I realize you take money management as seriously as you take any other area of my life. Please help me to become a better investor. Holy Spirit, I invite you to be my financial planning tutor. I want to be an A student to the glory of God. I want to invest every penny for maximum return so I can do the most good for the kingdom. I need your help to do that and thank you in advance for all the exciting lessons I’m going to learn and for the profit I’m going to earn! Amen.
Personal
The Proverbs 31 woman opened and extended her hand to the poor and needy (v. 20). I read that verse out of context and went wild with it. We can and should be generous with our money, but everything we do—including our giving—must be guided by wisdom. Wisdom, after all, is the overriding subject of the entire book of Proverbs. Wisdom wasn’t thrown out the window to make room for this one sentence. If only I had realized that a little sooner, my husband and kids would be singing my praises a whole lot louder.
This 90-Day Jumpstart isn’t long enough for me to chronicle how foolish I’ve been with money. And the sad thing is I thought my foolishness was actually spiritual. In the early 1990s the Lord blessed me with a series of bestselling books that generated significant income, which could have, and should have, been wisely invested for my retirement. Instead, I entrusted the funds to a professing Christian who claimed to have my best interests at heart. Several people tried to warn me that this person was untrustworthy, but I thought being a Christian required blind trust. I lost a small fortune.
Yet another time I took out a second mortgage to help a couple who were supposedly in desperate need of a home. All they wanted was a second chance at life, and I knew God had sent me to their rescue. (You can laugh, cry, or smack me; whichever you choose is perfectly understandable.) As time progressed I realized there was a reason they were in such dire financial straits. They were unwilling to work and lived a self-indulgent lifestyle. They suffered from the entitlement mentality that has crippled so many people in America. Handing them money only worsened their handicap by rewarding their selfish behavior. Not only were they ungrateful for the help I provided, they were resentful when I wouldn’t continue financing their laziness.
I won’t even tell you about the time I borrowed money to pay $2,500 on a friend’s house because her mortgage was about to be foreclosed. I mean, she was desperate and God told her to call me for help. How could I refuse? Besides, she was going to pay me back even if all she could afford was $10 at a time. I turned over the money and that was the last I ever heard from her. Although I did hear from a mutual friend that the bank foreclosed on the mortgage less than a year later anyway.
I thought I was being generous but I was just being stupid. There’s a huge difference between sowing seed in good soil and throwing good money after bad. Unfortunately for my children, it’s taken me forty-five years to figure that out.
Somewhere along the line, I got it in my head that foolishness is next to godliness. It’s not. How much better it would have been to wisely invest money when I had it available and refuse to borrow money to “help people.” God will never ask you to borrow money to help people. If God wants you to help them, he’ll provide the funds. If he doesn’t provide the funds, guess what? He doesn’t want you to help them. Take it from someone who has learned this lesson through extreme heartache. Very often, people have financial difficulties for a reason.
Which brings me to this: never, never, never cosign for a loan—for anyone, ever. For better or worse, almost anyone can get a loan these days. You see ads on TV all the time: “Bad credit. No credit. No problem.” Some companies even brag they’ll lend you money if you are bankrupt! Keep that in mind when your niece, neighbor, or co-worker comes to you, puppy-eyed, and begs you to cosign for a loan. If the person can’t get a loan on his or her own, the lender has compelling reasons to believe the person will not repay the loan. If a bank has concluded that a person is not reliable, believe the bank. That person is not reliable.
The Proverbs 31 woman extends her hand to the poor and needy, but she doesn’t become poor and needy in the process. She doesn’t eat the bread of idleness herself and she doesn’t enable other people to do so. She doesn’t pursue wisdom and promote foolishness. Nor does she allow other people’s foolishness to rob her of her financial security or steal her children’s future. She knows that if she becomes poor and needy, she won’t be in a position to help others. That’s why she manages her resources well.
I have loaned people money on many occasions and have never once been paid back—not once. Now I won’t even call it a loan or pretend to believe the promises of “I’ll pay you back.” If God lays it on my heart to help someone, I give the person the money outright. Otherwise, I recognize that God is still working to build character in that person’s life, and financial challenges are just one of the tools in his box.
The Bible clearly teaches against cosigning: “It’s stupid to guarantee someone else’s loan” (Prov. 17:18 CEV) and “He who puts up security for another will surely suffer, but whoever refuses to strike hands in pledge is safe” (Prov. 11:15). If you have already cosigned for someone, you should try to find a legal way to extricate yourself from the agreement:
My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor,
if you have struck hands in pledge for another,
if you have been trapped by what you said,
ensnared by the words of your mouth,
then do this, my son, to free yourself,
since you have fallen into your neighbor’s hands:
Go and humble yourself;
press your plea with your neighbor!
Allow no sleep to your eyes,
no slumber to your eyelids.
Free yourself, like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter,
like a bird from the snare of the fowler.
Proverbs 6:1–5
God takes this seriously and so should we. Make a firm decision: “I will not, under any circumstances, cosign a loan for anyone (not even my own children). I will be generous when I can and offer wise counsel, but I will not circumvent God’s work by giving someone with character issues a way of escape.”
Don’t confuse ministry with being foolish with your money. I made that mistake for decades and I regret it. Instead, realize that being wise with your money positions you for long-term ministry. And that’s what the Proverbs 31 woman is all about—the long-term view. The Bible doesn’t say, “Give the reward she has earned to someone else who hasn’t worked for it.” No, it says we have the right to enjoy the rewards we’ve earned. There’s nothing unspiritual about that. Sow your seed in good soil, bless others out of the surplus, and enjoy your harvest.
Affirmation: I sow my seed in good soil.
Do not cosign for loans or in any way rescue people from the financial consequences of their own foolishness. If you have done so, seek a legal way out.