Income – Crown Financial Ministries New Zealand

Financially Helping Your Adult Children

Peter Crawford — Tue, 11 Apr 2023 16:40:40 +0000

It is never too late for parents to begin teaching their children about finances, particularly God’s principles of handling money.

If parents find that their grown children are having financial difficulties, this may be a good opportunity to help them get good counsel. Financially helping your adult children should be contingent on them establishing a workable budget and seeking advice on how implement it.

Parents usually have the greatest motives for helping their children, but financial help sometimes may encourage them to be dependent on the parents rather than on God. If God is trying to teach the children discipline and parents step in, the children may have to go through it all over again.

There is nothing wrong with helping adult children if they are truly in need. If their income is adequate and it is being mismanaged they need to learn how to manage their finances more wisely.

Parents can have a major impact on the fortunes of their children by assisting them with the purchase of a home. Often times the children can make payments a mortgage loan requires, but they have difficulty meeting the down payment and the many costs involved with house purchase.

A way for parents to help their children purchase a home is to give them money toward the deposit. Most banks demand that this help be in the form of a gift, not a loan. Helping your children pay their mortgage off more quickly may save them thousands of dollars and is a great investment opportunity if parents have surplus funds available. Interest rates are higher if the purchaser has less than a 20% deposit.

Parents will however need wisdom and discernment. There is nothing unscriptural about helping adult children purchase homes, but parents have to weigh the personalities, abilities, and attitudes of their children to ensure that they do not spoil the children. It is optimal for every family to have a debt-free home; so, helping adult children purchase a home can be a great blessing to them if it enables them to become debt free more quickly.

It is important to be sure that they are not trying to control their children’s lives. If the adult child is a married daughter, parents should be careful not to usurp her husband’s authority. If stepping in will cause the son-in-law to feel that he is an inadequate provider, then parents may need to back away.

They key to helping our children financially is finding ways of helping them to become financially free, since budget stress can be a major factor in marriage breakdown. While caution is required, financial help now may be much better than a larger inheritance later. Plenty to think and pray about.

There is nothing wrong with helping adult children if they are truly in need. If their income is adequate and it is being mismanaged they need to learn how to manage their finances more wisely.

Should my tithe be based on my net or gross income

Peter Crawford — Fri, 31 Jan 2020 21:02:45 +0000

I have heard this question many times over the years that I have been a Christian. However, the more important question is how do you decide how much to give and how much to spend on yourself.

Is the tithe all that we are asked to give? What about those who say that we are now free from the Law, so we are no longer under any obligation to tithe?

There are many aspects of Old Testament Law that we no longer follow. However, there are still important principles we can take from the Law to understand how God wants us to live. So what should be the guiding principles for our giving? Paul in his letter to the Corinthians commends the giving of the Macedonians:

“We want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity” (2 Corinthians 8:1-2, NIV).

He then goes on to talk about how we are to give cheerfully. “You must each decide in your heart how much to give. And don’t give reluctantly or in response to pressure. For God loves a person who gives cheerfully. (2 Corinthians 9:7 NLT). The original Greek word for cheerful is hilarios, which is translated into the English word hilarious. We are to be hilarious givers.

Paul identifies that a priority for our giving should be to the church. He wrote to Timothy that “Elders who do their work well should be respected and paid well, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching.” (1 Timothy 5:17, NLT)

We can use the Bible as a book of law or as a book that helps us to get to know the author and his plan for his world. The principles in the Bible help to guide our life in many ways but we can load ourselves with a heavy burden if we revert to living life according to a set of rules.

A great sense of freedom and purpose comes when God’s Spirit guides our heart and mind. As we come closer to God we sense what he is passionate about.

Our giving should come from a heart of love for God and our desire to live according to his will and purpose.

The tithe is systematic, and the amount of the gift is easy to compute. The danger of the tithe is that it can be treated as simply another bill to be paid. By not having the correct attitude I do not put myself in a position to receive the blessings God has for me when I give.

Another potential danger of tithing is the assumption that once I have tithed, I have fulfilled all my obligations to give. For many Christians, the tithe should be the beginning of their giving, not the limit.

If you want to become more generous with your giving, where should you start?

First, commit to spending more time reading the Bible. Find a good study resource to help you make sense of what’s in it.
Second, start to record everything you spend. It is useful to record your spending for at least three months to get a true picture of where your money is going.
Third, once you know where your money is going, seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance before writing down a plan for increasing your giving and your savings.

Many people find it useful to record their spending again two or three years later, and are often surprised how much additional spending has crept in.

In summary

Coming back to the question in the title, the bible doesn’t use the term net or gross in relation to how to calculate our giving, but the original instruction on the tithe does apply to the total harvest. I personally treat the gross as my income. However, my challenge is that the tithe should be the start of my giving and not the final target.

A Biblical Perspective of Work

Peter Crawford — Mon, 06 Aug 2018 03:28:45 +0000

The 40-hour week (paid hours including overtime) remains the average for males in full-time work in Australia and New Zealand.

For females in full time work the average is around 37 – 38 hours while the average for part-time workers in 20 hours a week. These survey numbers only covered paid hours and we know many people on salaries work more than the hours they are nominally paid for. We also have an increasing proportion of the working population now working for themselves (self-employed) and often working much longer hours than these.

Over our working life time these can add up to a substantial number of hours we spend at work. But for how many people does the job come some degree of dissatisfaction. Perhaps no statistic demonstrates dissatisfaction more than job-hopping tendencies and the growing extent to which people are changing careers as they change jobs, hoping to find something that they find more fulfilling.

To find satisfaction in our work and to be placed in a position where God can prosper our work, we first need to understand what Scripture teaches about work in general, as well as the responsibilities of both employer and employee.

General Biblical Principles

From the beginning, God instituted work.

“Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15).

The very first thing the Lord did with Adam was to put him to work for his own benefit. It was not a curse. However, after the fall of Adam, work was included in the curse and was made more difficult. Work is so important to our daily lives that God commanded us to, “work six days” (Exodus 34:21).

In the New Testament, Paul was even more direct concerning work: “If anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). God’s Word implies that there is dignity in all types of work. It does not elevate one honest profession above another. Jobs are not merely tasks whereby workers can earn money; they are also a means by which workers can use their talents and abilities to develop character—godly character.

God’s part

The Word of God reveals three specific responsibilities that God has in connection with work.

1. God gives talents and skills. “Every skillful person in whom the Lord has put a skill and understanding to know how to perform all the work” (Exodus 36:1). God has given each worker unique skills and abilities. It is not a matter of one person being better than another; it is simply a matter of having received different abilities.

2. God gives success. “The Lord was with Joseph, so he became a successful man” (Genesis 39:2). Although we all have different talents and responsibilities, God is the one who is ultimately responsible for our success.

3. God controls promotion. “God is the Judge; He puts down one and exalts another” (Psalm 75:7). Your boss is not the one who controls whether you will be promoted. God controls promotions based not only on workers’ abilities but also on workers’ faithfulness to the tasks and responsibilities given to them and whether they were good stewards of the responsibilities God had given them.

“You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things” (Matthew 25:23). One of the major reasons people experience stress and frustration in their jobs is because they do not understand God’s part in work.

Employers responsibilities

Godly employers usually need to perform a balancing act. Employers are to love, serve, and encourage their employees, but they also are responsible to lead their employees and hold them accountable for the completion of their assigned tasks. According to God’s Word, employers have five primary responsibilities.

1. Serve employees. The basis for biblical leadership is servanthood. “Whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant” (Matthew 20:26). Employers need to balance efforts to make a profit with an unselfish concern for their employees and treat their employees fairly and with dignity.

2. Communicate. “Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them” (Genesis 11:6). When employer and employees are committed to accomplishing a particular task and there is good communication between them, nothing—within the will of God—will be impossible.

Communication is a two-way street. Employers not only need to speak to their employees, but they also need to listen to their employees with sensitive and understanding ears.

3. Hold employees accountable. Employers are responsible for the employees knowing what’s expected on the job. Employers need to regularly evaluate employees’ performance and communicate this to employees.

4. Pay a fair wage. “[The Lord will judge] those who oppress the wage earner in his wages” (Malachi 3:5). “You shall not oppress a hired servant….You shall give him his wages on his day before the sun sets” (Deuteronomy 24:14-15). Employers must pay fair wages promptly when they are due.

5. Pray to have godly employees. This is not a command; it is a principle. However, employers would be wise to pray that God would send them employees of like faith and belief. Although employers are forbidden to discriminate, based on religious belief, employees with like faith eliminate a lot of potential problems that might arise.

Employees responsibilities

The life of Daniel as recorded in the biblical book of Daniel illustrates eight characteristics that made him a good and godly employee. The following are those eight characteristics.

1. Work as if working for the Lord. We actually are serving the Lord in our work; we are not serving people. In essence, we work for the Lord. If employees know and believe this, slothfulness can be greatly diminished.

2. Work hard. “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might” (Ecclesiastes 9:10). In Scripture, hard work and diligence are encouraged; laziness is condemned. “He also who is slack in his work is brother to him who destroys” (Proverbs 18:9).

However, hard work must be balanced by other primary priorities of life: relationship with Christ, spouse, and family. If work interferes with any of these three relationships, you are working too much.

3. Be honest. Employees should not give cause for their employers to ever question or doubt their honesty.

4. Be faithful. Godly employees need to establish goals of being faithful and excellent in their work and work habits. Then they work hard to attain those goals.

5. Be a person of prayer. Godly employees are people of prayer. If employees do not pray daily regarding their work, the work will suffer.

6. Honour employer. Godly employees always honour their employers and those who have been placed in authority over them (1 Peter 2:18).

7. Honour fellow employees. Wherever there are employees there will inevitably be office politics. However, a godly employee will avoid backbiting and slanderous talk about other employees.

8. Verbalize his or her faith. Daniel verbalized his faith in God to those around him. Even so, godly employees will openly declare their faith on their own time and live their lives according to what is pleasing to the Lord and according to the principles of His Word.

Conclusion

The most important question people can ask every day is, ―For whom do I work? If the answer is anything or anyone other than the Lord, the biblical principles of work are not being applied. God’s Word has given some very direct principles concerning work that all Christians should know and observe.

Income – Crown Financial Ministries New Zealand

Financially Helping Your Adult Children

It is never too late for parents to begin teaching their children about finances, particularly God’s principles of handling money.

If parents find that their grown children are having financial difficulties, this may be a good opportunity to help them get good counsel. Financially helping your adult children should be contingent on them establishing a workable budget and seeking advice on how implement it.

There is nothing wrong with helping adult children if they are truly in need. If their income is adequate and it is being mismanaged they need to learn how to manage their finances more wisely.

Filter

Should my tithe be based on my net or gross income

I have heard this question many times over the years that I have been a Christian. However, the more important question is how do you decide how much to give and how much to spend on yourself.

A Biblical Perspective of Work

The 40-hour week (paid hours including overtime) remains the average for males in full-time work in Australia and New Zealand.

General Biblical Principles

From the beginning, God instituted work.

God’s part

Employers responsibilities

Employees responsibilities

“The Lord was with Joseph, so he became a successful man” (Genesis 39:2)

Filter