Spiritual Secret to Successful Money Management - Part 8 of 7: Expect Miracles

“What’s that? It must be a typo! You can’t have (8) eight of (7) seven. Impossible! Everyone knows that. You can’t make something out of nothing. You can’t feed thousands with just a few burgers. Nobody can work financial miracles; it would be like turning ordinary water into expensive wine! Face it, there are certain laws of the universe that no one can override. Besides that, everyone’s financial situation is different; it’s unique. It’s like a personal fingerprint. For God to help every person with a customized miracle, God would have to know not just their financial needs, but also their financial skills. Unbelievable! Such intimate personal knowledge would be like knowing how many hairs are on each and every head. Ridiculous!”

Many people deliberately exclude the supernatural. Ironically, such closed-system thinkers usually label Christians as narrow-minded. Really, it’s the pagans who are narrow-minded by completely dismissing the possibility of supernatural intervention. I have personally experienced and witnessed God work financial miracles in the lives of those who seriously want to readjust their financial habits to God’s ways. But it requires financial repentance from their own way toward God’s ways. Unfortunately, most Canadians do not include God in their finances. That is a pity. They don’t think about God, even though God is honored explicitly in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law. My point is this: God can fix any of our financial problems, and even perform a miracle, if we come to Him in financial repentance.

Don’t misunderstand. When I say, expect miracles, I do NOT mean that we should expect God to supernaturally intervene while we carry on in our deliberate financial mess. No. That’s not the way it works. It’s when we cease and desist from our own bad financial habits and start doing things God’s way, then we can expect to experience His miraculous intervention.

For example, it is by honouring God with the first of our income rather than the leftovers that miracles begin to happen. Jesus says, “Seek first God’s kingdom and His righteousness and all these things shall be added to you,” Matthew 6:33. This is not logical; it’s counter-intuitive. Jesus means that whenever we put the pursuit of God ahead of the pursuit of wealth, then God will take care of us. God will mysteriously and amazingly orchestrate events such that financial help will come to us. I can’t explain it, nor predict it. It’s almost weird, like the manna that God sent to feed over a million people coming out of Egypt, ill-prepared for such a long journey. The word manna, literally means Man hu in Hebrew, which is like saying, “What is it?” Of course if you don’t believe in the reality of manna, as described in the Bible, then you won’t really believe in God, at least not in the God of the Bible. Good luck in dealing with your financial problems without divine assistance! God uses amazing, unpredictable methods to get his work done. Missionary Hudson Taylor put it this way, “God’s work, done God’s way, will not lack God’s support.”

Let’s reconsider the feeding of the multitudes. The thousands of people who followed Jesus into the wildness forgot to take enough food with them for the long teaching and training sessions with Jesus. God did not want them to go home hungry. God himself provided abundant food. What’s my point? Simply, God takes care of those who seek Him first. Whenever we put the Almighty God ahead of the almighty dollar, we can be confident that God’s provision for our material needs will come, even if it looks impossible. Nothing is impossible with God.

Summarizing the spiritual secrets: 1. Ask God for help, 2. Serve others, 3. Get organized, 4. Underspend, 5. Honour your parents, 6. Give to the poor, 7. Diversify your assets, and 8. Expect miracles.

Tom Lipp