Wednesday 5^th May 2010 saw a continuation of last meeting’s focus on personal finances. This session zoomed in close up to the topic of savings and investments.

First off, one of the presenters reminded us about the principles of a kingdom mindset in business. The Lord said to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-2 “Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing (ESV).” In the New Testament, Paul instructs Timothy “…what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also (2Ti 2:2, ESV).” The idea behind these verses is that the Lord imparts something so that we may do something. We are to give from what we have received. Nowhere in scripture does God give to someone so that they can “dam it up”. It always follows that the receiver is to be a channel, to let blessings flow. A generous, giving heart is central to the kingdom mindset in all of life and so also it should hold in our business.

We are reminded to set our business goals beyond ourselves and to use our businesses as a tool to advance the kingdom of God. In this we need to be very clear what we want from our businesses. Remember, if we aim at nothing, we will hit it every time. Some useful pointers were given to assist us in goal setting. In short, these are:

1)    Use your business as a means to provide for your family;

2)    Set up your business for freedom’s sake using it to buy freedom for yourself and for others so that you and they can serve the kingdom in some way;

3)    Determine that your business will enable you to give beyond what you would normally give; and

4)    Aim that your business will produce prophets in addition to profits.

Let us pray and ask the Lord for grace to achieve true Kingdom purposes with our businesses.

The next speaker addressed savings and investments and gave us a number of practical pointers in how we might approach this.

It seems that we generally fall in one of the two extremes in relation to saving and preparing for retirement. Either we are obsessed with saving and live Spartan lives of sacrifice so that we can enjoy a retirement of ease or else we don’t give it another thought until it is too late and we end up retiring with too little provision. The majority of people fall in this category as 96% of all people retire with too little provision for their retirement. Company pensions generally pay out less than the South African State Social Grant. We generally require approximately 80% of our final annual salary for every year of retirement. It is therefore wise to steward our money well and part of that entails planning and providing for our futures. Taking an attitude that “the Lord will provide” without applying our minds is foolish. The earlier we start saving the better off we will be at retirement.

We must set clear goals for what we need over the medium and long term, taking ownership of our financial futures. The speaker gave us a number of formulae and principles to assist us in our financial planning. These covered aspects such as:

• An example of a plan to retire in relative comfort;
• Some basic rules in relation to saving and investing;
• Ways in which one should select a broker;
• Secrets the financial advisors never tell you;
• Determining how much life insurance to have and how to manage this properly;
• Things we ought not to do.

The detail of these is available on the website.

Finally we were reminded of God’s (financial) plan for our lives:

• To live debt-free;
• To have an open hand;
• To sow our money generously; and
• To use our money to build the Kingdom of God.

The next session will be held on 9 June. Be there!