The Bible makes it clear that the standard for good stewardship is that we are to be both faithful and disciplined. Here is my list of best practices for good stewards.
- Be faithful by honoring God with the first fruit of all your income. That means make giving to God’s causes your highest priority. All other financial decisions come second.
- Be disciplined in your spending decisions. We are to “count the cost” before we start to build. By carefully spending less than you earn, you will create a surplus to be able to achieve your God-given goals and dreams. It takes financial margin to achieve our goals.
- Be disciplined by consistently saving a portion of all your income. This means you should have an Emergency Savings account starting with $1,000 and growing that to a minimum of 90 days of your gross annual income.
- Be faithful by acknowledging that God owns everything so that your purpose in life does not focus on accumulation but on becoming more and more generous.
- Be disciplined to pay off all debt. Start with high interest consumer debt, knock out one at a time then keep going until you are completely debt free.
- Be faithful to set goals for allowing God to spend you however He wants to spend you vs. living to spend money however you want.
