Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version of the Bible.
© 2015 by Billy Epperhart
All rights reserved. The text and cover graphic of this publication, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher.
Published by: Wealthbuilders Inc.
Websites: wealthbuildersinc.org, billyepperhart.com
Cover Design and Content Layout By: Catalyst Media
creatingcatalyst.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
ISBN: 978-194424243-5
eISBN: 978-168222644-5
CONTENTS
Letter from Billy Epperhart
Part One: Baking Soda and the Basics
Chapter One: Understanding Wealth
Chapter Two: God’s Purpose for Wealth
Chapter Three: The Triple X Factor
Chapter Four: Seven Steps to Financial Freedom
Part Two: The Other Ingredients and Mixing the Batter
Chapter Five: 4 Steps to Reaching the First X
Chapter Six: Positioning Yourself to Build Wealth
Chapter Seven: God’s Laws of Wealth
Chapter Eight: Earth’s Laws of Wealth
Part Three: Pouring and Flipping: How Big is Your Skillet?
Introduction
Chapter Nine: Business
Chapter Ten: Real Estate
Chapter Eleven: Stocks
Part Four: Serving
Chapter Twelve: The Third X: A Big Choice
Appendix
LETTER FROM BILLY EPPERHART
Baking 101: When making something as simple as pancakes from scratch, it is important that the right ingredients are all included in the proper amounts. Without the proper measurements, something is bound to go wrong. And without the ingredients, well, you don’t get quite what you’re expecting.
I decided to surprise my wife, Becky, one morning with homemade pancakes. I purchased all of the ingredients the day before, and while Becky slept, I snuck into the kitchen.
When you have an intuitive, strong woman at your side, you quickly learn that it’s hard to pull surprises off! I whipped up the batter, heated up the pan and coated it with butter. I was quietly zooming around the kitchen and felt the relief sink in as I started pouring the batter into the pan. I was going to pull this off.
But then I noticed that my pancakes weren’t rising. Instead of fluffy, soft pancakes, I had thin, hard teacup plates. Becky awoke to find me puzzling over the mess.
Without a moment’s hesitation she asked, “Did you forget the baking soda?”
My head snapped to the counter where, sure enough, the orange box sat unopened.
I had tried my best to surprise her (and I guess in some way I did), but my disappointment was heavy. We pressed on though. Instead of eating china plates for breakfast, I took her out for a wonderful morning date. The restaurant used baking soda.
The key to this innocent story is the missing ingredient. Too often in the U.S., we are told that God wants us to prosper. But nobody is telling us how to prosper. Instead of choosing God as our only master, we choose money. We are mastered by our money.
Over my years working as an entrepreneur and an investor, I’ve prayed a lot about finances. And through working with God, He gave me the missing ingredient: the Triple X Factor.
The Triple X Factor is the key for making the metaphorical pancakes in your life rise. It shifts our position relating to money from being mastered to mastering. It puts us in a place of wealth where we can give back. When we partner with God in this process, we are able to reach a place of being able to deeply invest in the Kingdom.
Through this book, I hope to finally commit to paper some of the most important lessons I’ve learned along the path of wealth building. I pray that you are encouraged and equipped to reach new levels of wealth—not for the purpose of building bigger barns for yourself, but for the purpose of maintaining your barn and investing in the Kingdom of God.
Blessings,
Billy
Part One
BAKING SODA AND THE BASICS
Chapter One
UNDERSTANDING WEALTH
IT’S GOD OR MONEY
No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
—Matthew 6:24 (NIV)
Many people serve money without ever having made a conscious choice to do so. By not learning how to manage their money, they become a servant to their finances. So many of us have a heart that wants to boldly serve God. Yet we end up serving money by default—simply because of our situation in life.
My heart in writing this book is to teach you how to break the hold of money over your life so that you can be free to serve God. How awesome would it be to have all you need and, according to 2 Corinthians 9, “to be able to give to every good cause!” That’s a good place to be. So when I talk about “Money Mastery,” I’m talking about you and me becoming the masters of our money as we serve God. Jesus made it plain: You cannot serve both God and money.
As we learn how to manage and control our finances, we start mastering our money. And the thing that I like the most is that in the process of money mastery, it becomes possible to learn how to make money. We can learn to cause an increase of finances in our lives. Then we are able to fully serve God in what He needs us to do.
I remember the first time I realized I didn’t have to think about my monthly or annual budget. It’s a freeing experience. Now I’m not saying that I don’t ever have to manage money. There is some education and work that goes into reaching this place of freedom. But I no longer have to think about whether or not I’m going to make it from week to week or month to month or, for that matter, year to year.
The best part of money mastery is that now I have so much more time to focus on true riches only found in God. And I have the financial freedom to turn around and immediately do what God says. It’s wonderful! And it’s not impossible to get there. Anyone can do this.
This book is as practical as it is spiritual. I’ll provide the knowhow, experience and tools to empower you to become financially free. And I’ll give you the scriptural foundation for why and how you should steward your wealth appropriately. All that will be left to do is for you to prayerfully take action and move forward!
THE MIDDLE MAN
“Money is a representative of a certain quantity of corn or other commodity. It is so much warmth, so much bread.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
If we’re going to master money, we first need to define and understand it. So what is money? In easiest terms, money is the middle man. I love this quote by Emerson. Money is really just a representative of other things. It is corn, movie night and diamond rings.
In reality, money prevents us from needing to carry chickens and bushes of apples with us to buy things. We don’t have to bring a quarter of a cow to the grocery store to buy our Thanksgiving meal. We have this freedom because money acts as the currency in the middle. In its truest sense, money is our medium of exchange. We don’t get paid for work (at least in the U.S.) in apples or chickens. We get paid in money—and that’s a good thing.
Money is also the representative for which we trade our time and value. We work; we get paid. We put our life’s energy into our work and for that we receive money.
Money also helps us to know the value of things. We are able to take an item and stick a dollar sign with an amount next to it. That tells us what the item costs, and more importantly, what the item is worth.
I think when we put money in this light, we can suddenly see how it’s not really that big of a deal. It’s not something that much emotion should be directed toward. Loving or hating money is neither here nor there. It’s what we do with money that becomes worth talking about.
THE GOOD SAMARITAN’S RESOURCES
“No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he only had good intentions, he had money as well.”
—Margaret Thatcher, UK Prime Minister
Sometimes we want to do good for God or for people or for other things but are hindered by our lack of resources. If we don’t have any resources, we’re stuck. As Thatcher said, the Good Samaritan didn’t just have good intentions. He had resources that empowered him to take care of a person in need. That’s where we should aim to be.
A while back, I was on vacation in Hong Kong with my wife. We stayed in this amazing spa. I’m telling you, it was beautiful. Our deck looked out over Victoria Harbor and was close enough to the shore that we could hear the waves lapping up.
During our time there, I found an old bookstore and began thumbing through random books. That’s when I found this quote by Felix Dennis: “I was put on earth to get rich, to collect the money that already had my name on it, and then give it all away.” Wow, was all I could think.
The Law of Connection, which we’ll talk about later, says that for each person God has a treasure chest of divine connections, Kairos moments or God-opportune moments. And it’s always full. This quote I found in Hong Kong was one of these moments for me.
Now, I believe that Philippians 4:19 is true:
And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
I also believe in Deuteronomy 8:18:
And you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.
I believe that God has prepared a great capacity for every person on this planet. We have a purpose on this earth. We have resources and money out there that God has readied for us. He has a treasure chest of divine connections for each person. And the Bible makes it clear that God is no respecter of persons. He will do for one what He’ll do for the other.
When we see people with great resources and remember that God is no respecter of persons, it means that there is great resource out there for anyone. If there’s resource for Billy, there can be resource for you. Somewhere out there, there is some money with your name on it. And I don’t know about you, but if it’s got my name on it, and God put it there for me, I’m going after it!
The last part of the quote is where everything hinges: “and then give it all away.” It’s not about heaping wealth upon ourselves, right? It’s not just about us having barns. In Luke 12, we see that it’s okay for us to have some barns. It is not, however, okay to build bigger barns. God wants you to have resource. He wants you to be blessed. But the idea is, as Genesis 12:2 puts it: We are blessed so that we can be a blessing.
Isaiah 45:3 makes it very plain:
‘I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places, that you may know that I, the Lord, who calls you by your name, am the God of Israel.’
The hidden riches of secret places. See, there’s some money out there that has your name on it.
That tells me that there are some treasures of darkness out in the world. There are some hidden riches in secret places. As we dive deeper into this book, I’m going to give you some nuances or what I like to call some “secret sauce” to finding these riches God has for you. My hope is that we can begin to open our eyes and see the hidden riches of secret places. I believe there’s money out there. And there’s no reason for the world or for the wicked to have it all.
It’s time for the body of Christ to let the eyes of their understanding be unveiled so they may see and understand and know that they can be the master of their money.
I’m convinced that there is money in the earth already with your name on it. I found the money with my name on it, and now I’m at a place where I can give it away. I just want to help you get to that same place.
MY MONEY MASTERY STORY
I actually have a bit of a different story when it comes to Money Mastery. My background is primarily as a minister. But from the very beginning, I never looked at pastoring as a career per se. Instead, I always owned investment real estate. I always had a couple of properties on hand.
When I was a much younger man, the church I pastored was hosting a major conference. By major, I mean that we had seven private jets on the runway. There were some hitters in the house! These guest speakers flew in on private jets that their ministries owned.
When the conference was over, two of the guys (both having flown in on their own planes) and I went to the mountains for a couple of days of R&R. We went to a huge hot springs pool right up in the mountains of Colorado.
We were standing in the heated water and were a little less than waist deep when one of the guys looked at me and said, “Billy, what kind of plans have you made for retirement?” Usually, the conversation starts with, “So, did you enjoy the drive up?” or “What’d you think about the conference?” But he just jumped right in.
In those days, I had investment real estate and I had a little bit of money put aside. But he responded before I could answer and said something that shook me to my core. He said, “If I did not have my ministry, I would be broke in 90 days. I would literally be out on the street.”
At the time, I was aspiring to be these men who had flown in on their ministry’s jets. And that just terrified me. I thought that’s where I wanted to go because that’s all I knew to reach for. I had a little bit of investment real estate, and I had some money set aside, but I was mostly focusing on growing and building my ministry. When he said that, I believe it was one of those divine connections God had stored in a treasure chest for me. God showed up in my life that day and began to show me something I did not yet understand.
When I returned home from that R&R trip, I began a journey. I determined to replace all of my salary and benefits with passive income—income I didn’t have to work for. At the time, my salary, benefits and travel felt like a pretty big paycheck, so that was a significant thing to reach for.
I set my face like a flint, and here’s what happened. By God’s grace and help, I caught the real estate market at just the right time in the U.S.
At the time, I was developing and practicing the formulas that I now teach in my Real Estate Mastery course. I was learning how not to overpay for real estate. After the first ten properties, I really began to focus, and eventually I reached my goal of replacing my income with passive income. I didn’t have to sell something or put in X amount of hours to collect my money. I reached this place in two and a half years.
I remember the specific day I replaced my salary and benefits with passive income. It was monumental for me. I was sitting in the parking lot in front of a Starbucks having a Quad Grande Americano—no cream, no sugar. It’s what I call a “man’s man’s drink.”
One of my property managers called me. In those days as I began to grow and expand, I had six property managers and an accountant. And one of the property managers and the accountant called me together.
This one manager was handling a lot of property at the time. And he told me we had reached my goal: I had replaced all of my income with passive income.
Suddenly I felt so free. If I didn’t want or feel called to work, I could freely turn it down. It was that day that I truly became the master of my money.
In my mind, what I was doing was meaningful. But here’s the thing: Everything I did back then in reaching that goal, I did totally for myself. My reasons were entirely selfish. I wasn’t thinking about how I could serve God with my money.
I did what I did simply so I could be financially free. I didn’t understand God’s purpose or God’s plan for my life in that process.
At the time, I had no idea that God was using that selfish period in my life. He was moving me toward something special; but my heart was selfishly motivated.
Later, I began to see God’s true purpose. That’s why I’m writing this all down. God knows the plans He has for you. He knows that you have a hope and a future. I thank God for that. I thank God that He knows more than I do in the process. Sometimes, I’ve got the wrong reasons and the wrong motives and sometimes even the wrong ideas, but as Romans 8:31 says, “If God is for us, who can be against us?”
I’m convinced that at that time God had a purpose in my life to help me understand how to master money. If I hadn’t gone through those experiences, I wouldn’t be able to share what I’ve learned.
It wasn’t until several years later that my heart righted, and I began to understand that mastering my money wasn’t so I could go play golf every day. It wasn’t about becoming free enough to quit my job. It was so I could become free to be able to do God’s will and empower others to find this same financial freedom.
I work constantly at mastering money. I always have to think and pray, Does God want me to do this or does God not want me to do this? It’s no longer about whether or not I have the money to do it. It’s about what I am supposed to do.
One of my greatest blessings has been being able to donate to certain ministries or endeavors. And one of my greatest delights has been helping people overseas through starting nonprofits, like Tricord Global and Wealthbuilders. (You can learn more at tricordglobal.com and wealthbuildersinc.org.) We are able to provide loans and education for people who really need the help.
When you get to the point in your life where you are the master of your money, there is immense freedom. But you still have to work on it and continuously resubmit to God’s will in your life.
Deuteronomy 8:17–18 says:
Then you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.’ And you shall remember the Lord your God for it is He who gives you the power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.
I had to go through this process. Even though I was born again, filled with the Holy Spirit and knew the Word of God, the motives of my heart were not right. I got to a point in my life where I said it was by the work of my hand and how smart I was and look at everything I did. Everybody look at me and the wealth I’ve gained.
When you get to that point in your life, you get to a dangerous point. You can’t serve God and money. The minute I got to that point where I said in my heart, “Look it is by my hand and my might that I gained this wealth,” I started serving money again. Even though I was technically free, I was serving money because I measured who I was by what I had.
This is why Paul very carefully told Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:10, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.”
Let’s be crystal clear. You can love money whether you have a dime or not. You can love money whether you’re a billionaire or under the poverty line.
I fell in love with money. And even though God is able to work all things for good, I had let Him down. I sinned. He had to do some healing in my life to move money out of my heart. He had to make it become just the middle man again.
The minute you fall in love with what you have, you keep it from God. The minute you forget that it is God who gives us the power to get wealth, you get off track. At that moment, money becomes our master.
ESTABLISHING THE COVENANT
“Remember the Lord your God for it is He who gives you the power to get wealth.” Why? That he may establish His covenant. Where is He going to establish his covenant? In the earth. The covenant has already been established in heaven. So we are to be busy establishing the covenant in the earth.
Jesus said, “You cannot serve God and money.” When we’re establishing the covenant in the earth, we are serving God and mastering money.
I want to teach you the steps you can take so that you will be empowered to begin the journey toward mastering money.
Through revelation and understanding, we can truly become the master of money. You’ll start finding the money that already has your name on it. And then, the treasures of darkness and the hidden riches of secret places will start coming to you.
SUMMARY
• It’s God or money. “You cannot serve both God and money.”
• Money is just the middle man. In reality, money prevents us from needing to carry chickens and bushes of apples with us to buy things. We have this freedom because money acts as the currency in the middle.
• The Good Samaritan didn’t just have a kind heart. He had the resources to be able to help when an emergency happened. Wealth is a good thing. It’s like this quote: “I was put on earth to get rich, to collect the money that already had my name on it, and then give it all away.”
• The minute you fall in love with what you have, you keep it from God. The minute you forget that it is God who gives us the power to get wealth, you get off track. At that moment, money becomes our master.
• “Remember the Lord your God for it is He who gives you the power to get wealth.” Why? That he may establish His covenant. Where is He going to establish his covenant? In the earth. The covenant has already been established in heaven. So we are to be busy establishing the covenant in the earth.
Chapter Two
GOD’S PURPOSE FOR WEALTH
THE JEWISH ECONOMIC THEORY
Then you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.’ And you shall remember the Lord your God for it is He who gives you the power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.
—Deuteronomy 8:17–18
As Christians, we tend to take a fearful approach to wealth. But as we look back to Deuteronomy 8, we read about how God taught the Jewish people to view wealth. We can learn a lot from their approach!
The first five books of the Old Testament are called the Pentateuch or the Torah. The book of Deuteronomy is one of those books, which means that Jews as well as Christians believe in this book.
Because we’re in a western mindset, it can help to understand that the Bible was written from an eastern mindset. We try to translate it, adapt it and apply it in our western culture, but sometimes there are truths that we don’t quite understand. That’s when it’s helpful to think on the cultural background of the Bible. When we look at the book of Deuteronomy or any books of the Torah, it’s important to remember that we are reading from a Jewish mindset. We need to understand where the words are coming from.
Jewish Economic Theory for me was most clearly synthesized in an article I read, “Judaism, Markets and Capitalism: Separating Myths from Reality,” by Corrine and Robert M. Sauer. In The Jewish Economic Theory, Sauer and Sauer list five foundations:
1. Participation in the creative process.
2. Protection of private property.
3. The accumulation of wealth as a virtue.
4. Caring for the needy.
5. Limited government.
These five foundations can help us understand what it looks like for God to give us the power to get wealth.
FOUNDATION ONE: PARTICIPATION IN THE CREATIVE PROCESS
The Jewish people believe that when it comes to wealth, they are able to participate in the creative process with God. In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 6:1 that we are co-laborers together with God. In other words, God has His part to play, and we have our part to play. God’s part is grace, while our part is faith. So it’s grace and faith, faith and grace, working together in a beautiful cycle.
Here’s the best way I know to explain this.
I was born and raised in South Texas, home of warmth and humidity. My grandmother used to plant a huge, acre-sized garden every year—which is pretty big to call a garden. I remember this as vividly as if it were yesterday. Back when I was just a little boy four or five years old, they plowed the garden with a mule and a wooden plow with a metal blade. A man stood on the back and put his weight on the blade, and they drove the mule. That’s how they furrowed the rows.
In Texas, things grow year round. And by things, I mean weeds. Weeds grow year round. When the garden’s season ended and winter settled, the plants would die. But the garden would still fill up with weeds.
For God’s part, He made everything to grow, right? And the weeds grow too. (I’m thankful that in heaven we’re not going to have weeds.) But then my grandmother and her team got out there with the mule and plow. In a month, they had cleaned that garden until it was beautiful and green. That was her part in the creative process.
It’s like this illustration:
Together, God had grown, and Dave had tended a beautiful garden.
“Man, God sure created a beautiful garden!” someone exclaimed.
“Yeah,” Dave said, “but you should have seen it when God had it all by himself!”
The idea is that we are co-laborers together with God. This foundation in Jewish Economic Theory means that the Jewish people believe they are active participants with God in the creative process. So as we are here in the earth, we are bringing what Jesus said in Matthew 6 to life: “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done in the earth…”
I remember a lady in an African village who did four loans with my non-profit, Tricord Global. She took the first loan and started a business for herself. It was just a small stand that provided some dried goods and other items in her village.
By the time of the fourth loan, she had a whole grocery store and employed 14 people in her village with full-time work. She raised the whole economic standard of that small village.
This lady was able to put a roof on her house. She paid for her kids’ schooling, and she fed and clothed her family. It was a miracle! When we empower people to participate in the creative process, it’s amazing what God can do.
FOUNDATION TWO: PROTECTION OF PRIVATE PROPERTY
This second foundation says that it’s important to have property or in other words, to become an owner. When you own something, you have the opportunity to become a steward of that which you own.
From the very beginning of the Bible, we see that God gives His people land. He gave Eden to Adam and Eve: “Fill the earth and subdue it.” He gave the Promised Land to Abraham and his descendants: “Get out of your country…to a land I will show you.” Later, in Numbers 13:2, we read, “Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel…”
In many ways, the Old Testament is really the story of God trying to give his people a place to live. He is always looking to give us ownership, whether it be land, business or assets. He loves to give us the opportunity to be stewards.
In the example of the garden, my grandma was tilling, planting, weeding and caring for that garden because it was her garden. We own things either by virtue of the fact that we actually own the land outright or we’re renting the space. Regardless, that space is your space. And you get to steward it. Unfortunately, protection of private property is a huge issue that prevents third-world countries from moving forward financially.
At Tricord Global, we provide loans, primarily micro-finance loans, in developing nations. These investments help the people, and thereby the villages, cities and nations, move forward and begin to transform.
But one of the problems we’ve discovered while working in Africa is that a lot of people don’t have a physical address. In these third-world countries, people are often living out in the bush or in villages or even in cities but are unable to actually purchase property.
In many cases, there are no title deeds to property, and so people don’t actually own property in the way that we think of owning property in the West.
Now thankfully, that’s slowly beginning to change. But when we look at the protection of private property, we need to realize that in developing nations there is often no such thing as protection of private property because there is no private property. And that’s quite a challenge.
So the idea of ownership is not foreign to the western mindset. But in some cultures, the idea of ownership and protection of private property is not even a possibility.
FOUNDATION THREE: THE ACCUMULATION OF WEALTH AS A VIRTUE
The accumulation of wealth as a virtue is the next foundation. In Jewish Economic Theory, they believe that accumulating wealth is a good thing.
Now in a western mindset, often because of some of our religious training, we tend to think of poverty as a virtue.
But I often hear people ask why Jewish people have all the money or why they’re always prosperous. The reason is this: They think differently than we do. They see the accumulation of wealth as a virtuous endeavor.
In other words, if I am partnering with God and functioning with Money Mastery principles, then as I move forward in life there is an accumulation process. If I’m thinking properly, managing correctly and stewarding honestly, then I naturally begin to accumulate wealth.
The Jewish mindset sees being able to steward and manage wealth as being “holy in the earth.” But in our western mindset we’re conflicted.
We must remember that it is the Lord our God who gives us the power to get wealth. We are here serving God. He is our Master. And in the process of serving God, we become the master of money. That’s why I call it Money Mastery. But many people end up serving money because they are afraid to build wealth.
FOUNDATION FOUR: CARING FOR THE NEEDY
The fourth foundation is about caring for the needy out of your wealth. Jesus made it clear when he said, “The poor you will always have with you.”
When we look at poverty in third-world countries, there is an important distinction we need to make about caring for the needy.
If we take Africa where I’ve personally had the most experience, there have been many studies done in recent years showing that aid from western nations has created a welfare mentality among the people. People don’t feel the need to till their garden—so they don’t. And the reality is that they don’t have to because they can just go to a truck and get a meal.
Let me be clear. Aid is important when people cannot help themselves. For example in emergency crises, like the ebola outbreak of 2014 or earthquakes and famines, we should definitely be sending aid.
Sometimes people are sick or there are other types of devastation that they’re facing where they are unable to help themselves. Then aid is absolutely important. We must send it. We should never, ever neglect this.
But we need to understand that there can be too much of a good thing. I always like to say it in the classic way. Instead of giving somebody a fish so they can eat the fish, teach them how to fish. Then they always have food.
There are times with Tricord Global where we will go in and spend money just to drill a water well because the people in the area don’t have the money to do so. Sometimes it’s necessary for us to step in and supply some sort of infrastructure that the people need.
The reason we give loans is not because we’re trying to get the money back. That’s not the point. But here’s an example of what can happen. Sometimes, philanthropists buy sewing machines for people in developing nations. A year later, they go back over, and the sewing machines have been dismantled and sold for parts. Or the machines are sitting covered in dust because no one trained the owners how to use them. No one taught the people how to do business.
The reason we do loans is because it brings them back to us every week. We collect the loan payment, and then we offer training, teaching, coaching and mentoring in order to empower them. And they feel empowered too. They get to walk away from the deal saying, “I paid my loan back. I’m worth something.” And I would say that about 95% of them completely break into another level of empowerment in their lives. It changes their lives. Additionally, the dollar that was lent to that person gets to be lent now to another person, thus perpetuating the cycle of empowerment.
What’s the point? If accumulation of wealth is a virtue, then we as Christians and as people who master our money never, ever want to neglect caring for the needy. But we want to do it in the right way.
FOUNDATION FIVE: LIMITED GOVERNMENT
The last foundation of Jewish Economic Theory is limited government. We don’t want the government intervening in our affairs. The government is here to serve—not to dominate.
All throughout the Old Testament, we see the Israelites pressing God for more and more governmental structure. Israel at its finest reported straight to God for everything they did. And while God pushes back, trying to let them know that more government is not always a good thing, they keep asking. They asked for a king even though God told them they didn’t need a king. So he delivered. And we can read story after story of how their leaders and kings dominated them.
The reality is that more government means higher taxes. And higher taxes stifle enterprise and business. Most employment in America is provided by small businesses, but most employees have no idea that they’re costing their business at least 15% more than they’re being paid because of matching social security, health insurance, unemployment, etc. Most people don’t realize that if you take sales tax and add it to your payroll tax, then half your income is going to taxes.
The average employee in America who does not own his own business is basically functioning with half of his or her income going to taxes. You pay a gasoline tax every time you go to the gas station. You pay a sales tax every time you shop. It adds up.
Now taxes are in their nature a good thing. It’s important to pay your portion of the national defense. Taxes that benefit us mutually as a society are important. But there can come a point where we are stealing wealth out of people’s hands in an over-burdensome way.
This last foundation, limited government, is more about the tax structure than anything. The Jews believe there should be government, but it should be limited to allow people freedom to live and to engage in enterprise.
TIKKUN OLAM: PERFECTING THE WORLD
Another thing we find in the Jewish mindset is that they consider work to be the same as worship. When we study the Old Testament, there are several words in the Hebrew language for the word “worship.” Avodah is one of the primary words for worship, and it also means “work.”
Because they see the accumulation of wealth as a virtue and believe that they’re partnering with God in the creative process, the Jewish people see work as worship.
In Secrets of Jewish Wealth Revealed, Rabbi Celso Cukierkorn writes:
“One of the great differences that set Jews apart from other cultural groups is that we see our wealth as a means to partner with God, as a way to bring God’s Kingdom into this earth, a concept that we call tikkun olam — perfecting the world. We perfect the world by using our God-given wealth to further God’s realm on this planet. So, what you see is that the Jewish people’s pursuit of wealth is often paired with the pursuit of charitable works, not only for selfish purposes.”
Jesus prayed in Matthew 6, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, in the earth, as it is in heaven.” We must understand that when we partner with God and live as a blessing to the earth, then it’s not about becoming this rough, gruff business person. It’s about becoming a godly man or woman who is functioning by God’s laws of wealth.
When I function by God’s laws of wealth, and I practice his principles, then I automatically become a blessing to the world. But this is where we miss it: We think we are a blessing only when we give. And it’s true, we are a blessing when we give, tithe and bring offerings. But we can do so much more.
The problem we sometimes have in the church is that the only place we see true empowerment is in the area of giving. So we give people a fish. We give a lot of fish. Believe me, to support Christian ministry, to support local churches, we need to bring our tithes and our offerings.
But let’s be crystal clear. There is an empowerment process that happens with your employees. There is an empowerment process that happens when you bring people up in their lives economically. It is empowering to enable an individual to have their own business or assets.
And we honor God when we make these things happen through our position in life. We bring a greater expression of God’s power, God’s grace and God’s anointing into people’s lives. We are a blessing.
The Jewish mindset allows for this. They live by this. It’s not about “can I pay my bills? Can I have more? Can I have this, can I have that?” Sure, there’s nothing wrong with being blessed personally, but it’s about how I express that.
Rabbi Cukierkorn says it very plainly when he talks about tikkun olam, which means “perfecting the world.” Perfecting the world? What are you talking about? Rabbi Cukierkorn also said this:
“To be religious Jews, we are not supposed to isolate ourselves on a mountaintop and meditate, nor are we to take vows of poverty. Rather, we are supposed to get out into the world, interact with it, and elevate the mundane. This, in fact, is the traditional meaning again of “tikkun olam.” We repair the world by elevating it to the holy.”
In other words, when we get involved in this wealth-creation process, we are taking the mundane and elevating it to the holy—as long as we’re doing it God’s way. If the Lord our God gives us the power to get wealth, then it is God who empowers us so that we can come in and have an impact in our world. It’s not just about living and waiting until we get out of here. It’s about Matthew 6: “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done in the earth as it is in heaven.” That looks like us partnering with God in the earth to take the mundane and elevate it to the holy. It looks like us working with God to make His Kingdom come.
YOUR KINGDOM COME
In this manner, therefore, pray, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one—for yours is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
—The Lord’s Prayer, Matthew 6:9–13
We can have an impact in cities and nations when we understand tikkun olam. Our partnership with God in this creative process will transform areas—one person at a time.
A while back in Africa, an evangelist preached to a crowd of almost a million people. Some 300,000 people came to Jesus in that crusade.
But followers of a different religion had another strategy. Instead of holding a crusade, they came in after the crusade and targeted the families who attended. They went in and offered the families small micro-finance loans and said, “If you convert, we’ll give you this loan.” The sad truth is that many people turned and walked away from Jesus. They took the loans.
As Christians in America, we often only understand the gospel of salvation. We forget about the gospel of the Kingdom. But in the New Testament, Jesus comes preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of heaven. Paul also taught on the Kingdom of God.
Now I am by no means downplaying the vital nature of the gospel of salvation! You must be born again. Jesus said, “I’m the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6)
That is exactly how a person comes into the Kingdom of God—by being born again. That’s how we come into a relationship with God.
So the problem doesn’t lie with our focus on the gospel of salvation. The problem is that we forget to preach the gospel of the Kingdom. We forget about tikkun olam.
I’ve seen alcoholics and drug addicts get delivered from their addictions and become born again. They begin to feed themselves on the Word of God. Their lives are changed. But they need to have somewhere to advance into on this earth. They need to learn financial management tools, job skills and relational abilities.
I’m convinced the whole thing is about both the gospel of salvation and the gospel of the Kingdom. Matthew 28:19 says:
And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’ Amen
I believe what Jesus is talking about here is that we’re called to disciple all those in nations, but we’re also called to disciple the nations themselves! City and nation transformation can’t take place without a Kingdom economy. It starts with transforming the lives of individuals. And these individuals make up cities and nations.
If they’re in a place long enough, the Jewish people can take over a nation. They can do this because of how they think about wealth and the Kingdom. They have a Kingdom mindset.
Oral Roberts once said, “Whoever controls the finances of a city or nation will control the spiritual climate as well.” So as Christians, we must expand our thinking and understand that Kingdom economic empowerment is essential for us to see cities and nations transformed.
There is a marketplace sound or wind that is blowing in the earth and in the church. God is doing something right now in our world. He is speaking to the hearts of His people about entering the marketplace as a force for the Kingdom. And people are responding. They may express it in different ways, but the sound is being heard.
In 2015, I spoke at a business summit for Charis Bible College in Colorado. Some 500 Christian business people attended! That kind of attendance showed us that the church is ready to start getting into the marketplace.
This marketplace sound led me to start Wealthbuilders. We believe in empowering people all over the world with the business education that can free them from poverty. The importance of people being able to take scriptural business principles and apply them in the earth cannot be underestimated.
In August 2014, I held a Wealthbuilders Conference in Ethiopia. After the conference, I received this email:
“Thank you so much for the progress and determination in doing the seminar here in Ethiopia. As all of you may remember, I have tried to highlight some points to be considered into your teachings, which you have in mind.
To sum up about it, it is urgent for the church to be aware and involved in this business world where everyone’s language is about business. If you stay here for a few days in Ethiopia and listen, people are passionate to be business owners, grow economically… and in the midst of movement, I think the church is not sure of the way she can be involved. Largely, the church is not sure of the way she can be involved in. Members including most leaders do not have clear insight in this regard. Ordained church ministers are worrying how to do it besides their ministry. There are so many issues and challenges relating to this timely issue. In developing nations like Ethiopia, sound teaching in this regard is like laying the foundation to redeem the generation to come.”
This man is over 5,000 churches in Ethiopia. He defined this marketplace sound as a movement.
When I spoke at this Conference in Ethiopia, the whole crowd came alive. There was a buzz because in the hearts and minds of people wherever we go in the world, there is an understanding of a marketplace, Kingdom sound in the earth. God has bigger plans and bigger purposes. He wants to see his people empowered so that we can see His Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.
SEVEN MOUNTAINS
One of the ways we can bring God’s Kingdom to earth is by making sure that we as Christians are active in all areas of culture. I personally like to use the Seven Mountains to explain this. The Seven Mountains were imagined by Bill Bright and Loren Cunningham. It is a concept that is not necessarily found in scripture but helps us understand something really amazing. The Seven Mountains are what we would call the mountains of society or culture.
On the earth as people come together in a city or nation, there are seven primary categories that people tend to fall into: business, arts/entertainment, media, government, education, family and religion.
I use the term “Religion Mountain” on purpose because the church itself is not religion. Above all of these mountains, I would write the word, “Church,” because it’s God’s plan that the Church of Jesus Christ be involved in every mountain.