Our Distorted Religious Beliefs about God and Money

“May those who delight in my vindication shout for joy and gladness;

May they always say, “The Lord be exalted, who delights in the well-being of his servant.” – Psalm 35:27

My beliefs about money and being rich can be traced back when I was an active youth leader in our parish community back in my college days. I had this funny idea that you can choose to serve the Lord by giving any one of the 3 Ts: Time, Talent or Treasure. At first, I focus on giving my time and talent since I was a student then. I spent most of my weekends attending prayer meetings, teaching basic catechisms to kids, participating in parish or diocesan-based festivities. When I became employed and started earning my own money, I began to share my financial blessings in the parish by sponsoring food for our kids’ catechetical classes as well as donating a portion of my income in the Sunday collection. I was so happy with what I am doing. However at times, I encounter financial dilemmas such as who among our members can we send for out-of-town retreats and recollections. As much as I want everyone to attend, I can only sponsor a handful of them.

Shift your Wealth Belief

Money then to me was something you should ask from God, and then (literally) wait for Him to give you. He has specially assigned individuals to produce it and give it away. I believed that was not God’s call for me. Also, I thought that having too much money, even if you are serving in the community, will make you turn away from God. Why did I think this way? Because in order to make more money, you need to allocate more time to creating it, thus less time in doing His works. I had this fear that if I earn more money, I would be distracted away from God, falling into sin, violating the first commandment. I also thought that rich people who are giving lots of money to the church are “bribing” their way to heaven. Giving donations is “paying” repentance for their sins. And rich people must have acquired their wealth through scrupulous means! Those then were my beliefs about money and the rich. So in serving the Lord, I contended myself with sharing time, talent, and occasionally, little treasure. Later did I realize that I, like everyone else, was given the power to create money in order to serve His purpose.

When I got married, my spouse basically shared my beliefs about money and becoming rich. Bottom line is, it was not for us to finance the works of God’s Kingdom. It was other people’s jobs. But the turning point in our life came when we read BoSanchez’s, 8 Secrets of the Truly Rich. In that book, it clearly and convincingly explained how misconstrued religious beliefs have done more harm than good in serving God and His people.

The book offers, in part, an explanation to one popular biblical verse about becoming wealthy, Matthew 19:24 “Again, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” The phrase “eye of the needle” is not to be taken literally. In Hebrew tradition, it refers to the door of a camel’s house--small and low. In order for a camel to enter its house, it needs to remove all its baggage and crawl on its knees. Simply put, a rich man must humble himself before the Lord, in acknowledgement that all his financial successes are attributed to God’s love for him. He recognizes that at the end of the day, everything he has was entrusted to him, becoming a steward of sharing these blessings with the world, to serve God’s purpose and not of his own. However, it does not mean he cannot keep a portion of it for his enjoyment. God is just as happy with that as this earthly reward is but a taste of what is His faithful servants will experience when Kingdom comes.

After reading his book, we cannot help but smile and feel excited. We can be rich and holy at the same time! Inspired by this, we decided to take action. In August 2009, a year after starting to work in Dubai, we attended a Truly Rich Seminar at the auditorium of Lourdes School of Mandaluyong. The room was packed (I think we were more than 300). The following week we attended the two-day Truly Rich Financial Coaching Program where we got the first chance of our lives to personally meet and talk with Bro. Bo Sanchez and some of his financial and business mentors. We bought and read all his books and ebooks related to spiritual and financial abundance and we made a commitment to improve our finances. In the span of five years, I must say that our time working overseas did not go to waste because immediately took action on what we have learned from those seminars, learning about investments, proper financial planning and diversification. We are able to minimize financial losses because we sought mentors and follow successful individuals who are also spiritually-rooted, people who are living examples of being happy millionaire-missionaries.

Now, we are active trainors in a non-profit, Filipino-organization based in Qatar that teaches about financial education. More than teaching about the right way of savings and investments, we share with them our beliefs about having “holy” money. Today, we do not just teach them how to properly manage their finance to achieve their goals and encourage them to put God first before everything by highlighting the importance of tithing. And true enough, there are many amazing stories of transformation--from someone with a huge bank debt to attaining zero credit card balance; from a weekly shopaholic to a regular and diligent saver and investor and from a life without directions to a person with clearly defined goals and dreams with hearts.

We share our story so others may be inspired, take lessons from it and act with determination. Our greatest joy is learning that we have changed their lives, by changing their wealth beliefs. We help them become better individuals, full of hope and trust in God’s divine providence and that all of us can be happy, healthy, holy and wealthy in all aspects of our lives.

Despite these, it pains us that the people whom we feel needed it the most, those who are serving the Lord in the church, stay away from us. Probably because when start to talk about investing and saving, it is an alien concept to them. It is distracting them from doing God’s work. Or it is something that they should not be concerned about because talking about it means they do not trust God enough. They are not ready for it. And this is our struggle right now, for them to understand that there is no conflict in teaching about God and money. That money is a neutral tool that can be used for good and evil. I sincerely believe that people who serve the Lord ought to be materially rich because they know that the financial blessings they receive is a responsibility that they need to share with the less fortunate.

Money is not the root of evil but the LOVE of money is. If by having money ruins your relationship with God, your family and friends, then yes money can be evil. However if your motivation for having money is so you can finance your family’s needs as well as the needs of God’s Kingdom, then why should we consider having money, evil?

This excerpt from Bo Sanchez’ Declaration of Wealth best summarizes our reason for being rich:

“…I am a brilliant (investor and) entrepreneur, creating wealth for God’s purposes...I do not own my wealth, everything I have belongs to Him. I merely manage it for the True Owner and use it according to His will. God is my real wealth and the people He gave me are my real treasures.”

May our story inspire others to honor and give the glory back to our One, True God. Amen.

P.S. 1. Bernard B. Anduyon is a OFW based on Doha Qatar and a trainer for OFIE-M ( Overseas Filipino Investors and Entrepreneur – Movement) a group of advocates teaching OFW to start investing and be an entrepreneur. He is also a member of Bo Sanchez Truly Rich Club http://bernard.trulyrichclub.com. 

P.S. 2.  I’m inviting you to attend our Financial Literacy Talk series every 1st and 3rd Monday of the month at Filipino Community Center Al Thumama Doha, Qatar where I am a regular speaker for Abundance Mindset and Entrepreneurship for Filipino. I am also a trainer of ATIKHA promoting migration issue of OFW and financial literacy both OFW and in the rural area of the Philippines.

If you want a financial coaching you can send email to b_anduyon@yahoo.com

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