Financial Discipleship - the Bible on BudgetingSýnishorn

The primary battleground of surrendering our finances to God will be in creating a monthly budget that aligns our plan for earning and spending with the priorities of God…

1) Giving.

The first thing we want to do is assign dollars to our Giving expenses. As a starting point, I recommend committing to the tithe (ten percent of income). As we move further down God’s priorities, we will take the opportunity to give even more, but this is where we should start...

2) Providing for essentials.

Once we have assigned dollars to our Giving, we identify the essential needs of our family and assign dollars to cover those costs. At this point, we want to include only essential needs, not extra “nice-to-haves” that may be related to our essential needs…

3) Meeting financial obligations.

Next, we move to financial obligations—the money we owe. From our remaining income, we assign the minimum payments due. If we find we still have money remaining after paying the minimum on all financial obligations, we can pay above that to reduce our balance. Credit cards, loans (including mortgages, car payments, etc.), taxes, and required premiums and fees belong in this priority. And as always, we look for any surplus that can be reallocated to expanding the higher Priority 1 and 2 opportunities (giving and meeting more of the needs of our families)…

4) Saving for the future.

Now we look at saving, ensuring we are putting away a reasonable amount (not too much and not too little) to sustain our giving, providing, and meeting obligations in times of financial hardship.

Our first saving priority should be building an emergency fund.

The minimum emergency fund I recommend is one month’s worth of expenses…

By having one full month’s expenses in reserve, it won’t matter whether every bill is due on the same day or whether you are able to spread them across the month. Either way, you will still have a full month’s expenses in the bank at the end of the month once you have balanced your expenses and income (what went out came in, and what came in went out).

One month’s expenses, however, don’t cover much of an emergency these days. I recommend adding to this fund every month until you reach around six months’ expenses. If you are a single-income family, you may want to land a little higher. If you and your spouse each have full-time jobs or a second income of some kind, you could probably have less…

We want to keep in mind that the purpose of our savings is to allow us to continue giving, providing, and meeting our financial obligations in times of hardship, not to achieve independence from God.

Set prayerfully discerned goals and make steady progress toward them. When you reach your goal, shift future resources back to giving and paying down obligations, rather than building bigger barns (see Luke 12 – it doesn’t end well.)

5) Enjoying God’s blessings.

Finally, we allocate funds to the “nice-to-haves” in life. Once again, as we examine our past spending, we reevaluate dedicating some surplus for higher priorities—additional giving opportunities, meeting more needs of our families, accelerating the repayment of money we owe, and more quickly meeting our savings goals…

A budget is a plan, and plans can be good. Like the law of the Old Testament, however, a plan alone will not bring glory to God (Romans 3:20). It must be a plan grounded in faithfulness. It must be a plan anchored in God’s ownership. And it must be a plan that leads us to true surrender.

It’s God’s money. It’s His stuff. He has entrusted it to us, but with a purpose—to develop and refine us so that we can be made more into the likeness of Jesus with every decision we make.

(excerpt taken from Financial Discipleship for Families: Intentionally Raising Faithful Children, Brian C. Holtz, 2023)