The God-First Budget: Your Compass for Financial Freedom

Does the word budget make you tense up? You know, that feeling of financial chaos, of your money controlling you, instead of the other way around?Well, join me today on Truth Unveiled as we uncover a powerful biblical truth, and that's this. A budget isn't a cage, it's a compass, and it's your compass for financial freedom, wisdom and peace.That's exactly what I'm going to cover on today's show.

Feeling lost in today's headlines, seeking God's truth for our chaotic culture. Welcome to Truth Unveiled with Ralph. We'll cut through the noise guiding you to biblical discernment for your faith, your finances, and your life.Now here's Ralph Estep Jr.

Welcome back, friend, to Truth Unveiled with Ralph. It is so good to be with you again today. We've hit some real tough topics lately, haven't we? We've talked about some practical tools.We've talked about spiritual discipline. And today we're going to get real practical. We're going to talk about a God first budget, or what I like to call a, an intentional spending plan.I want to start off by asking you a real basic question. How does that word budget make you feel for so many people? It feels restrictive. I've heard people say, Ralph, it's like I've got handcuffs on.It's a punishment.And I got to be honest with you, most people think that way, and I used to feel that way, too, until I really started to think about how much of a benefit a budget can be.And let's get right into that today, because I think that's the central part of what we need to talk about today, and that is how a budget can really be a freeing thing. So many of us suffer with this feeling of financial anxiety. So many of us don't know where our money goes.We get to the end of the month and we just wonder, hey, where did our money go? But listen to this. I've read this statistic and I was shocked by this. Less than half of US Households even have a budget.Think about that for a second. Less than half of US Households are even planning where there's money's going to go every month. They're not giving those dollars a job.And we're going to talk a lot about that on today's show. You know, this is my Christian show where we talk more about faith.Well, today I'm to get really practical because I really want to meld these two worlds together of faith and finance. But think about that for a second. Half of U.S. households don't have a budget.And just think about the financial stress that raises the anxiety and the depression. You might be sitting there right now. You might be in the midst of that financial stress. Trust me, I've been there before.I've had that financial anxiety. And for so many people, that. That leads to a constant level of depression because you're just so annoyed, you're frustrated.You get to the end of the month, or maybe you get to the end of the pay cycle and you're wondering, how am I going to pay my bills this week? And it's the top cause for arguments. It's the top cause for divorce. It causes a.It's almost like a wrecking ball hits so many marriages and relationships. And I want to start today with a personal story because, listen, the truth is, my wife and I felt this many times. I'm an accountant.I've been doing this for too long. I've been doing it for 30 years.And you would think, an accountant, I would have all my ducks in a row, all my eggs in the right basket, everything in order. But to be honest with you, I've never really did the budget thing.I remember when my wife and I first got married and we were trying to raise two young boys, and we would get to the end of the month. I remember back then, I was paid once a month talking about trying to budget. It was a real challenge.But we'd look at each other maybe on the 23rd or 24th day of the month, and we're saying, hey, Ralph, you know, we're going to sit there and have a conversation. I'm not getting paid for another five or six days. And we'd look at each other and say, where did the money go? And that was a tough situation.It led to financial anxiety. It led to stress. Hey, it led to arguments almost all the time.Almost every month there was argument about, well, Ralph, if you hadn't bought this and if you hadn't done this. And listen, I'm the impulse buyer in our relationship. I got to be honest with you. My wife is really good with finances.I'm not so good with it, which is kind of a funny thing to say. I. I'm good with other people's finances with my own. Like most people, it's a challenge, but we'd be facing that every month. Where did the money go?Truth is, we didn't have a plan. And when you don't have a plan, and you're probably listening to this right now, you're going, ralph, yeah, you preached to me Brother, I get it.When you don't have a plan, it breeds so much anxiety. And in many ways, when I look back at it now, money was in charge of us. We weren't in charge of the money. Money was in charge of us.It was telling us what we could do. When we got to the end of the month, we were. We didn't have many choices.I remember a couple times trying to figure out how we're going to make groceries that week. How are we going to handle an unexpected bill that came in. And see, that's just the financial side of this.And what I really want to drive this discussion today is the spiritual cost of this. Because I can talk all day. Listen, I've been doing accounting and consulting work for 30 years.I can tell you all about the benefits of a budget from a financial perspective. And I'm going to encourage you. I do a daily show. It's called Financially Confident Christian.You can go right to the website, that's financiallyconfidentchristian.com and check it out. It's a short daily show that I would encourage you to check it out. But I really want to today talk about the spiritual cost of this.Because when you really think about it, the chaos that you're constantly living, not having a budget, and that's really what it is. It's chaos. That chaos, it robs our peace. And when a piece is robbed, it's like a thief. You know, talk about in the Bible, like a thief in the night.And that's not what we're talking about with the judgment.What I'm talking about here is that if you don't have that plan, if you don't have that plan of how you're going to handle your money, you're in constant financial chaos. And it robs your peace. And guess what? One of the main things I talk about on this show is how do we be good stewards of what God has given us?And we can't be good stewards if we're not planning, if we're not budgeting, if we're not being intentional in our spending. And one of the things I talk about on this show every week is I try to contrast culture, you know, what's going on all around us.What does society say? What does the world say? And I try to contrast that with the truth of the Bible.And in my bold view, and I'm going to say something really bold today, the world lies to people. It just does. It tells lies, it tells falsehoods. The world says to so Many people, a budget, that's boring for people. You don't need to do that.That's just restriction. It's like a diet. You don't need to do a diet. That's what the world's telling so many people. You may have heard this your whole life.Oh, you don't need to worry about a budget. You know, figure it out. I've even heard Christian people say, God will provide. That sounds good. And yes, God will provide.But that doesn't mean that you can abdicate and not do anything about it. You got to have a plan.But if we follow the world's lie and we just say, oh, we don't need a budget, it leads to stress, it leads to that financial anxiety. Talk about it leads to depression. And really the sinister part of it, it leads to being controlled by your money.So let me ask you this, and this is what I always come to in this weekly show. Does God's word offer you a way out today? Does it offer you a different idea, a different set of ideas, a different mindset?And I'm going to tell you right now, friend, it absolutely does. And this mindset will change the dynamic of your financial life, because God's got a solution. And that solution is stewardship.And stewardship is a spiritual act. So let's open God's word together and let's look at how God sees money as a resource.We're going to go right to probably the scripture verse that I quote the most on my Daily show, and that's from Proverbs chapter 21:5. And I'm going to apologize ahead of time. If you're a Daily show listening, you're probably like, Ralph, you use this verse all the time.But it nails exactly what we need to talk about today. Again, this is Proverbs, chapter 21, verse 5 says this. The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance.But everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty. And I just want to dwell on that for a few minutes. What is it saying to us here?The plans of the diligent, the plans of people who plan ahead, the plans of that budget, that diligent person. I don't know about you, but I want to be a diligent person because what does it lead us to? What does the scripture say? It leads us to abundance.What does abundance look like? Well, I'm gonna say one thing it definitely isn't. It's not anxiety. It's not fear. It's not depression. It's not stress.And I'm not Saying that if you have a budget, you're gonna have everything you've ever dreamed of. That's not at all what I'm saying.I think we have to really think about that as far as it relates to an abundance, as the world views it and what the Lord views it. But what does it end with? Here, and this is the most important part, we talk about the plans of the diligent lead to abundance.What's the other side of this? But everyone who is hasty, and I'm going to drop a word in there, say everyone who doesn't plan comes only to poverty.I don't know about you, but I don't want to live in poverty. I want to plan. I don't want to be hasty. I want to be that diligent. And see, here's the thing. A budget is a plan. A budget is a plan to be diligent.It's a plan to express true stewardship. It's a plan to honor what God has given you. And that diligence, what does it lead to? It says it right there in the scripture. It leads to abundance.You want to live in abundance? Guess where it starts. It starts with having a budget. It starts with having that intentional spending plan.Well, let's get a little deeper into scripture. Let's go right to the book of Luke. And this is from chapter 14, verse 28.This is what it says, for which of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Again, this one just nails it. Think about the person who's building that tower. They picked out the land. They've got all their materials together.Before they even do that, though, they're thinking, okay, what's the land going to cost? What are the materials going to cost? They're sitting down, they're counting the cost.Because if they don't have enough to do it, they don't have enough to complete it, what are they going to look like? It's not going to work. Well, your financial life is the same thing.If you don't sit down and count the cost, what's the scripture really saying to us here? Plan. Put together an idea of where your money's going to go. Hey, you got to start off, and we're going to talk a little bit functionally.How about do that a little bit later in the show. But start with a plan. Start with the end in mind.Because, listen, you can't do anything until you've got a plan to know whether you've got the cost to complete it. And then let's look at this and think about this. This is Jesus's common sense call. And for so many of us, we get stuck in this.It's not rocket science. I say to people all the time, people, budgets are hard. Yes, living by a budget might be hard, but the idea of having a budget is common sense.Just like the scripture says here. For which of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost? You want to continue to wreck your finances.You want to continue to live in that pain, in that depression and that financial stress and anx, then continue not to count the cost. Well, let's get right to the book of Malachi. This is from Malachi, chapter 3, verse 10. And this is what it says again, Malachi 3:10.It says, Bring the full tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house and thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts. If I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down you a blessing until there is no more need, just think about this.This is exactly what God is talking about. This is exactly what I'm talking about today. As I say, we need to build a God first budget.Now, the first couple minutes of the show was all about the need to build a budget. Now I'm going to pivot a little bit because this is the word that you need to hear today. And it's all about building a God first budget.Because what is the scripture promising us? Bring the full tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house. What is he challenging us to do?Put me to the test, says the Lord, and see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you. Pour down abundance and a blessing until. What does it say here? This is the greatest promise I've ever read about budgeting.A blessing until there is no more need. You want to live in no more need. What starts with building a God first budget?And as I said a few minutes ago, it's an act of worship when you honor your finances. And I'm going to get in trouble when I say this. I say this on my daily show all the time. What you have is not yours.And a lot of people get offended when I say that. Ralph, I work really hard for what I have. I'm not saying you haven't worked hard for it. I'm not saying you haven't put in the time.I'm not saying you haven't put in the effort but what you have is a gift from God. It's a loan to you from God, and he wants you to steward it. That's the whole point of this.Let's get right to the next scripture I want to talk about today. And this is from Second Corinthians, chapter 9, verse 7. Again, Second Corinthians, 9, 7.Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver. Now you might say, okay, Ralph, I see where you're going with this. You've totally pivoted now.You're talking about sending you money. No, not at all. Listen, this show is never going to ask you to send money. If you want to support the show, you can do that.You can see the show notes and find out how to do that. But I'm not asking for money. What I'm talking about today is, is building that God first budget. And what is the Book of Corinthians telling us here?Each one must give as he has decided in his heart. See, it's a heart thing. It's not a mind thing. It's not a financial thing. It's a hard thing. So what is the scripture telling us?That giving should be intentional. Giving needs to be from our heart. Because why? What does God love? What does it say here in the scripture? God loves a cheerful giver.And that's the encouragement I'm going to start with today. You want to start living for God? You want to start having a God first budget? Well, that's where it starts. Let me just tell you about this right now.I remember the first time. Let's get back to the story I started talking about a little while ago. The first time my wife and I sat down and budgeted.This was like the earth was moving. She's like, ralph, you're an accountant. Why do we need to do this? You got us all figured out. And the first time we did it, it was a little scary.And I remember we were really big into our church at the time. We were. I want to say we were new Christians, but we were new engaged Christians. That's probably the best way to say it.We had, both of us had gone through a new baptism. We were just on fire for the Lord at the time. And we knew the Lord was speaking to both of us. We needed to put giving and savings first.And see, so many people don't understand that. They start off with their mortgage, then they go to their car payment, then they go all the other things.And God's at the bottom, God's playing last place. But see, that's not what God encourages us. That's what God commands us. Let me dare say that.But when you do this, and this is the promise of today's show, when you do this, it'll bring you to a place of peace, and it'll truly bring you to a place of partnership, not only with your loved ones, but also with God. And I learned something very valuable. And I started off the teaser today about this. The budget wasn't a cage.So many people say, oh, Ralph, a budget's like a diet. When I go on a diet, I can't do this and I can't do that, and I must do this, and I must do that. So they build this prison.They build this cage around them. But when you do this, right, when God is the center or your God first, budget is the center of your life.It becomes your compass, and it really helps you take from a place of chaos to a place of peace.So let's start talking about the differences between the world and what the Bible speaks, what truth talks about, because that's what I want to always talk about on this show. I want to bridge those things, because all. All of us are living in this crazy culture.And I don't think it's too bold of me to say that, but there is a stark difference between you. Let's start by looking at the world's view, and I'm going to use a fancy term called chaos. That's my opinion.The world's way is chaos, and the world believes this. Their core belief of the world is that budgeting is a punishment. Oh, you better budget. You're in trouble. You spent too much money.You got yourself in trouble. So what you got to do? Go live on a budget. It's like me when I got big and fat. There was a time. Let me tell you a little story right now.There was a time in my life when I reached £430, man, I ate everything in sight. It was a terrible situation. I was living in what I talk the world's way. I was living in chaos.Now, fortunately, by the grace of God, a doctor said to me, ralph, you're going to pop. You need to start doing something about that. But listen, when I first started that, it felt like a punishment. That diet felt like a punishment.And that's what the world talks about. You know, if you want to live under a budget, the world's saying to you that you're being punished. You're living under restrictions.You can Only do what your budget tells you can do. And it also promotes this. It promotes freedom and spontaneity. And it might sound good at the time you're like, oh, that's great, freedom.I can be spontaneous. But how's that working for you? Seriously, how's that working for you? I know for me, I can only speak for me.That spontaneous lifestyle has got me in trouble way too many times. I've been at the car dealership and I made a spontaneous purchase and man, that has cost me dearly for years.You might be thinking the exact same thing. That thing you put on the credit card, it was spontaneous, Ralph. It was freedom. The world said, go do it. I can afford this.Just go put on that credit card. You pay for it later. What did that freedom in spontaneity lead to? I'll tell you what it led to me. Anxiety.Constantly anxious about where I was going to pay my bills. Like I talked about the beginning, my wife and I would get to the end of the month and it was tough. We were. I was paid once a month.My wife was a stay at home mom. God bless that we had the ability to do that. But that paycheck came in one day a month.And those couple days leading up to that, man, it was a tough situation. It was anxiety, it was stress. And looking back at it now, the truth is money was completely in control of me. I was living in that worldly chaos. Yeah.Was I living spontaneous? That I had this, quote, worldly freedom to do as I wanted? Sure. Absolutely. And where did it lead me to? It led me to debt.It led me to nearly getting into bankruptcy. That's where it led me to. It led me into stupid decisions that I'm still paying for. In some ways, that's what the world is telling you.They want you to stay in that chaos. Let's contrast that with God's word. I'm going to call God's way peace. You want to live in peace? Listen, right now, this is how you live in peace.What I've said today, and I hope you're hearing this loud and clear, what God's way says, what peace says is that budget is wisdom. What does it say? Plan. Have a plan and see freedom. If you really want to live in freedom, the way you live in freedom is to have a plan.Have that intentional spending plan. I've used that word a few times because the word budget does have a bad connotation. And it's in here that we're talking about today.So start to change your Mindset a little bit. And I'll probably still use the word budget because I'm so accustomed to that. Having done this for 30 years, that's the word that everybody uses.But if we want to break that cycle, we want to break that cycle of financial shame, we want to move to a place of peace, want to move to a place of freedom, you got to really embrace that plan. Because when you do that, when you have a plan, when you have a program in front of you, here's how we've chosen to our God first budget.We're going to talk about how to do that in just a couple minutes. When you have that plan, I'm gonna tell you right now, it's gonna lead you to peace. Bigger than that, it's gonna lead you to generosity.And here's the thing, I talked about this a couple weeks ago. Generosity is amazing thing. When you're generous, your whole life changes.Because guess what's happening when you start to have this plan, when you start to tell those dollars where they're gonna go, what's that leading you to? It's leading to control of your money. So you're no longer being controlled by your money. And I did some reading on this. I said, you know what?Let me go see what the statistics say about this. And I found this one. I don't have the exact numbers, but it said this.But if you want to live in control, you want to have final control of your money, do as what God asked us to do or commands us to do. He wants us to steward our resources. He wants to have a plan. So God's truth invites us to a radical path of wisdom. So I made my case today.You might be saying, ralph, okay, I'm on board with you, dude. I get it. Budgeting is hard. I've never really had the understanding how to do it. So let's talk now about how do we live this out.I want to invite you right now to take that first step, the first step of this. And this is the hardest part I'm going to tell you right now.The budgeting side of this or the intentional spending part, that's the easy part, the hard part. And this is where most people give up, to be very honest with you.When I've worked with individuals, I've worked with couples over the last 30 years, this is where people usually give up right at the front end. First step, you gotta get honest with your spending.The first thing I ask, almost every single person I work with that says to me, they come in and Say, Rob, I'm struggling with my finances. The first thing I ask them, my own children this, where is your money going? See, because here's the thing, you got to know where the money's going.If you want to build a plan, you got to know where your money's going first. I'm going to encourage you right now, the first step to getting to a God honoring budget is you got to track every single dollar that you've spent.I'm going to encourage you to do it for one month, 30, 45 days, whatever that is. Write it down. Be honest with yourself. Don't lie about it. You're only lying to yourself. Write down every single dollar that you spend.Now, I'll give you a quick story. I was working with a couple. One time they came in to see me.I would do their taxes every year, and they came in to see me one year and they said, ralph, we just don't understand how we can't get ahead. Now, I'm going to lay some interesting things on you here. Here's a couple that was making combined almost $300,000 a year.If you're listening right now, you're like, ralph, that's really good money. They were having financial problems. Yes. So when I looked at their stuff, I said, okay, here's what I want you to do for the next 30 days.I just want you to write down every dollar that you spend. Looked at me and like, okay, that doesn't seem so hard. We can do that. We've got debit cards, we've got credit cards. We can do that, Ralph.All right, let's go ahead and put. We went into my calendar. We said, all right, we're going to set a date 45 days from now.We're going to come back and we're going to sit down again and we're going to talk about, where are we? So I sent them on their way with the intention. They were excited about this. Ralph, you're going to help us solve these financial problems.Because the truth is, they've been living in this financial anxiety. They've been living in this financial stress. They owed the IRS every year because they didn't know where their money was going.So I said, here's what we're going to do. Track everything for 30 days. They came back 45 days later. They were excited. They sat down. They were beaming. They were so excited.They said, ralph, we've done what you ask, and we know now that you're going to be able to help us. I said, fantastic. I'M so happy you did that. Most people give up. Most people, the first two days are like, you know, I'm not doing this.I don't ever hear from them again. That's unfortunate, but that's what usually happens. They came, sat down, and I start looking. I said, okay. I look at their numbers.Okay, here's what went for the mortgage. Here's what went for the car payments. Here's what went for utilities. It was beautiful. Here's what went for groceries. They had it all scoped out.Here's what went for this clothing. And I get to the bottom and it says, ATM withdrawals, $3,000. And I'm thinking to myself, okay, ATM withdrawals. So. So I was kind of a brash guy.I'm like, I'm not. I'm very transparent. I said, okay, explain this to me. Next thing you know, the husband says, that's none of your business, Ralph.I said, wow, okay, so do you want me to help you or not? He's like, yeah, but that's money that, you know, we just take out the ATM when we need money. I said, okay. So I said, you're going to lie to me?You're lying to yourself. That's the bigger thing. I said, where's that money going? They said, well, you know, that's really none of your business.It goes through this and that. The other thing. Listen, I said to him, I said, I can't help you. I said, because $3,000 a month is being untraced.They said, ralph, that's just our fun money. I said, well, your fun money's putting you in the poor house. I never heard from them again. It was a sad thing, but I just never heard from them.So once you do that first step, once you look at where your money's going, then you've got some data. Now it's time to start putting that data to work for you. I'm going to encourage you to create your God first budget.Now, listen, it doesn't have to be that complicated. Like I said, this is not rocket science. It's really very simple. I'm going to encourage you to use three categories.Yes, just three categories, really. That simple. Give, save and live. I'm going over this again one more time because it's really that simple. So many people get tied up on.But I need this or I need that. Yes, you should get to a point where you make your budget more finite. I'm not going to argue with that. This isn't about that.On today's show, right Now, I just want you to get in the habit. I want you to get in that mindset, if you will. Give, save and live. Now, you notice where I started.I started with give because that's what the scripture wants us to do. That's what the scripture commands us to do. What's the second thing I noticed? Save. Pay yourself. You've probably heard about that before.These financial gurus run around, say, yeah, save. That's the best thing to do. They usually put that first. Well, I'm not starting there. As a Christian person, I'm starting with give. So start there.Give, saving, and live. Of course, live is the rest of this. But what you're doing, and this is the most crucial part of this, I've mentioned this a couple times.You're giving every dollar a job, and you're putting them to work on paper. It's pen to paper. Again, give, save, put it all underneath of that. That's the second step. So track your money. Know where your money's going.Second step, create that God first. Budget again, give, save, live, and then take. And use this information as a compass. Okay, here's what I want you to do.Once you do that budget, once you put that intentional spending plan, you're giving every dollar a job. Thirty days later, go compare your new spending with your budget, because that's your compass. It's not a cage. It gives you permission to spend.Think about this for a minute. A little mental picture here. If you don't know where your money's going, then you're not in control.But when you're in control, guess what you've done? You've given yourself permission. Because in that budget, you're saying, I can live. I've already put money into giving.I've already put money into savings. Here's what's left over. This is so liberating, it's so freeing, but it actually gives you permission to spend. But you're spending under your own.You're in complete control. How does that sound to you today? So I'm gonna go over that one more time. Number one thing, track your spending. Be honest with yourself.No $3,000 ATMs. You gotta get linear on this. Get down to the dollar. If you're going for Starbucks coffee, write it down. If you're doing this, doesn't matter to me.You spend your money as you want. I'm not judging you for where you spend your money, but know where it's going. So that's the first step.Second step, start to build that simple budget Give, save, and live. And in the third step, compare the results. You put that give, save, and live together. Where are you going? What's your compass look like?And I'm going to tell you right now, I'm going to give you another personal story. This saved my wife and I because we had a situation. We were just a couple years into our marriage, and our car broke down.And we had a reasonably decent car. It wasn't in bad shape, but it broke down. And as soon as that happened, my first instinct was to panic. I was like, oh, this is terrible.I can't get to work. What am I going to do now? Of course, like I said to you, I was the impulse of. When my wife says, hold on, Ralph, calm down, relax.So many times in my life, my 25th wedding anniversary coming up, my wife is always the calm one. My wife says to me, says, ralph, hold on a second. Let's look at the budget. And she was so ready, because guess what we had done.Now we've gotten a little bit more sophisticated with the budget. I'm going to count, and I can get into the details a little bit, but we actually had a repair fund, if you will.We had a line item in our budget that said, hey, here's what we're going to spend on repairs. So my wife said, wait a second, don't panic. And as soon as she said that, what happened? That panic just went away. Because I knew we had a plan.We had prepared for this. We had assigned those dollars. That's so important. And the last thing that I'm going to encourage you to do.Didn't really put this in the list in the right way, probably, but pray for financial discipline. Pray for that, and pray for gratitude for your plan, because it's so important to do that.It's so important that you recognize that God has given you what you have. I said that a couple times now. Probably sound like a broken record. God has given you this. You need to steward it. You need to use it wisely.You need to. What plan? So as you're doing that, just say, God, listen, I'm not good at this. Ralph's a good accountant. I'm not good at money.Give me some discipline, Lord. Show us what to do. And then here's the most important part. Be grateful when you do that comparison. When you look at that compass, see to Lord.Hey, you know what, Lord? You showed us a way here. You showed us a path forward. And I'm just so grateful for that, because here's the truth.Big takeaway for today, that no budget life, that worldly, hey, just live for today is really a life of constant pressure. But God calls us to embrace something so much better than that. He calls us to embrace peace and he calls us to embrace a God first budget.And as I've said, it's a spiritual discipline per peace. And I want you to know you're not alone in this thing.And the most beautiful thing about a budget, now when you really get into this, it's not just about us. Because when you have that budget and we learned this, my wife and I learned this, so, so very importantly, it grow to be bigger than us.Because now we're able to give. We're not living in this spontaneous freedom of just worrying every month about where the money's going to go.And we've, Lord has blessed us, we've been very blessed. The business is doing well, all those type of things. But we still keep an idea on that plan because we've realized it's not just about us.Because when we plan, we're able to give. You know, we talked about that, that give, save and live where we put giving first.Because the joy that you have in being able to give, and I want you to hear me on this because this is so very vitally important, that joy, you'll never overcome that with spontaneous spending. You're never going to feel full based on that spontaneous spending. So I just want to encourage you today, start to build that God first budget.Start off with measuring where your money's going and then think about that give, save and live. And then really use that as a compass for your life. And today I want to share something even more important than that.Yes, there's actually something more important than a budget. I'll talk to you about real lasting security.We could talk about financial security, we could talk about all kinds of physical security, all those type of things. But we want to really talk for a minute about true lasting security. And that comes only from one person, that comes from God himself.So maybe today you feel a little stirred by this. You say, yeah, I've heard of this guy Jesus, Ralph, and you know the guy. The people down the street talk about Jesus all the time.We call them Bible thumpers. I've never really seen where I have a relationship today. Maybe even grew up in church.I know so many people that grew up in church, but they don't have that personal relationship with the Lord. So today I just want to encourage you that you want to really get past anxiety, you want to get past depression. You want to get past fear.It all starts with having a relationship with the most important person in the universe, and that's God. So if you feel stirred today, I'm going to encourage you right now to pray. They call this the prayer salvation.And if the Lord has moved you, I would just love for you to just right where you are right now to stop what you're doing and just say this prayer. Maybe you've never accepted Christ as your personal savior. I'm gonna encourage you can do that right now. Just pray.This prayer with me just starts like this. Dear Heavenly Father, I know I'm a sinner. I've fallen short of the mark, Lord, and I really need your forgiveness, Lord. It just starts there.And Lord, I believe with all my heart that Jesus Christ is your son. I know that to be true. And I know that he died on the cross for my sins. And I also 100% believe that you powerfully raised him from the dead, Lord.You did it. And so right now, Lord, I confess my sins to you. I do it right now. And Lord, I humbly ask that you would come into my life.I give my life to you today, Lord, completely. I choose to follow you, Lord. I choose to make Jesus my personal savior, starting now and starting forever.And I just ask that you will forgive me for all the craziness I've lived, Lord, and just help me to live in communion with with you. And I just thank you for your amazing love and for your precious gift of eternal life. And I ask this in confidence in Jesus name. Amen.Let me just tell you right now, if you prayed that prayer, maybe you're just thinking about it. You know, I think I can do that. I'm just not quite ready yet. I'm going to tell you right now, heaven is celebrating.I've been raised in a church and we really, truly believe. And I truly believe this with all my heart.When another person accepts Christ as their personal savior, man, there are banquets in heaven that there is joy among all joy. And if you prayed that prayer today, I want to encourage you. This is just the start of the process.Reach out to somebody else that you know who's a Christian. Hey, reach out to me. You can go right to our website. That's truth unveiled with Ralph.com decision. I would love to help you along that journey.It's so important that you surround yourself with strong people with a strong church. You can go right to truth unveiled with Ralph.com decision. So I'd really like to help you on that journey.I want to help you enjoy this new freedom that you found in Christ because listen, it can never be taken away from you because Christ conquered death. He conquered all the things that you've been dealing with in your life. Guess what he conquered Financial anxiety.And he is the only true path to lasting peace and lasting freedom. So I know we covered a lot of financial things today, but the Lord put it on my heart today that I really need to talk about this.So I want to thank you for joining me on the show this week. Thank you for joining me. And next week we're going to continue on this. We're going to continue to battle common culture with the truth of God's word.So until then I'm going to encourage you walk in faith and live confident in Christ. I'm going to add one more thing. Live faithfully, financially and spiritually confident in Christ. God bless you.You have a great week and I hope to see you again back next week.