Five Lessons from Bible Verses About not Wasting Money

God's Word gives us practical wisdom for all areas of life including our finances. There are many Bible verses about not wasting money that can help us be better stewards. Read or listen to this material from Your Finances God's Way to learn how to avoid wasting money. Table of Contents1. Bible Verses About not Wasting Money Teach Us Small Purchases Add Up2. Bible Verses About not Wasting Money Teach Us to Avoid Worthless Purchases3. Bible Verses About not Wasting Money Teach Us to Resist Self-EntitlementEve’s EntitlementAmnon’s EntitlementKing Ahab’s EntitlementBeware of Self-Entitlement from Any Source4. Bible Verses About not Wasting Money Teach Us to Be Patient5. Bible Verses About not Wasting Money Teach Us to Understand “Good Deals”Jesus’s ExampleJesus’s Self-DenialJesus’s Patience Most people throughout history have wanted necessities, but the more common problem today is having too much stuff. In the past, people wanted food and clothing, but we have too many clothes and overeat food. Mark Twain once defined civilization as “a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.”1 We spend too much money and accumulate too much stuff. Unsurprisingly, storage space facilities are one of the fastest-growing industries. An article titled “Self-storage: How Warehouses for Personal Junk Became a $38 Billion Industry” reads: Despite recessions and demographic shifts, few building types have boomed like self-storage lockers. The self-storage industry made $32.7 billion in 2016, nearly three times Hollywood’s box office gross. Self-storage has seen 7.7 percent annual growth since 2012, and now employs 144,000 nationwide. One in eleven Americans pays an average of $91.14 per month to use self-storage. The United States has more than fifty thousand facilities and roughly 2.31 billion square feet of rentable space. To give that perspective, the volume of self-storage units in the country could “fill the Hoover Dam twenty-six times with old clothing, skis, and keepsakes. When I drive down the road and pass storage units, I wonder what’s in them that people don’t need and can’t easily access but still feel the need to keep. How many owners are still paying off the credit cards they used to buy that stuff in the first place? Typically, when we have too much stuff, we should recognize two things: First, we are spending too much money. Second, we don’t have an income problem; we have a spending problem. If we have spending problems but blame our income, this creates another problem. We don’t make appropriate changes because we blame the wrong place: We blame our income when we should blame ourselves. We complain about our paychecks when we should handle our finances differently. Even people with low incomes can still enjoy commodities that years ago would’ve been considered luxuries—cell phones, cars, computers, televisions. Most of us can comfortably live off much less if we avoid the spending problems that plague us. I use the word most because some people work hard and are financially wise yet still struggle to make ends meet. For the rest of us, let’s figure out how to make our money go further by examining the most common spending problems. 1. Bible Verses About not Wasting Money Teach Us Small Purchases Add Up Sometimes, we struggle financially because of large purchases costing thousands of dollars. More often, though, we struggle because of our small purchases over several years. These frequent expenditures take place without a second thought for three reasons: Small purchases are easier to justify—we can tell ourselves, “It is only five dollars...or ten dollars...or twenty dollars,” without considering that, over time, this adds up to thousands of dollars. Small purchases don’t seem detrimental—we recognize how tragic it is to waste thousands of dollars, but it’s much more challenging to recognize the damage caused by wasting a few dollars. We would probably be surprised to learn how much we have spent on small purchases we thought had little effect on our finances. Small purchases don’t look wrong—we don’t think eating out, going to the movies, or swinging by the coffee shop is all that bad, so spending a lot through many small expenditures is easy. It’s surprising how easily people struggling financially will justify their small expenditures. Scripture does not condemn these purchases, but it condemns purchases we can’t afford. We can spend our money the ways I’ve listed above, but not if we don’t have the money. AMC Entertainment is America’s most popular movie theater chain. Using their prices, the average movie costs $26 per person (ticket $11, soda $6, and popcorn $9). This is over $50 for a couple, and as kids are added, the price quickly reaches $100. How can this be justified when a movie rental or subscription service is a fraction of the price? Then, there are the high-end coffee outlets. Imagine a man we will call Joe. On Joe’s way to work each morning, he spends five dollars on coffee. If he does this for five years, it will cost him almost $7,000. Then, imagine Joe starts to struggle financially. A caring friend tries to talk to Joe about his casual spending. Sadly, Joe responds that he has an income problem: “If only I made more money, then I wouldn’t be in this predicament. The problem is my boss doesn’t pay me enough.” Joe’s friend tries to press in a little more and draw his attention to his daily coffee purchases, but Joe responds, “It is only five bucks. There’s no way these purchases could be the problem. Quit judging me. You can’t tell me that I can’t buy coffee! Where does Scripture forbid that?” These examples may seem harmless because they involve movies and coffee. But the point is that many small purchases add up. Imagine what happens when you add up all the other small purchases, such as eating out or grabbing that extra item you don’t need at the store. 2. Bible Verses About not Wasting Money Teach Us to Avoid Worthless Purchases By “worthless,” I don’t mean the item has no value. If that were the case, hopefully, we wouldn’t have purchased it in the first place. I’m referring to the item’s value to us years, months, weeks, or sometimes even days ahead. If the item is valuable at the moment but will have no value to us in the future, it has been a worthless purchase. Let me illustrate this by sharing something I used to witness when I was a schoolteacher. Because I was a Christian, I used to be concerned with my students’ academics and character. I taught math, reading, and writing, but I also tried to spend time teaching about forgiveness, honesty, hard work, and generosity. I had the opportunity to discuss finances with my students a few times each year. One regular opportunity occurred before field trips. Kids at museums, aquariums, or tourist attractions are tempted to waste their money on souvenirs. I would tell my students: Do not waste your money on any items you see in the shops. If you do, let me tell you precisely what will happen. You will buy something, be excited about it for a short period—probably only a few hours, but maybe only a few minutes—and then lose interest. Each year, at the end of field trips, I walk down the aisle and see these souvenirs left in their seats after the students exit the bus when we return to the school. They had already gotten bored of their purchases. I don’t want you to make the same mistake. These were worthless purchases. It is easy to listen to this story and pass judgment on students, but how often do we do the same thing as adults? How often have we bought something and forgotten about it a week or two later? How much stuff do we have in our homes that isn’t being used for any good reason? If we’re honest, most of us would be surprised—and probably embarrassed—by the number of purchases we’ve made that provide no lasting benefit. And these worthless purchases add up. 3. Bible Verses About not Wasting Money Teach Us to Resist Self-Entitlement Before we jump into this ng warning, let me remind you that one of the purposes of the Old Testament is to provide examples for us to learn from. Romans 15:4 says, “Whatever things were written before [referring to the Old Testament] were written for our learning.” First Corinthians 10:6 and 11 say, “These things [in the Old Testament] became our examples…these things [in the Old Testament] happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition.” The Old Testament provides a backdrop for New Testament instruction. Some individuals serve as positive examples through their obedience, while others serve as negative examples through their disobedience. Let’s consider three people who serve as examples of the danger of self-entitlement. Eve’s Entitlement Satan has many names in Scripture: prince of darkness, prince of the power of the air, prince of this world, and another fitting title would be “prince of entitlement.” When he tempted Eve, he said, “God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). In essence, Satan said, “God does not want you to be like Him or know as much as Him. He’s always telling you what not to do. You deserve to be happy. Do what you want!” The devil tried to make Eve feel entitled, and it worked. Amnon’s Entitlement David had a son, Amnon, who desired his half-sister, Tamar. Amnon knew it was wrong to pursue her, but he did not control his mind and take his thoughts captive. He lusted after her until he made himself sick, even to the point of losing weight. An evil man, Jonadab, helped Amnon devise a plan to have his way with Tamar. He began by saying, “Why are you, the king’s son, becoming thinner day after day? Will you not tell me?” (2 Samuel 13:4). Essentially, Jonadab said, “You are the king’s son. You should have what you want. You should not have to go without.