Purpose, Profit, and Faith: The Christian Wealth Ethos

This one is a doozy. It’ll take most people 25 minutes to read through, or 15 minutes if you’re a faster reader. I don’t expect everyone to make it—only the people who have an insatiable curiosity and drive to build wealth. I think this one is worth it. I don’t usually blog often, but when I have the inspiration and profound ah-hah moments, I will. If you’re still here, let’s get to it.

What is Money?

I recently heard something on the Lewis Howes podcast with guest Scott Donnell about the concept of money that struck a chord with me. I didn’t see the whole podcast, but in this short snippet, he said several profound things, one of which stood out to me.

After hearing his statement, it stuck with me like the catchy tune from Statefarm, “Like a good neighbor, Statefarm is there!” It kept popping back into my head. I kept hearing the same concept again, but from other people and in different contexts. It then tied into other epiphanies I’ve had, painting a full picture of purpose and money in the Christian context. Each time I heard it, the ideas dug deeper into my soul, eventually reshaping how I fundamentally approach money.

I knew I needed to write a blog to help order my thoughts. I also felt it could be useful for someone else. It can change your perspective about money, making it easier to obtain and dare I say, noble.

So here goes, he said:

Money is simply a store of value

Short and sweet but packed full of meaning and history. For all my fellow Bitcoin nerds, that probably rings deep with you. I’ve heard the saying before, but something about it this time gave it gravitas. It’s a simple statement but deeply philosophical that needs to be fully unpacked to draw the lessons from it.

In the modern era, we’ve lost touch with this concept. We’ve grown so commercial that we’ve forgotten what money represents. And because we’ve lost a sense of its function, we lose sight of how to obtain it properly. Let’s try to unpack this statement and squeeze the knowledge from it.

You can see the snippet I saw below:

The Origins of Money

In a book, I read probably a decade ago, by Peter D. Schiff called, How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes, he explains in a very simple allegory how an economy comes about on a little island with a fisherman. In it, he explains that money comes about because bartering is no longer efficient when an economy gets larger. Instead of trying to trade your cow for another man’s fish (who needs hundreds of fish for their cow anyway?), there needed to be a more efficient way to conduct trade.

The emergence of “money” was eventually required. People needed a way to transact that wasn’t bartering things of unequal value and necessity. So instead of trying to trade your cow with someone with the exact items you needed, a better system was developed — money. A way to store created value.

Value = Money

When people think of money, they think of dollar bills or whatever currency your country interacts in. But money isn’t paper with dead presidents on them. It’s a constructed concept and innovation that came in different forms. It represents something but the thing itself is not money. Money simply represents the value you created in the world, stored in an object that the majority of people agree is sufficient to hold value.

Money simply represents the value you created in the marketplace, stored in an object that the majority of people agree is sufficient to hold value.

Now with the emergence of money as a mechanism for storing created value, you could sell your cow to someone for something that “stored” the value of your cow into divisible units of value (money) that could later be exchanged for other items that you needed, and the leftover you could be saved for later use.

Stick with me, because this will all come full circle, and you’ll probably be much happier and probably better off financially because of it…

Money came in different forms throughout civilizations — shells, salt, spices, silver, gold, paper, and eventually digital. Money changed its form throughout time because better formats were created. The best form of money has four unique properties:

1. Durability – Good money should be physically durable and able to withstand wear and tear over time. It should not degrade or deteriorate easily, ensuring it can be used for long periods without losing its value.
2. Portability – Money needs to be easily portable so it can be transported and exchanged efficiently. People must be able to carry and transfer it from one place to another without much effort. Portable money facilitates commerce, especially in large or distant markets.
3. Divisibility – Good money should be divisible into smaller units to facilitate transactions of varying sizes. This ensures that both small and large transactions can occur easily. For example, modern currencies are divisible into smaller denominations (like dollars and cents or pounds and pence), allowing for precise pricing and flexibility in trade.
4. Fungibility – Money must be fungible, meaning each unit is identical in value and can be exchanged with another unit of the same type. This ensures consistency in trade, where one dollar bill, for instance, is considered equal in value to another dollar bill, regardless of its physical condition.

Good money then is just a physical representation of value you’ve created. Corrupted forms of money egregiously siphon value unbeknownst to the holder, effectively robbing people of their literal hard work (stored value) by making their money lose value (inflation). I digress a bit but it’s good to understand because when you understand what money represents and how to get it, you want to make sure your money is in a form that is hard to devalue. A whole other topic.

Value Creation

So to have more money you need to create more value — VALUE is the true currency in the world. When we say something is “valuable” like a diamond or a rare art piece, we’re saying that this thing stores a lot of value that someone created in the world, albeit these objects can vary in value (not a great form of money) over time.

The point is, the medium of money has changed over time but the original function has not — a store of value.

You can obtain money without creating value, but in our world that’s called theft. You’re literally stealing someone’s created value to society without giving value in exchange. Financial Ponzi schemes are illegal because you provide no value to someone but you take their money. If you take someone’s money from their wallet or purse without permission, you’re giving no value in exchange for that money.

What Does Value Look Like?

Harking back to Peter D. Schiff’s book, imagine you live on an island. There is nothing on the island that is currently man-made. Just dirt, sand, rocks, trees of different kinds, plants, animals, ocean, and things that live in the ocean. You magically appeared on the island, butt naked. What do you do first? You look around and try to fashion some clothes out of leaves and wood. Then you decide you need food so you figure out a way to capture fish. After you’re fed, you need to create shelter so you fabricate tools from rocks and sticks to build a makeshift home. At the end of the night, you start a fire and roast the fish you have left over.

The next day, you realize you need to become a better fisherman so you don’t have to work all day just to have fish for that day. So you create better tools and techniques to capture fish. Several months go by and you honed your craft. You have fish in abundance! Then suddenly another person appears out of the woods. You’re both surprised and begin having a conversation. He tells you about this magical thing he created called, salt. He has an incredible technique to turn ocean water into something that makes fish taste better and able to preserve it.

He lets you taste it and it’s amazing! You have to have it yourself, but instead of you taking the time to figure out how to make salt, you ask if you can have some in exchange for fish. He gladly accepts and you both trade your goods with each other. Now you’re both better off because of this exchange. You can focus on getting better at fishing and expanding your operations while he can focus on making more and better salt.

Each day this goes on where a new person pops up with a different skill. One has perfected how to make clothes out of raw materials (plants, trees, etc), another how to make stronger homes to withstand the weather, and so on. You all decide that instead of focusing on surviving independently, you’d all form a community and trade with each other’s specialties, making everyone better off.

Eventually, the community gets too big and trade stalls because it gets too complicated trying to trade with everyone to get the things that you need. So someone comes up with the idea of using sea shells as a store of value. They were somewhat limited on the island so it would make a great item for money. Everyone agrees that the shells would represent value. So now, instead of trading directly with each other for different items, everyone sells their goods for sea shells and with those sea shells, they can buy the items they need.

So in this allegory, we can see that money (sea shells) only represents the value that each person created using the raw materials of their island, ingenuity, and the sweat of their brow. Value then is simply providing desired goods or services to one another.

Value Creation Magic

We understand why money was created and its original function; store of value, but we haven’t discussed in depth how to get our hands on more of it. When most people think of money, they associate it with having a job and working for someone so that they will pay you an hourly wage or a salary. Yes, you do make money with a job. But it’s more fundamental than that.

Why is someone willing to pay you money for a job? It’s because you provide some sort of VALUE to the owner. Why do some people get paid $50k a year and others $250k a year? It’s because the person that provides MORE VALUE for the owner, receives more money. The money you receive is a reflection of the corporate value you bring to the business. The more value you create, the more someone pays you.

But for most people who have a job, a salary disconnects you from the concept of value creation. Most will see it as, “Well this is just how much a financial analyst position should be paid or this is how much a Pharmacist makes.” In reality, job salaries try to reflect the value your role has in the company but often are determined somewhat arbitrarily. Yes, salary numbers need to be grounded in what a profitable business can afford, but it doesn’t mean that it is a 1:1 ratio of the value you bring to a company.

Unfortunately, job income isn’t always meritocratic. You can be the best employee who brings in more money for the boss compared to 10 of your other coworkers (in a non-commission-based role), but you don’t necessarily make more money in lockstep with the value you bring. You can move up the corporate ladder by increasing your value, but it doesn’t mean you’re paid exactly for the value you add.

With your skills, you might be adding 1 million dollars to a company’s bottom line, but you probably won’t be paid that much. However, you could be okay with that because you value financial stability over more income. The disconnect between what you’re paid and how much value you create is often disproportionate, which alienates you from the idea of money being a direct store of value you create.

Value First, Money Follows

Now if you’re an entrepreneur, you should be highly sensitive to the concept of value, because if you aren’t bringing some value to the marketplace, you aren’t getting paid. The more value you create, the more value you get to store in the form of 0’s in your bank account. The ONLY THING that the zeros in your bank account represent is how much value you’ve created in the marketplace and then saved for future use. If your bank account is negative, you’re consuming more value than what you provided to the marketplace.

And if you’re a struggling entrepreneur, it’s most likely because you don’t understand the connection between value creation and money. You’re probably focused on, “How do I make more money.” Focusing on just the money and not what it represents forces you to make terrible decisions.

So to create money, you need to focus on VALUE. I know this might seem basic and simple but it’s intrinsically important in how you see money and how you obtain it. When you focus on money and not value, you will make less of it.

Money Focused vs. Value Focused

Money Focus Example

To drive the idea home let’s use an example. Let’s say you’re a kid who wants to make money during summer. You decide you want to mow lawns so you go around your neighborhood and you knock on as many doors as possible securing deals to mow your neighbor’s lawns. If you focus on the money, you think I’m going to speed through this as quickly as possible and get to as many neighbors as possible. You work hard and do a decent job but you cut corners so you can get to more neighbors homes to make more money. Your neighbors think you did a decent job but not great enough to want to use you again or recommend you to anyone else. Then after getting the money, you decide you’ve worked super hard so you’re going to spend it all on stuff you want because you earned it. You repeat the process each day doing the same thing.

Value Focus Example

However, let’s say instead of focusing on the money, you focus on providing value. Your thought process would be different. You think, “How can I best serve my neighbors and provide as much value as possible?” You then start knocking on your neighbor’s doors and for each job you get, you do the best possible work. You understand that it’ll save your neighbors time and their yard is going to be the talk of the neighborhood. You also listen to their needs and see if there is anything else you can do to add value to them. You then add additional services after hearing their feedback.

You did such a good job with your existing customers that they recommended you to everyone else they knew. You then think about how to serve and provide value to more neighbors because you know how much people would love to have a trustworthy kid to make their yard look like a million bucks. Now, instead of spending all your stored value, you save it and recruit and train other incredible young kids to also mow lawns. You teach them your philosophy and system for having happy customers. You also buy new and better equipment to cut your neighbor’s lawns faster and better. You create processes to make sure each customer is happy beyond belief when your team is done.

In both of these scenarios, who do you think is going to make more money?

Can you see how a shift in focus and understanding of money can change your actions? And it’s your actions that determine how much “stored value” you’ll have in the bank. I never understood why many wealthy people said “If you focus on the money it’ll run from you,” but it’s making a lot of sense now. The late great personal development guru Jim Rohn said, “You can have everything in life you want if you will just help other people get what they want.“

Jesus and Money

When I started to understand that money was simply stored value, I realized that being wealthy and being a Christian was NOT a walking contradiction. I’ve wrestled with that for so long. It seems like the bible has many verses that make it seem like if you want to be a good Christian, you should be poor. But it seemed contradictory because Solomon was beyond wealthy, and so were David, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob (Israel), and many historical patriarchs of the Judeo-Christian faith.

Here are just some verses that make it seem like wealth was a bad word:

Matthew 19:24 - Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.

1 Timothy 6:10 – For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

Matthew 6:24 – 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.

Hebrews 13:5 – Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.

1 Timothy 6:10 - For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

After hearing all that, you’d feel like money is icky and that it makes sense not to want to have financial wealth.

But it isn’t the whole story.

Purpose

It wasn’t long ago that I felt like I had another one of those powerful ah-hah moments that leads back to this one. I’ve always pondered the idea of PURPOSE. You probably have too. Why are we here? What is the purpose of our lives? What is my distinct purpose on this earth?

When I became a born-again Christian, about 17 years ago (oh man… that’s long a long time ago), I remember distinctly a conversation I had late at night at a Korean restaurant with my close friends. We had just gone through a pretty bad business breakup and I felt purposeless. I remember asking myself, “What’s the purpose of life if there was nothing beyond this life? Do we just chase happiness and money, struggling along the way, and then when we’re old we just die? Do we just cease to exist? All our memories are gone. I felt there had to be more to life than this.

It was at that moment I started to seek for something more. Eventually, after much soul-searching, and reading, I fully believed that Jesus was the answer. But that didn’t end my questioning of purpose. I had answers to the bigger picture of things. I knew God existed and that he created us, but I didn’t fully understand what our purpose was on this earth. What was my purpose?

But here’s what I did know:

1. I knew God said to love Him, love people, and make disciples.
2. I know Jesus told us to pray, “…Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
3. I understand that this world in its current form is passing away and there will be a new heaven and earth. Most people’s conception of heaven is drastically different from probably what it’s going to be like. We won’t just be floating around in some cosmic clouds lounging around. We’ll live in a redeemed earth.
   • Revelations 21:1-5
   • Isaiah 65:17-19
   • Isaiah 66:22
   • 2 Peter 3:10-13
4. We are the salt and light of the world. A preserver and something that shines in the darkness.

Why do I say all this? Because they were pieces to the puzzle of the purpose question that leads back to our topic of money being a “store of value.” Let’s break down what I know and then we’ll tie it back to money and store of value.

Jesus’ mandate for us was simply:

• Love God – The Great Commandment (Matthew 22:37-38)
• Love People – The Second Commandment (Matthew 22:39-40)
• Make Disciples – The Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20)

God’s Intended Design

I believe that God’s initial purpose for us (These are my thoughts) was for us to simply Love God and love people¹ and enjoy his creation. That was our purpose when he created Earth. Imagine if sin never entered the story… society would be beautiful and we’d have advanced as a civilization much faster, no doubt be multi-planetary at this point. Imagine the exploration and beauty we’d be able to experience that would go on for eternity if we lived forever in pre-sin bodies.

To give an idea of how big the universe is, our galaxy, the Milky Way, is just one of an estimated 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe. Each of these galaxies contains millions to billions of stars. For example, the Milky Way alone has between 100 to 400 billion stars, AND the universe is observed to be expanding!!!

How glorious would that be? No wars, peace everywhere, no death, eternal bodies, constant innovation and collaboration, and all of eternity to discover the beauties that God created at the beginning of time for us to explore indefinitely with Him by our side. You thought seeing the northern lights was beautiful…imagine what could be out there at the edge of our expanding universe?

Now let’s bring ourselves back to earth. Jesus said, “Let your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven.²” What is God’s will? To love Him and love people. If you love him you’ll do what He says. And what he says is in the Word. What happens to Earth if we love God and love people? Heaven on Earth. The first command is first because we can only truly love people rightly if we first love God. If our hearts are transformed to the will of God, then we’d love people properly and the world would be beautiful.

Unfortunately, sin exists. We are no longer operating in the perfect world God intended. We were given the Great Commission, to make disciples², because we as Christians are supposed to be the salt and the light of the world⁴. Preserving and lighting up the world so many can be saved before God restores the world to his original design. But it doesn’t mean we give up on Earth and just focus on ramming the Gospel message down people’s throats.

We first become disciples by being transformed by the Word, and then we become a changed person. Jesus didn’t send out the disciples right away by themselves when he called them. No, he spent time with them showing them how to become like him. When he felt they were ready, he began sending them out. Eventually, they were unrecognizable to the people they were before. They were fundamentally changed, now seeing the world through the lens of God’s heart.

Individual Purpose and Value Creation

We know our collective purpose as Christians; Love God, Love people, and make disciples. But what about as an individual? We’re all designed uniquely. No one in history or the future will ever be exactly you. There must be something to that.

There is.

We’ve all been created in the image of God, but we all have different talents, abilities, passions, and experiences. I believe God designed it that way so we’re all reliant on each other. Just like the allegory of the island and fisherman, we all need each other’s gifts and abilities. The world is a much more beautiful place when there are artists, teachers, businessmen, engineers, doctors, dentists, lawyers, entertainers, pastors, etc. Even within each profession, we all have unique skills we bring to the table.

After we’ve been transformed by loving God, part of the loving people portion of the great commandments is serving them. Using your unique gifts and abilities to create value for people. Imagine if we all honed our unique talents for the benefit of others. Doesn’t that sound like you’d “store a lot of value” if you did that? And wouldn’t it feel amazing doing what you love and are good at? That sure does sound like individual purpose to me and having a nice bag of “store of value.”

So it seems like God’s design was that we were created differently so we would need each other. And by needing each other, we have an opportunity to serve and bring value to each other’s lives. If that is the case, we should all have an abundance of stored value. Value is also infinite. There is no shortage of being able to create more value for each other.

So this brings me back to my confusion about being wealthy and being a Christian feeling like a contradiction. Being wealthy was never a bad thing in and of itself. Jews saw wealth as being blessed by God, so when Jesus said “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God,” (Matthew 19:24) even the disciples were confused. Money can indeed pull your heart away from God. That’s why Paul says in Timothy, “The love of money is the root of all evil.” That’s why if you’re not grounded in the Great Commandment, love God, wealth can destroy you and pull you away from God.

But if you provide immense value to other people (being grounded in the First and Second Great Commandments), then it’s likely that you’re going to store lots of value for yourself in the form of money. The more value you bring to more people, the more likely you’ll become wealthy. Wealth can be a sign that you’re providing value to tons of people as long as the value you bring isn’t a detriment to people and society (i.e. drugs, porn, etc.). That’s why loving God is the Great Commandment and the foundation of everything. Without its guiding principle, a good thing can turn into a bad thing.

Colossians 3:23: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.”

Becoming More Valuable

We’re now at the point where we understand money is simply a way to store the value you bring to the marketplace. We also know that God’s intended design was for us to love Him and love people. And one way to love people is to provide value to their life. The more value you create the more you store that in the form of money.

The next question is, how do I become more valuable so I can store more value?

Understanding Your Unique Design

If you want to maximize how much value you can create for society and store more value in your bank account, then it helps to figure out your unique composition. How did God create you and how can you use everything God has given to you to love people by serving them and providing value?

There is a Japanese concept called Ikegai. It means “a reason for being” or “a reason to wake up in the morning.” It represents the idea of living a life filled with purpose and joy by finding the balance between various aspects of life, including work, passion, and contribution to society.

It’s a concept I think that is a great way to find your sweet spot in how you can create the most value for people and operate from a place of purpose.

1. What do you love?
   • What are the things that make you feel excited, fulfilled, and alive? If you do something you love, you’ll have more staying power. And if you have staying power, you’ll compound how good you are at whatever you’re doing.
2. What are you good at?
   • What are your skills and talents? What experiences have you had that showed you what you were good at? What comes easy to you or you’ve honed through practice? Having a natural disposition for some ability means you have higher upside potential. If you’re terrible at basketball with no natural athletic ability, it probably doesn’t make sense to try to be a professional basketball player.
3. What the world needs
   • What are the needs in the world? What does your community need? What do you friends and family need? If you try to add value somewhere but it’s not needed, you aren’t creating value for anyone.
4. What can you be paid for?
   • If the world needs something but you can’t be paid for it, then even if you solve a problem, you won’t receive money for it. What value can you bring that people would be willing to pay for?

Your sweet spot is at the center of those four elements. If you’re diligent about figuring out what those different variables are in your life, you’ll create the most value for other people and feel more aligned with how God created you. It’ll pay pretty well, too.

You might not figure it out all at once. It’s a journey that you reference back to, using different means to figure out your Ikigai. I’m a big believer in using different tools to assess various aspects of yourself. There are personality and strengths assessments that I believe give you clues on how you tick and what makes you unique. Assessments aren’t perfect, but they do help with some guidance when used properly.

Also, the process doesn’t have to be perfect. You can try new things, get out of your comfort zone, and just see if you gravitate towards anything. It’s okay to quit something, contrary to what you might believe. You aren’t a quitter if you know you’re on a journey to figure out yourself. Make lists of things you love, your skills, and things you think the world needs and is willing to pay for. If you keep thinking about something, you’ll eventually get closer to the answer. You find things that you’re focused on.

Let’s conduct a little experiment that I saw Tony Robbins do. Try this with me. Look around you and find anything that is BROWN. Remember the items that you saw. STOP READING AND DO THAT NOW BEFORE MOVING ON.

Okay, now tell me what items you saw that were red. (That wasn’t a mistake. I did say red). I assume you can’t name anything. The reason why is because that’s not what you were focused on. The lesson from this experience is you find what you focus on. If you want to discover your uniqueness and apply it to the world, then you need to take time to focus on it.

If you’re more mature in your life’s journey, you probably have a decent amount of information to determine what your Ikigai might be. You just need to be intentional about figuring it out. It’s fun. It’s a journey to discover how the Creator made you and how you can best bring value to other people’s lives. It will make you happier as you journey towards discovery.

Exponentiating Value

Value Matrix

Here is the last thing I’ll end this with about storing more value in the form of money. I call this the value matrix and value graph.

This matrix gives you an idea of how to increase the stored value that you provide to the world.

Little Value –> Few People

In the lower left quadrant, you provide a little bit of value to a few people. This is the area where you make the least amount of money. If what you’re doing only brings a tiny bit of value to a small group of people, you’ll get paid accordingly.

Little Value –> Lots of People

In the lower right quadrant, If you provide little value but you’re able to reach lots of people, you’ll make good money. Let’s say you create a toy that you mass manufacture, it’s fun for a kid and provides some value, but it’s not life-changing. But there are lots of kids that want it so you can make a lot of money selling to tens of thousands of kids.

Lots of Value –> Few People

In the upper left quadrant, if you provide lots of value to a few people you can also make really good money. If you’re a business consultant, and through your services, you’re able to turn around a business and help them make a million dollars, they would gladly pay you $100k for your consulting fees.

Lots of Value –> Lots of People

In the upper right quadrant, if you provide lots of value for lots of people you’ll make a ridiculous amount of money. Think of companies like Apple, Tesla, Amazon. and Facebook. They create products that are life-changing and they do it for billions of people.

The quadrants aren’t fixed either. You can continue to increase the value you bring and bring it to more people over time. You aren’t stuck in one quadrant forever. Also, everyone’s quadrant potential isn’t the same. One person can be in the lots of value –> few people quadrant and make $500k a year while another makes $5 million a year. Your goal isn’t to compare yourself to someone else but to maximize your God-given potential to the benefit of all.

Value Graph

Your goal is to try to stay clear of the little value–>few people quadrant. The more you move to any other quadrant, the more likely you’ll be able to impact more people and provide more value. The value graph below illustrates that the more value you provide and the larger your audience, the greater your potential to earn.

Value = Skills and Knowledge

To move up the value axis, you need to increase your skills and knowledge in your area of highest potential. By doing the hard work of figuring out your design, you will inherently have greater potential to add more value to people because you’re operating from a place of comparative advantage. You are comparatively better than most people trying to do the same thing because you have a natural inclination for it. You might not be the best in the world, but you might be the best in your neighborhood, city, county, state, or country.

If you just work on increasing your skills and knowledge you can move to the lots of value –> few people quadrant. You can do extremely well in just that quadrant. But if you want to make your way to the lots of value –> lots of people quadrant, then you also need to work on increasing the amount of people you can impact. When you use your knowledge and time, you are limited in how many people you can work with.

Your time is finite. Everyone only has 24 hours a day. Time is limited and very valuable, but it doesn’t scale well. You might be able to work 18 hours a day for a couple of years, but eventually, you’ll burn out, and your productivity (physical and mental health) decreases. When you don’t have money, time is all you have, so you have to use your own time to create value. But if you’re smart, and store up your money for later use, you can keep removing yourself from the equation so that you buy back your time.

People = Leverage

To increase your reach, then you need to use your money, which we now know is just stored value, so that means you need to save your money and reinvest in it to increase your reach. Money is much more scalable than using your own time. There is an infinitely higher upper bound to wealth than time because we have 8 Billion+ people on this earth and an impossibly large universe that has yet to be explored where we can create value.

Money provides you leverage. The word leverage is derived from lever and a lever allows us to do more with less effort. The leverage that money can buy is time. We can use money to increase what we’re able to do in less time. There are several ways to do this:

1. People – Pay someone else to do the job that we were doing. They might be able to do it better too.
2. Software – Create or use software. The software has very little incremental cost. Once you create the software, you can easily duplicate it for billions of people to use. It can also automate many tasks that humans don’t do well.
3. Hardware – Machines or tools that make jobs easier. Large bulldozers make it easier to move dirt. Car factories with automated machines never get tired and can keep working long hours.
4. Media – Media instantly gives you massive reach. You can create a video and have billions of people see it.

Those are the primary levers that we can pull using money. If you increase your knowledge/skills and play with these levers, you can provide massive value and increase wealth.

Bringing it All Together

At the end of reading this, my goal for you to understand was seven-fold:

1. Money fundamentally isn’t dollar bills and gold bars. It’s simply a physical or digital numerical representation of how much value you created for other people. Money = Value.
2. If you want to make money stop thinking about making money and start thinking about how and who you’re able to bring value to and the money will follow.
3. To understand that God’s intended design was for us to love people by serving them. One way to serve them is to provide value to their life. And what we learned is money is simply stored value, so God is ABSOLUTELY okay with you creating wealth because wealth is a by-product of providing value. But wealth creation needs to be grounded in loving God first, because if you do, then the value you bring is intended only to uplift and do good. And with your earthly wealth, use it to store your treasures in heaven. (i.e. Love people with it and let them know the Love of God)

Matthew 6:19-21 - Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.

4. God made you unique. That was intentional. If you’re a porcelain vase but never figured out what your intended design was, you’d never experience the full joy of knowing you were to hold water and let flowers thrive for the enjoyment of others. So take the time to figure out your uniqueness and when you do, share your gifts with the world. The world will be a better place because of you.
5. To help you understand how to provide more value. Take time to understand your giftings, then increase your skills of natural competencies and use leverage (people, software, hardware, and media) to expand your reach. When you operate in your talents, you gain influence. With that influence, there will be people in that sphere that you and possibly only you can reach with the Gospel.
6. As human beings created by God, our overarching PURPOSE was to love God, love People, and enjoy his creations. Our mandate now as remnants of the people of God, is to make disciples. Put another way, we are called to bring people back to God’s original design before sin entered the equation.
7. If we want to do God’s will on Earth as it is in Heaven and bring a part of Heaven’s glory down here, we need to ground ourselves in God’s Word and do his will; loving God. Then we can love people rightly, by serving and providing value to their lives with the talents and abilities God has given us (Individual purpose). When we do both, it positions us to more authentically and powerfully share the Gospel with our spheres of influence because we’ve served them and loved them well (make disciples). Thus creating a powerful loop that’s intended to preserve as much of God’s original design for the world so many can be saved before God creates a new Earth and new heavens.

I know this was a long one and if you made it this far I’m thankful and proud of you!

Cheers to figuring out your design, increasing your store of value, and bringing heaven on Earth.