Money And Happiness – Not Necessarily Related
Our Mission
To present Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord to business and professional men and to develop Christian business and professional men to carry out the Great Commission.
Judges 3.2 describes, God left those nations simply because He wanted to teach the subsequent generations of Israelites, who had not experienced the earlier battles, how to conduct holy war. The idea of holy war is not a very positive one today. While it’s quite an old concept the Muslims have made the idea immensely unpalatable. The Muslim version of holy war involves using women, children and the handicapped, in addition to men without other options for gaining heaven, through the means of suicide, for accomplishing their objectives. Their holy war is the destruction of the infidel or the conversion of the infidel through terror and fear. The god they serve is abusive, terrible and unattractive in every way. Yet holy war predates Islam.
The Jewish God used the term holy war to describe the movement of His people from slavery to freedom by disbursing the nations who lived in the Promised Land. While God gave these people 400 years to repent they became instead increasingly more offensive to Him until they were condemned to destruction at the hands of the Jews. While God did indeed command His people to remove the occupants of the Promised Land the Scripture records a dismal record of success. Not because God was or is incapable but because His people were faithless and disobedient.
The holy war God describes really wasn’t a war of weapons with mass human destruction. The real war is one of faith and obedience between ourselves and God. While God called Israel into the Promised Land the cause of their victory would be God Himself through the miraculous, through nature and through the Israelite army, winning the war. The first battle Israel was to win was the battle over their fear and doubt about God’s calling and commitment to Israel. When Israel believed God and subsequently obeyed God, they found success. The win was sometimes at their own hand like David and Goliath. The win was sometimes at God’s hand like with Gideon and his small band.
Jesus, God as man, fought His holy war before beginning His revelation of Himself as God, the Savior of the world. The great enemy of God, the devil, engaged Jesus hoping to cause Him to doubt His mission and to disobey His mandate. Fortunately for all of humanity, Jesus prevailed.
This too is the holy war Christians must wage today. They must overcome their fear of the world, and their lack of faith in God’s goodness in order to wage war against every argument and idea that pits itself against the knowledge of God in any place. Christians are to war against their own will by embracing the will of God to love and serve all humanity until all of humanity experiences the love of God through them and invites the Savior into their own lives as Lord of all. There is still a need for holy war, not the Muslim kind but the Christian kind. One leads to death the other to eternal life.
His Opportunities
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MONDAY MANNA
A service to the business community
A Publication of CBMC International
July 31, 2017
Money And Happiness – Not Necessarily Related
by Jim Mathis
In addition to my regular business restoring old photographs and making executive portraits, I am also a tax professional for a national tax preparation services company. I have done about 1,000 tax returns in the past several years and earned the designation “Enrolled Agent – Master Tax Advisor.”
Over time, this have given me a pretty good understanding of American’s financial situation. By talking with people and getting a view of their levels of happiness and contentment, and then looking at their finances through taxes, I have made some interesting observations.
As you might expect, there is a disconnect between income and net worth. Some people with only modest income, have accumulated a lot of wealth, and many high-income people have spent it all and then some. A colleague and I were reviewing a tax return recently when I commented that this proves, “You can’t out-earn stupid.” Foolish people almost always spend more than they earn.
Many people think if they made a little more money they would be happier. Probably not. If there is any correlation between income and happiness, it would be a bell curve, with the happiest people located in the middle. The lowest income and the highest income people, on both ends of the curve, are the least happy. In case you are wondering, surveys report that the highest percentage of people claiming happiness peaks at about $75,000 per year income. Earning more does not make people happier.
Which brings up the eternal question, “Can money buy happiness?” I believe the answer is: It could, but it seldom does, because people spend it on the wrong things. A new car won’t bring happiness, but a road trip with good friends just might result in a lot of happiness – and fond memories that last a long time.
If it is true that money in itself cannot buy happiness, could we use it in ways that can bring us at least some degree of satisfaction, fulfillment and joy? Yes – especially if we follow principles found in the Bible:
Avoid extremes. As I mentioned, by far the happiest people seem to be those who would be categorized as neither poor nor rich, but somewhere in the middle. The challenge is to recognize what where the “middle” is. “Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ’Who is the Lord?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God” (Proverbs 30:8-9).
Indebtedness can put people in physical and emotional bondage. Many times, “buying” things with credit can satisfy immediate desires, but the long-term cost can be devastating – and restricts financial flexibility in the future. “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender” (Proverbs 22:7).
Sharing with others can bring great joy. Too often people take a dim view of giving, whether to help individuals or support charitable causes. However, knowing we can use some of our resources to lighten the financial burdens of others can be very rewarding. “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7).
Jim Mathis is the owner of a photography studio in Overland Park, Kansas, specializing in executive, commercial and theatrical portraits, and operates a school of photography. He formerly was a coffee shop manager and executive director of CBMC in Kansas City, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri.
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