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Retirement Investing - Restitution - What The Bible Says

November 18th, 2006 by Papabear

Last Sunday I wrote a post based on Malachi 3:11, where God promises:

And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, So that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field, says the Lord of hosts.

I’ve had feedback from a couple of people on that post, so I thought this Sunday, I’d share another Bible principle. This one may seem a little more radical than the last one to many people. But since I believe the Bible is clear here, I feel like a preacher I heard one time who said “don’t blame me, I didn’t write the book.”

And like I said last week, for the benefit of any non-Christians or skeptics who are reading this post, it may not be for you. But for Christians this is the most practical kind of advise.

First let’s go back and look at a verse in the Book of John:

The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. John 10:10

I wrote last week about praying for protection, according to the promise in Malachi 3:11, that the Devil would not devour your crops (our investments). That’s a promise for the future. But what about what’s already been stolen from you? This certainly covers at least any money we may have lost to swindlers, literal thieves and robbers – or even to white-collar thieves.

These kinds of conscious thievery are certainly covered by this principle. We’ll leave it to the theologians whether thievery here covers investments that went bad when the persons in charge of the investment originally only had the best intentions. Sometimes things just do not work out as planned. And the principle may well not cover a bad investment we made when we simply did not do our due diligence or got greedy and invested in something stupid that we should have known was too good to be true.

What we’re talking about here is the obvious kinds of theft. So what was the Bible penalty for theft? This can be found in Proverbs:

Yet when he is found, he must restore sevenfold; He may have to give up all the substance of his house. Prov. 6:31

So if the Devil or evildoers have stolen from us, what are we entitled to? According to Prov. 6:31, the Devil and the evildoers owe us a sevenfold restitution. OK, the principle is clear, so where do we serve the papers then? What’s the thief, the Devil’s, mailing address?

We know if we sue someone in a court of law, the judge and agents of the court can put a judgment against the guilty part. So where do we find a judge to settle our claim? The Bible talks about the ultimate Judge:

If one man sins against another, God will judge him. 1 Samuel 2:25 and

Let the heavens declare His righteousness, for God Himself is Judge. Ps. 50:6

The same principle and process applies here. God is our righteous Judge. But where do we find a lawyer to plead our case? In 1 John the Bible says”

My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 1 John 2:1

This verse tells us who we can get that will represent us.

So we’ve established the legal principle of our right to restitution (Prov. 6:31). We have established that God is the ultimate Judge (1 Samuel 2:25) and that Jesus will act as our advocate (1 John 2:1). So how will we collect on what is owed us? Where will the money come from to pay restitution? Should we expect the Devil to write us a check? No, it doesn’t work that way. For the anser, let’s look at how God gets money to us in response to our obedience in tithes and offerings.

Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again. Luke 6:38

God doesn’t literally drop the money down out of Heaven. God uses other men to get money to us. God can then be our process server to collect the judgment from the thief and can get the money to us through others, not even necessarily or even usually not the person who stole the money from us in the first place.

We can nearly all remember specific instances where money has been stolen from us, either by force or deception. Satan is the great thief, whoever did the actual stealing. Thievery is one of his specialties. God is the Supreme Judge, and Jesus is our advocate or attorney.

To put the principle to work, we need to remember specific instances of thievery, write them down, and present our case to God, our Judge, with Jesus as our advocate, through pray. We should ask for specific restitution, based on a specific incident, invoking a specific amount, and do this by basing our claim on Prov. 6:31.

If we believe God’s work is true, we can then wait for and expect restitution with the same certainly we would wait for a refund check from the government, if we are owed a tax refund. This does require great faith and a clear belief in God’s Word. This is a great test to find out who you trust more: the government or the Word of God?

If you have thought or comments, please respond. We welcome your comments, whether you agree or disagree.

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    Retirement Investing - Protecting Your Investments - What The Bible Says

    November 12th, 2006 by Papabear

    Today is Sunday, so let’s take a little time to talk about a different kind of strategy for retirement investing.  This post may seem like it’s just for Christians.  Maybe it is.  But the principle of doing all you can to protect your retirement investments applies for everyone.

    Regardless of where you are investing and what type of retirement savings plan you have, you need to take steps to protect those investments.  This is especially important as we get older.  We could always write off a bad investment and start over when we were young.  It wasn’t a lot of fun to see an investment we had high hopes for go down the drain, but sometimes it happens.  When we’re older though, we know we have to be very careful where our money is invested, to try to minimize risk.

    Christians have an advantage, however, when it comes to investments or at least to peace of mind.  The Bible says:

    The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. John 10:10

    This post is too short to get into involved in a debate on whether God really wants His children to prosper financially as well as spiritually. I think he does.  Maybe we’ll look at that another time.   For now, most Christians accept that the Devil does not want Christians to prosper.  We can then can look at what the Bible says about protecting ourselves from the thief and how to stop him from stealing from us.

    The Bible compares investing to planting a seed.  For example:

    As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”  Gen. 8:22

    When a farmer plants a crop, he does not just go away and leave the crop unprotected until it is time for harvest.  He watches his crop to make sure it gets adequate nutrients and enough water.  If insects attack the crop, he fights back before they can devourer the crop.  For Christians, the Bible says:

    And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, So that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field, says the Lord of hosts.  Malachi 3:11

    The same principle applies here to protecting our financial crops.  Of course, God is our ultimate source – not a special set of financial investments we have made.  If all our investments were wiped out, God could find another way to supply our needs.

    Bet let’s start with what we know best – the investments we have been involved in.  If you’re a Christian, you can accept and appropriate God’s protection on your crop (based on the promise in Malachi) and pray that the devourer (Satan) stays away from your crop (your investments).

    I know this may be a little radical for some of you Christians out there.  But we are also told:
    Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.  Ps. 103:2

    The promise in Malachi 3:11 is a tremendous benefit, if we have the faith to receive it.  Let’s be bold enough to acknowledge that we have been given this promise and to accept it.

    For you non-Christians and skeptics out there who are reading this, you probably won’t think today’s post fits in the usual practical advice on retirement investing and retirement savings accounts you see on this blog.  Feel free to post a comment or to just ignore today’s post.  It’s not really for you.  But for the Christians out there, this is one of most practical pieces of advice you’re likely to read on retirement investing.

    Let us remember to “forget not His benefits”.

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    Retirement Investing - Rejoice In Today

    October 23rd, 2006 by Papabear

    Here’s a special thought for Sunday or whenever you read this.

    I posted a blog entry a couple of days ago I called Retirement Investing – What Would Jesus Do? After seeing that post, a friend reminded me the Bible also says:

    “This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” PSALMS 118:24

    We can rejoice over happy memories of the past, or we can rehash old mistakes we made.

    We can rejoice – in effect – about the future because we can imagine goods things happening. We can also worry about the future by imagining bad things happening. And isn’t it interesting how it often seems easier to come up with more negative things to imagine about the future than positive ones.

    You may be asking what does this have to do with retirement investing or saving for retirement? We must remember – the only day we really have control over is today. To take control of the future, we must take control of today.

    Let’s begin by taking control of our attitude. Let’s resolve – just for today – to rejoice.

    Remember – “One Day At A Time”.

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