January 07, 2007
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Plan a Valuable Product Making Money - One of your first spiritual assignments as a King is to make money. Here’s the simple reason that I learned from my thirteen years as a pastor. Ministry costs money – nothing happens without money. If you’re living paycheck-to-paycheck it’s likely that you don’t have a ministry. If your business or investments are overflowing, then you will be on the lookout to bless people and convert some of that money to ministry. It even frees up your own time to minister in your own community or take missions trips. Identify Your Product – When you’ve finished identifying the desires of your heart, passion, purpose and goals something golden will appear; your ministry. You have great value to God. Remember the hidden treasure and the pearl? That’s you. What you desire in your heart also has great value; not only to God but to others. Artists don’t just paint for themselves. Great musicians don’t play in sound proof rooms. Politicians don’t give speeches in a vacuum. We “give” our gifts to bless others… to bless the nations. Now, before we get too spiritual, how many paintings, concerts, and elections have you seen that are free? Get the point? What we have to give has value to God and to people. It’s entirely appropriate to exchange money for that value. One of the largest strongholds of the poverty mentality is that we have no value and our vision is worthless as well. Your passion will lead you to a product or a service and then a profit. When it does your ministry will begin. Until then, your entire ministry is a spare time activity. Your ministry and passion are important enough to you and God to deserve your full attention. That means it has to generate a profit in order to pay the bills. Work in the Biblically purist form is working on your passion. That’s what God designed you to do… so figure out a way to do it. It will bless your heart. … and if you don’t labor at your passion? You’ll gradually starve your passion and kill your heart. Sure, you’ll still go to heaven. You just won’t have any fun or fruit in the mean time. Don’t Just Save, Lean to Sow – The first step to making money is to get out of the religious mindset of works and engage your heart. No one has ever stuck to a budget any more often than Christians have kept the law! If you can capture your vision in goals, your natural passion will propel it to the top of your financial priority list. Buy income generating assets that support your vision (this feels like shopping!). We’re not saving money for a rainy day; you will just guarantee a rain storm. We save money to spend – just change what you spend it on. Instead of “depreciating junk” buy yourself something that will support your vision… start your business, real estate, invest in stocks, etc. That kind of spending is called “sowing” for a harvest. How should we sow (shop for our vision)? Abundantly, of course! Do you see now why your heart likes to shop? You just need to point your heart toward its first love. Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. 2 Cor 9:6 NIV You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion… 2 Cor 9:11 NIV Track Your Progress – We’re all stewards of our time, talents, and money. As you allow your heart to go shopping for assets that line up with your vision track your progress on a personal financial statement. That is simply a one page summary of all your assets and liabilities summarizing your financial net worth at the bottom. You can get a free template http://www.score.org/template_gallery.html. Your list of income generating assets should be growing and producing more income every year throughout your life and in the end it should be the inheritance you pass on to your grandchildren. A good man leaves an inheritance for his children's children… Prov 13:22 NIV Pick A Path – As you think about your passions, ministry, and shopping for assets the following categories may be helpful to think through. We have interviewed Kings in each of these categories and you can read them on our web site. See http://www.releasing-kings.com/Interviewing-Kings.html. In addition, they are generally people that would be glad to give you some advice on how to get started. Real Estate – There is only so much land in the world and every year the price keeps going up. Rental property, raw land, and housing developments can be good opportunities. Business (Hard goods and services) – Starting a business in line with your passion can be a very rewarding and profitable. Internet Marketing – Marketing your information over the internet is a rapidly growing field that has an affordable entry price. Network Marketing – Many network marketing companies are now internet based so you don’t have to keep a garage full of product. It's an excellent place to start in business for anyone. It's also is an excellent second income opportunity where you can learn vital business skills at low cost; Especially selling, organizing, making presentations, accounting, team building, negotiating, persuading, and communicating. 85 percent of what you need to learn to be successful in business you can learn from running a successful Network marketing business. Investing – Investing is the least time consuming way to buy income generating assets. You provide the finances and someone else does the work. It can be a way for you to participate in a business without being responsible for one. You Can Be Millionaire – Let’s assume you could save 10% of your income that would earn 10% a year between the age of 25 and 55. That’s one million dollars! Too bad none of us can stick to a budget. Here’s the good news. If you follow your heart’s desires and stick to your passion, you’ll save more than 10% and God will show your returns much higher than 10%. Your cup really will overflow! I believe that is the message of 2 Cor 8-9. The Most Common Failure Point – When Christians first get started on their passion they usually get so excited and so ignited by the revelation of it all that they forget to get a little help. They use faith as an excuse to swim with the sharks and have a bad experience. Although you and your passion are as unique as a snowflake, you still find someone that has covered some of the same ground before who can save you years of mistakes. “Fathering” and networking are key ingredients in being Kingly. 100% of the people that are already wealthy know one thing that the rest of us may not – they can point to someone that helped them. Someone gave them an idea, did part of the work, or provided some of the financing… no one does it alone. Networking is a key ingredient to building wealth and converting money into ministry. Have’s and Have nots – We determine our own level of prosperity. By our actions and attitudes toward money we decide. If you decide to make a profit you will find that multiplying the increase will come very easily. Think of it as being faithful with the resources God has entrusted you to manage. Conversely, if you are too spiritual to manage money you will grow poorer and poorer. Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. Matt 25:28-30 NIV People that know how to multiply their talents usually have the following characteristics.
Giving – Why learn to prosper? It’s a Biblical way for Kings to multiply ministry. Giving really is more blessed and more fun than receiving. However, until you learn to receive and prosper you won’t have anything to give. Resources - Here are a few resources you might enjoy. The first two web sites have many business tools and startup helps. SCORE (Senior Core of Retired Executives) http://www.score.org/ These are folks that are often Christians that have offices in most cities in the US. SBDC (Small Business Development Center) http://www.wsbdc.org/ Many states have offices that provide help to small business just to develop the local economy. The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach is a secular book on saving money. I recommend “spending” on income generating assets over saving but this is still interesting reading. He recommends using your company matching savings to put money in your IRA to avoid taxes and save more than 10%. Life is an adventure. People are a blessing. God is amazing. We're winning.
Love, John & Harold (are dancing - Join us) Our back issues are organized by topic - great way to find what's interesting! You've also been voting. Here are the greatest "hits" newsletters from the past.
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