Visualize a story with me.

You are a few years into your career. Money is tighter than you would like, but God is providing. You are paying the bills, building a little margin, and learning what it looks like to make wise decisions with what you have.

Then, slowly, things start to change. Income rises (either slowly or more quickly). Life gets a little more comfortable. You upgrade a few things here or there. You sign up for the streaming services you used to share passwords for. You stop checking the bank app as often. You breathe a little easier.

And without ever saying it out loud, a new assumption sneaks in: when income rises, lifestyle rises. Otherwise termed: Lifestyle creep.

When two people say “I do,” they commit to love and cherish each other. They also commit to navigating life and money together. For Christians, marriage is a covenant before God, and managing finances within that covenant shows faith, trust, and unity.  

Before we even begin, I want to stop and rephrase the question: is it even possible to have peace in our financial lives?

As I was listening to a sermon titled, “Our Peace: God’s Will” by the late Dr. Charles Stanley, the question of whether we can have peace in our financial lives began percolating in my mind. We are used to discussing peace in our lives in the general sense of what we believe peace to be, but my mind started thinking about the correlation between peace in our lives and peace in our financial lives.

In my early years, I viewed work as a punishment. I felt that it was unfair that I had chores to do. I felt that it was a punishment for being a child, subject to my parents’ whims and commands, rather than the contribution toward the good of the family that it was.

As I got older, however, my views changed on work. I began to earn money from my labor, and this changed everything. I began to see the importance of work in everyday life, as a requirement to earn money and pay for the things that were important to me.

I run a Bible study at my church where we explore what God’s word has to say about finances and managing money.

Inevitably, as the study progresses, one of the most common questions I get is “What does the Bible say about how we should live? Does Jesus want us to sell all that we have and give the money to the poor?”