We moved this blog

This wordpress site was where I got started blogging while the main site was still being developed.  It was supposed to forward to the main site, but I just had someone comment on this site and so I realized it is not forwarding.

You can find the new site at  www.kingdomcalling.com

Thanks for reading!  wes

Kingdom Calling vs Financial Advisors: Risk

Most financial advisors lead people to produce financial plans that are fraught with risk.

Are you gambling with your financial security?

When it comes to “Protection,” such as insurance, financial advisors typically choose to offer plans in which you end up paying the highest premiums for the lowest benefit – exactly as the insurance companies like it. Using these plans people usually expose themselves to way too much risk in every single area of their insurance. One’s insurance should be a solid foundation that protects your financial house from ruin. Most people I first meet think they have their’s well taken care of, but as they become more educated end up changing almost every single decision they had previously made.

The Easy Life in Jesus (Mt 11:18-30)

Matt. 11:18-30

Faith like a child

Yesterday, we spoke of the spiritual life that our Messiah calls us to. Today Jesus teaches us how to seek and find Him and then to achieve a peace and rest in Him. I think this is what many in the world are looking for…a life with less stress, more peace and rest!

The key to faith and growth in Jesus is childlike faith. A big problem in the Church is our constant wrestling over and obsession with complex theology. This blog is no exception. We posted an interview with brothers of the Chinese Church a week ago, and what we see of them who are experiencing an incredibly rich walk with the Lord is the simple faith and trust of a child to his parents. The complex theology does not bring us close to Him, the absolute devotion and commitment of our lives does.

Kingdom Calling vs Financial Advisors: A Better Way

Almost all financial advisors recommend that you invest your money in the stock and bond market, usually through mutual funds, although it could be through wrap accounts, managed accounts, or in individual stocks and bonds.

The emotional rollercoaster of the stock market

All of these options are subject to the schizophrenic, emotional roller coaster of the markets. As you know well, the value of your accounts can go down because of something that has nothing to do with the value of the underlying company. And these negative years hurt far more than the positive years help. So no one does as well as the average return of the investment they are investing in.

Why expose yourself to these risks?

We here at Kingdom Calling are hesitant to take on any of this market risk. Many of our clients pulled money out of the stock market before the serious crash began as they were being educated in stewardship. Some have just recently started looking at the market, but with new eyes.

Jesus brings understanding of the spiritual (Mt 11:1-17)

The Kingdom life taking root

Matthew 11:1-17

After training and sending off His disciples, which we discussed Friday, Jesus went to preach in the towns of Galilee. It’s interesting that John the Baptist and the disciples were key players in the ushering in of the Kingdom Jesus came to bring, and yet they didn’t really have a clue what God was doing.

Each was an important part of God’s plan, and He worked through them. John heralded the coming Kingdom and yet he did not know what it was. They could not see beyond their own simple understandings. Their world revolved around their own lives and their own deeply ingrained misconceptions. They believed that Jesus would come ahead of an army to kick Rome out of Israel and restore its sovereignty. They had no understanding of the new spiritual life that God wanted to breathe into His people and that He is very patient to bring about the ultimate conquering in order to foster this life within us.

Kingdom Calling vs. Financial Advisors: Hoarding Hurts

Financial advisors encourage you to be miserly and have the smallest possible impact on the world. This is the same financial advice given in most churches, either because that advice is coming from lay people or from church members who are practicing “traditional financial planning.” And for a lot of folks it’s not horrible advice, because most Americans, and most Christians for that matter, have a terrible spending problem. So the advice is to scrimp and save.

What has your money done for you lately?

Now, saving is important. And not wasting your money frivolously is important. But if that’s where most of your focus goes, you can’t focus on being more productive. If such frivolous spending is a problem, then it needs to be addressed (and sometimes we spend considerable time with clients on this), but once there’s a reasonable amount of discipline here, there is far more that can be accomplished by focusing on producing more with what we have.

So where financial advisors encourage hoarding, Kingdom Calling focuses on cash flow, so your assets can actually send you money instead of giving you only paper gains. Think about it: you can’t eat a paper gain, but you can definitely be hurt by a paper loss.

Kingdom Calling vs. Financial Advisors: Who Benefits

If you’ve been reading this blog for some time, you may remember me asking the following questions:

Are you in control of your money?

1)Does a bank, or other financial institution want all of your money or just some of it?

2)When you make more money in the future, do they want that too?

3)Do they want to give your money back to you soon or a long time from now?

4)When they do give it back, do they want to give it back all at once or over a long period of time?

Do you remember, or know the answers?

Carrying the Authority of Jesus (Mt 10:26-42)

Matt. 10:26-39

Will you carry your cross and follow Him?

We have been looking at the disciple relationship which Jesus began teaching here. Remember, these are the words that Jesus had given to those disciples whom He most trusted who had agreed to give up everything to follow Him. Jesus promises the small few Believers who are truly willing to follow Him (not just those who believe in Him and will get to Heaven some day) that they will be transformed into His image and be His representatives on this earth.

In this section, Jesus teaches that the values of a disciple and his perspectives of life must change. There is no longer any room for fear as one follows Christ because the trust and faith in Him should imbue the disciple with a peace.

Kingdom Calling vs. Financial Advisors: Building Glass Ceilings

My years as a traditional financial advisor, before I questioned the status quo and began focusing on stewardship, taught me a lot. One of the most salient things I gleaned in those years was that fact that your standard financial advisor can’t, over time, really help you out-perform the market. But they may well help you under-perform the market. In fact that outcome is far more likely.

Do you feel like you're not going to make your dreams a reality?

I also realized that when you’ve acquired “enough” assets to reach your current “goals,” financial advisors will routinely encourage you to be less efficient moving forward. They won’t tell you this, of course, but that’s typically what their recommended course of action “says.” So one of the great products that a relationship with a financial advisor can offer you – is a shiny new glass ceiling for you, your money and your dreams.

The Life of a Disciple (Mt 10:24-25)

“A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master. 25It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher, and the slave like his master. If they have called the head of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign the members of his household!” (Matthew 10:24-25)

Powerful transformation can occur within you when you yield to being discipled

We’re continuing the discussion from yesterday that began here about how to be His disciple. Far too many of us desire to be true disciples of Christ, but either don’t know to, or don’t follow through to put ourselves in actual discipling relationships. A follower of Christ Jesus should position himself or herself rightly in spiritual relationships. There are teachers of the Kingdom of Heaven and they need to be received as such. We can’t receive them until we honor and relate to them accordingly.

There is something unseen that happens in a relationship such as this.