This Number Is More Important than Net Worth

Part of my financial testimony includes a few years of being entirely enamored by the concept of financial independence. I was first introduced to the concept in 2016 when I had first started looking into how to invest in real estate. At the time, I was working as a leasing agent at a property management firm and saw many varieties of people investing in real estate and making money from it. So I thought, Hey I could figure this out too! 

So I did! And I got sucked into the world of wanting to use real estate to achieve financial independence. This is actually the time I started my blog to discuss my real estate investing endeavors and to discuss faith and real estate primarily. 

Well, fast forward a couple of years and I was doing some research on whether Christians could pursue financial independence or not and God started to tug at my heart… While I was trying to prove one thing – that God wholeheartedly wants us to achieve financial independence – God revealed the complete opposite to me.. 

I was so focused on our net worth and how much it was growing each month, that I lost sight of the true purpose of our money. However, even though God revealed the truth to me, I still didn’t really change my ways. I didn’t do anything differently. 

Maybe the same is true for you? You know God is calling you to give more to your church, or to help support that ministry. Yet, when the opportunity is presented, you don’t do it. 

It wasn’t until about a year ago when things really started clicking for me. I read a handful of faith & money books that dramatically shifted my whole perspective of my money and the way I taught about it. Honestly, it’s like the lessons were there in the back of my mind, but dormant. It was all conceptual knowledge that I wasn’t really taking action on. And I finally got this itch to do more and to play a bigger part in building the Kingdom of God and to start being more of an example to my coaching clients too. 

I was introduced to a new way of shifting the focus of our finances by my friends the Lotichs. They suggested instead of focusing only on your net worth – that you should focus more on your total given! 

Now that we track our giving, we get excited when we find new opportunities to participate in the Kingdom of God through our generosity. We’ve stopped focusing so much on our net worth and how much we are accumulating and started focusing more on Kingdom-building investments. 

I’d love to know what you think about this too. Email me back your thoughts. Do you track your giving?

Your Friend,
Katie Jones