3 Reasons Why Tracking Your Giving Is More Important Than Your Net Worth

Part of my financial testimony includes a few years of being completely enamored by the concept of Financial Independence. I was first introduced to the concept of financial independence probably back in 2016 when I was super interested in beginning my journey into real estate investing. At the time I was working as a leasing agent for a property management firm and I was seeing a lot of other people investing in real estate and making a living from it. I thought that if those people could do it, so could I.

So I dove straight headfirst into the world of real estate investing and sure enough not long after that, I learned about financial independence and basically thought it was the coolest thing.

What is Financial Independence?

Financial Independence is basically the concept of either having enough money in your bank account or retirement accounts in order to live off of comfortably without needing to make more money. You can also reach financial independence by having enough passive income that you don’t need to trade your time for money anymore.

One of the main numbers to help track your progress towards financial independence is your net worth. So we started tracking it pretty religiously.

I got sucked into this world of wanting to use real estate to become financially independent and I had convinced myself that this was the thing that everyone needed to be doing with their lives. Not only that but I had also convinced my heart that this was exactly what Jesus wanted for us as well.

That’s pretty much the path that I started on. I started investing in real estate with my husband only three months after we got married and this was around the time that I also started my blog, Agape Investing. Jesus was already pulling at my heart in little ways because the original idea for what I was going to be doing with my blog was to discuss topics of faith and real estate. I wrote articles like, What Does the Bible Say About Real Estate Investing? And How do I just love my tenants like Jesus would?

Fast forward a few years and then I started really pursuing more of a faith-based approach to personal finances, not just real estate investing. One day I was doing some research on a topic about what the Bible says about financial Independence. I was basically trying to go through the Bible searching for this truth – that God wholeheartedly wants us to pursue and experience financial independence. I wanted to find evidence that really backed up this concept and that’s when God really started tugging at my heart. While I was reading the Bible and searching for scripture to find my own proof that there was biblical evidence that God wanted us to pursue Financial Independence, and that is what you truly wanted for us as his people, God taught me a whole new lesson. And that lesson was pretty much the entire opposite of what I was trying to search for.

We have a biblical responsibility to track our net worth, but there are 3 main reasons why tracking your giving is more important than tracking your net worth. Generosity is one of the main biblical money principles that we should learn as believers. — PIN FOR LATER

Lessons About Net Worth From the Bible

One of the main things that I learned through this research was that I became so overly obsessed with our net worth and trying to reach this goal of financial Independence that I totally lost sight of the original intention and design and purpose for our money.

It wasn’t until maybe a year to a year-and-a-half ago when things started clicking and I had kind of another Spiritual Awakening with my finances. I had read a number of different faith and money books that really helped to drastically shift my perspective about money and not that but the way that I started teaching other people about it.

What was weird was that I felt like these lessons were always in the back of my mind since I had started researching with a Bible saying about how to manage our money but yet they were kind of laying dormant in my mind and it wasn’t until reading these books that this lesson started to come alive. The truth is that I knew everything conceptually but I didn’t actually believe it because I wasn’t acting out these lessons in my own money management. I knew that I could trust God by giving and being generous but I didn’t actually do it so it really made me think like “do I actually trust God with my money?”

Maybe you had a similar experience. You want to be a good financial steward. You know that you should be giving to the church and you know what you should be helping support certain ministries, and yet when you actually have the chance to financially support something you choose to say no. And there may be a number of different reasons why you say no in that moment, but one of those reasons may be because there’s a small trust issue. Because that’s what was happening to me!

I kept hearing you Bible verses in the back of my head saying faith without any actions is dead (James 2:26). And that really really hit me hard because I wanted to tell Jesus “But no, I do trust you, I do believe your promises, and I want to give to your kingdom!” But my actions were saying totally different things.

Blessing Fund

It was time that I started putting my money where my mouth is. I wanted to actually start supporting Kingdom building endeavors and to also set an example for others, especially my coaching clients. So one of the first things that I did was I added a blessing fund to our budget as a line item in the ‘giving category’ of our budget. I budget about $50 to $100 a month for spontaneous giving.

A blessing fund is a separate form of giving from our tithe.

Whenever the Holy Spirit presses upon us to give to something we now have some dedicated money set aside to be able to bless someone that way.

Tracking Your ‘Net Given’

Recently, I was introduced to a new way of shifting my focus from accumulating more to giving more. My friend Bob Lotich and his wife Linda went through a similar struggle of focusing too heavily on building up their net worth and so one of the things that really helped them was to start tracking what they’re giving and to try to increasingly give more rather than increase their bank accounts. They call this tracking their net given.

P.S. Check out Bob’s new book Simple Money, Rich Life where he shares how tracking their giving has transformed their life.

I have slowly started to implement this idea into my own budget and my own money tracking and even just in the last couple of months since I have really picked this up, it has really opened my eyes to find new opportunities to be generous and to participate in the kingdom of God.

The Money Taboo a weekly faith and finance devotional with Katie Jones

3 Reasons Why Tracking Your Giving Is More Important Than Your Net Worth

1. It Shifts the Focus Off of Accumulating More

I still believe we have a biblical responsibility to be tracking our net worth, but by letting your focus be on increasing your giving it seriously helps to relieve some of the stress of growing your net worth.

In fact, I would say the biblical responsibility we have to be generous is greater than the responsibility we have to tracking our wealth. The Bible says a lot about giving and generosity. In fact, Jesus himself said that it is more blessed to give than to receive.

In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”
Acts 20:35

Not only that, but when we focus on giving more away, it truly helps us see all the things that we already have to be thankful for. Giving and gratitude go hand in hand – each of them inspires one another and helps the other to grow in our hearts!

So friend, take delight in your opportunity to be generous and to give to others!

2. It Helps Open Your Eyes to New Opportunities to Participate in the Kingdom

This has been such a delightfully unexpected benefit of tracking our giving! As a money coach, I am usually sooo focused on saving more money and have found MANY creative ways to save more!. This has really been the result of always trying to increase my net worth. But now, since I have made it a goal to track and increase my giving, I have had my eyes wide open to find opportunities to give more!

I have actually been slightly saddened by all of the changes that I have had to be generous and have failed to see in the past. Now, since I am on the lookout for them, they are everywhere and it has been such a pleasure to take part in so many fantastic Kingdom-building opportunities!

3. It Makes Giving WAY More Exciting!

All in all, giving is now extremely exciting. Before, I had been a slightly reluctant giver (since I thought I was harming my net worth). But now that I have relieved myself of the stress of growing my net worth so much I have been overjoyed by every opportunity we have had to be able to give more!

At the end of the month, I love getting to see the total amount of all our giving endeavors. We have said yes a lot more often and have simply felt FREE. It is hard to describe the feeling exactly, but all I can say is that it feel so good, and now, our money has a lot less control over our lives.

This is why tracking your giving is more important than your net worth. Because when you track your net worth you are a slave to building up your assets. When you track your total given, you are freed from the expectation that money will essentially make you feel successful.

What do you think about this? Do you think we should be tracking our giving?
Share in the comments!
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