What is Biblical Financial Freedom?

In last week’s devotional, I opened up about how my pursuit of financial independence was very toxic to my relationship with Christ. The thing I deeply desired was freedom, but what I didn’t realize was that the freedom I was trying to obtain was not the kind of inner freedom I really needed.  

Freedom does not mean we are free to do whatever we want. Think about a child, let’s name him Timmy, who constantly begs to eat junk food, stays up late playing video games, and doesn’t want to do their homework. What would happen if Timmy’s parents gave him the “freedom” to do all of these things all of the time?

Timmy would definitely have poor health from eating too much sugar and carbs, his immune system would be weak from low amounts of sleep, and his brain would not be properly developed from too much time playing video games and not enough time spent on school work. 

Parents give their children rules because of their deep love and understanding of what is truly best for their kiddos. When kids don’t follow the rules, there are consequences. Not just being grounded or getting a time out. But the consequences are deeper than that. Affecting long term health, and happiness.

Freedom is not doing whatever we want with our time and money. God has something better in mind for us. 

God’s will for your life is for you to surrender, and to obey his commands. Even though it seems counterintuitive, we should take delight in the fact that God gives us “rules” to follow because just like the parent guiding their child to have a healthy and prosperous life, God does the same for us by giving us guidelines for how to live fulfilled and abundant lives! 

In our small minded thoughts, we believe that freedom means going our own way, following our hearts, and doing what feels natural. This is what society teaches us, not God. The reality is, freedom is found in surrender and obedience to serving Christ and our neighbor. Most of the time, those kinds of choices do not feel freeing, nor do they feel natural. 

Surrender your finances to God, and seek to obey and serve Christ and do good for your neighbor. This will not come easily at first, and it may feel as though God doesn’t care about the desires of your heart in the process. But his promises are true, and you can find true freedom  abiding in God’s original design for your life and money. 

– Katie Jones