Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God — this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is — His good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:1-2
“Any discussion of financial margin would be incomplete without mentioning the pure joy of it. There are three reasons for this joy. First, by lowering expenses below income you live with far less stress and pressure. If the refrigerator breaks down, you don’t. If your car needs new tires, you simply go out and get them. Without margin life struggles and staggers and stumbles. But when margin is present, life flows. And flowing is more enjoyable without staggering.
Second, having financial margin allows beneficence toward others. This is one of the most rewarding of all human activities, and I am convinced it is a subset of love. Meeting the needs of others delivers us from the world of selfishness and into a world of grace and gratitude.
These two sources of joy are sufficient grounds to recommend margin. But there’s yet a third, even greater, source of joy. It is a transcendent kind of pleasure that comes neither from within nor without but from above. It comes from the source of all that is right, and when you approach it you feel its warmth even from a distance.
In giving, you are ushered into a world where cynicism and hatred have been banished. You are considering others before yourself. You are choosing heaven as the place you will put your treasure. You are doing what God asked you to do, and what he did Himself. In giving, you are pleasing Him.”
Richard Swenson in Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2004) 137-138.
As we follow Jesus living life on mission (like the people whose feet are pictured above), not ceasing from our work, but as workers for God in various professions, we quickly find that it’s hard to please God without financial margin as we are slaves to money. As we earn, we must live within our means to create financial bandwidth for the unexpected, for giving, and for living lives pleasing to God.
This requires that we live differently from the world! Because about two-thirds of Americans are slaves to debt and have little or no financial margin, Swenson suggests these three points to motivate us to chart a course and take it. Do it to relieve stress, to have resources to give, and most of all to please God. It may require you to say “no” to much of what the world offers. But it’s worth it!
Need help? Check out my Good and Faithful videos that stream freely. Share them with someone you know who struggles to have financial margin. You may do more than help them find freedom from slavery to debt; you may set them free from the love of money to find stability, resources for generosity, and best of all, to position them to experience boundless joy of a life that pleases God.