In Matthew 6:24, the Lord explained, "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon." As Christians, we should be absolutely committed to using our lives to serve God, not money. However, if we do not use some basic financial principles, we are likely to spend our lives serving money and being too entangled in it to serve God. Our goal should be to make money our servant, instead of spending our lives serving it.

Albert Einstein called the principle of compound interest the most important equation in mathematics. Those who know this principle and use it are the ones who basically control the world's finances at this time. Those who do not understand it, and who do not use it, are almost all financially controlled by those who do. That may sound like a fantastic claim, but if you stay with me long enough, you, too, will become convinced of it.

 Here is a dramatic example of the power of compounding: If someone was offered a choice of either one million dollars in cash or a penny multiplied every day for thirty days, most people would immediately take the one million dollars in cash. However, if they had taken the penny multiplied each day for thirty days, they would have compounded over $10,000,000.

Now let's take a real life example of how the principle of interest can affect someone's life. If a couple who marries at age twenty-five funds their tax deferred Individual Retirement Accounts by putting away $4,000 per year ($2,000 each), at age sixty-five they will have invested $160,000, but will have compounded over $2,000,000 if they get a 10 percent annual return on their investment.

If the same couple gets a little more aggressive with their investments and receives 14 percent on their $160,000 investment, they will have almost $9,000,000 by age sixty-five. If they get 16 percent, they will have over $17,000,000. This is $15,000,000 more than they would have received at a 10 percent return. Just a couple of percentage points can make that kind of difference over time. This is called "the time value of money," and we will discuss it in a bit more detail later in this study. For now let's consider some of the effects of this.

First, to the knowledgeable investor a 10 percent return is very modest. Many brokers and investment advisors would contest, saying that 10 percent is very good, but I personally consider anything that does not bring me at least a 20 percent return to be "a dog." When you are just starting and learning the ropes, 10 percent could be a good goal, but you can do much better.

Now think about this—our Social Security system in the U.S. only pays about 1 percent (that's right—just 1 percent) on the money that they take out of your check and are reserving for your retirement. At the rate of return now given by Social Security, your $160,000 investment may have grown to $175,000, which cost you about $1,800,000 over the return you could have received in a fairly conservative mutual fund. Even in the best of times inflation still runs 2 to 3 percent. So we are actually losing money in our Social Security account every year in real purchasing power.

The Bush Administration's proposed reform of Social Security would have allowed you to take part of your Social Security money received (and by the way, it is supposed to be your money), and invest it in approved blue chip investments where you could have received a decent return for it. This could have resulted in one of the greatest transfers of wealth to the lower and middle income families in history. Yet remarkably it was the Democratic Party, which claims to be for the little guy, the common worker, which relentlessly criticized the Bush plan as "irresponsible," calling it an attack on Social Security. Anyone who understands much at all about finance can see that our Social Security system is headed toward becoming the biggest financial tragedy in history and is already robbing Americans of more than any conceivable scam ever could have.

I do not think that the liberal party lawmakers were purposely trying to rip off America, but I do think they are either remarkably ignorant or naive when it comes to finances, as are most Americans and in fact most people in the world. As Christians, we should not be ignorant of that which would enable us to better manage the resources we have been entrusted with, as we have been exhorted by the Lord in the Parable of the Talents.

I am not saying this about Social Security to make a political statement, but to try to make the impression that we are going to be in serious trouble if we are counting on Social Security to provide for us in our latter years. Of course, we should not be putting our trust in anything but the Lord and His kingdom. Even so, if we are obeying His teachings, we should be multiplying what we have been entrusted with, and because of this obedience, we will be on a much firmer foundation.

This principle of compound interest is what banks and finance companies use against the ignorant so that they spend their lives paying and making the banks and finance companies wealthy. I do not blame the banks and finance companies for doing this. In fact, as a large part of righteousness is based on managing right what we have been entrusted with, they are the righteous in many ways, and those who are burying their resources are the "wicked, lazy slave" (see Matthew 25:26). Even so, it is time that we turned this around so that Christians are the ones being the good stewards and multiplying what has been entrusted to them for the work of the kingdom.

The key to using this principle instead of being used by it is to live a little more frugally and invest. Is that not what the Parable of the Talents is all about? We need to go from just being consumers to being producers and investors. During our lives we should provide more than we consume, and at the end of our lives we should leave more behind than we took from the earth. If every Christian lived that way, we could probably eradicate poverty from the earth. However, right now very few Christians live this way, but that will change.

Now think about this—if you invest through a tax deferred retirement account and you are in the 15 percent tax bracket, then the government is already giving you a 15 percent return by not taxing you on it until you withdraw it. If you are in the 35 percent tax bracket, then the government is giving you a 35 percent return before you have earned even a penny through your investments! This may be a shock to you, but I have come to deeply appreciate the IRS and our U.S. government tax policies because they reward the diligent and knowledgeable, and penalize the slothful or ignorant. Is that not biblical?

I have met many Christians who will not use this incredible vehicle of retirement accounts because the only statement in Scripture about retirement is not good. Who cares what they call the "accounts?" I agree that no Christian should be thinking of retirement, but they should be planning ways that they can use the last few decades of their lives to be the most fruitful serving the Lord. Most could probably do a lot of good with their time if they had a few million dollars in their account to live on, pay for mission trips, etc. Many could retire from their secular jobs much earlier and devote themselves to the work of the ministry during the most fruitful years of their lives.

The largest transfer of wealth in history is about to be made. We must get ready for it. If the Lord paid off the debts of all of His people right now, in just a short time most of them would be right back in debt. Before the Lord trusts us with more, we need to learn some basics and become disciplined in them so that when He gives us more, we will be good stewards of it. This does not have to take long, and it can actually be not only fun, but exhilarating.

Many who are reading this may already be in your latter years, and some of these things are going to give you deep remorse at not having understood them when you were young. If this is true, remember this—repentance changes everything, and the Lord can restore to you the years that the locusts have eaten! Even if we are able to just help our children and grandchildren do better, that is well worth taking the little bit of time to learn a few good financial management principles.

If Christians had been managing their affairs as the stewards we are called to be and had been using the principle of compound interest instead of being used by it, what would the resources of the kingdom now be? We would already be lending to many nations and not having to borrow, which is the prophecy given to those who would inherit the Promised Land in Deuteronomy chapter 28.

I want to encourage you to have these goals: 1) to be trusted with enough resources to take care of all of your needs with no burdens or stress (the Lord's yoke is easy); 2) to help many other people, while continuing to multiply what you are entrusted with; and 3) spend less time doing this than you are now in struggling with your own finances. My goal for all who read this Word for the Week is to have any financial burdens now being carried turned into something encouraging and positive by the end of this year. It is my belief that in two years you can be in a financial place twice as good as you are in now and that you can start to experience "an abundance for every good deed" (see II Corinthians 9:8). All of this is so that after we have been proven faithful in handling the unrighteous mammon, we will then be trusted with the true riches of the kingdom—to live like Jesus did, having authority over any human condition.