Ever wondered how financial generosity could not just change lives but also align with divine purpose? Our latest episode takes you through the transformative journey of Kingdom Giving, an approach that intertwines biblical principles with your fiscal footprint, both personally and in business.
We're going to dive into the five core principles that we built our 2-part giving strategy upon. This podcast us uber practical, so if you're ready to take your giving to the next level, this is the show for you.
Enjoy
Ever wondered how financial generosity could not just change lives but also align with divine purpose? Our latest episode takes you through the transformative journey of Kingdom Giving, an approach that intertwines biblical principles with your fiscal footprint, both personally and in business.
We're going to dive into the five core principles that we built our 2-part giving strategy upon. This podcast us uber practical, so if you're ready to take your giving to the next level, this is the show for you.
Enjoy
So today we're talking about Kingdom Giving. We're going to specifically dive into five key principles and then we're going to talk about our system. David and I have a two-step system for how we give, and also we'll give you a couple of tools on how you can actually give, make it tax exempt, the whole nine yards, and then allocate it out. Yeah, now let me say this today is Valentine's Day. Happy Valentine's Day everybody. Well, they might not be listening to it on Valentine's Day. Yeah, well, I'm telling you today we're recording it on Valentine's Day and I can't think of anything that could say I love you to God more than giving him our finances. And obviously, giving and the principle of generosity isn't just about money, it's about our time, it's about all of this stuff, but what we do with our money is so incredibly important. Why? Because where your treasure is there, your heart will be all boom sauce. Okay, so now let me tell you the genesis of this Red Skelton.
Speaker 1:Dr Red Skelton, who owns his own medical practice and health and wellness in Texas, he was actually on our football team when we were in junior high school. He was the center, david was the quarterback, so David's hands have been all over Red's butt. Okay, jason, let's move on. Okay, sorry about that. So, anyways, like I've said before on these podcasts, if you guys ever have something you want us to talk about, then fire it off. You know Red's got my cell number. If you don't have cell number, go to debatbenhamcompaniescom and tell her, you know? Or? You know, I was going to say, hit us on social media, but David and I never check social media, so I'm sorry about that. Well, it's not that we never check it, we rarely check it. So Red told us hey, man, do something on the principle of first fruits giving with my business, and how to follow the Holy Spirit, what comes to generosity through your business and all that kind of stuff. So I love that.
Speaker 1:And so I got to thinking and God wants us to give generously, right. So the question is how do we do it? As fatefield entrepreneurs, we own a business, we run an organization, what do we need to do? Well, you need a system, okay. So you're going to have to have a giving system. Remember, god creates systems. It's called an ecosystem, it's called the circular system. Like your circulatory system, you've got a skeletal system, you've got. Like your body is held together by systems. The nature is held together by systems, so you have to create systems. All right, now systems have to be built on principles, so let's talk principles first. I'm going to give you five key principles for generosity that the scripture teaches us. Okay, and these are important because this is how we're going to prop our system up on top of this.
Speaker 1:Okay, so the first principle is the principle of generosity. Proverbs 19, 17 tells us when you give to others, you lend to the Lord. Follow it means it's coming back. That's exactly right. And you're like no, we're supposed to give without the thought of getting something in return, right, getting something in return from the people you give to, and also not necessarily getting something in return today or on this earth, right? So you're not thinking I'm going to give to them so they'll give back to me? No, no, no, you should be thinking about reward. Why? Because God hardwired you with a need and a desire for reward. What do you think, adam, when God told him to cultivate? You think he dug in the ground for nothing? No, he was motivated by the reward that he would get out of the ground, the resources that would come out of the ground, so that he could provide for his family. Okay, we know all through scripture that God tells us that if you give, you lend to me and I give back Now, he may or may not give it back to us in this life, but he certainly will give it back in the next life and he certainly gives it back to us because we're obeying him and obedience is, it brings us into alignment with him and we feel peace. So the principle of generosity is to give for a return Right and the return is simply based on what God gives to us, not what others can give to us. I tell my daughter, ava, she was working at Chick-fil-A and I said work for a double deposit today. She's like, okay, dad. Well, she knew, because you're going to get a deposit in your physical bank account, but you're also, when you work as under the Lord, not as a man, you're going to get a deposit in your spiritual bank account. That also includes the way that you give generosity with your funds. That's the principle of generosity. Okay, when you give to the Lord, when you give to others, you lend to the Lord and he pays back. Number two, the principle of the tithe. Okay, deuteronomy 26-12 tells us 10%. Okay, 10%, that's the Old Testament gives us the principle of the tithe. Okay, now, who's the 10% supposed to go to? Deuteronomy, chapter 14 outlines the widow, and Deuteronomy 26 outlines it. Okay, the widow, the orphan, the Levite and the poor. There you go. 10%, okay, now is it supposed to just be 10%? Well, no, no, no. To me, david, and I look at this as the 10% is the baseline. Do not go below that. Okay, so that's the principle of the tithe, teaching our kids the same thing 10% of your pay, it goes to tithe, and the tithe goes to the widow, the orphan, the Levite and the poor. Hold on, because I'm going to get to our fifth principle is going to talk about something completely different and we're going to dive in even deeper into that. But just know, 10%. Okay, that's the tithe, okay.
Speaker 1:Third principle the principle of the offering. Now, an offering is a spontaneous giving, above and beyond the 10%, and it starts as it comes as a heart of gratitude toward God. So what they called this in the Old Testament was the burnt offering. There were several other offerings, but the burnt offering specifically. It's like you're so thankful that the Lord allowed you to get that piece of property, for you know half of what you thought you would get it for. So what you're going to do is you're going to take your prized bull and you're going to sacrifice it. Why would you do that? To show God that you're thankful and that he can replace the bull as he sees fit and fully dependent. It was a burnt offering and then they would burn the bull's body on the altar. That said God, I thank you. This is above and beyond the tithe. So that's the principle of the offering. We should be giving offerings. It's like so you've given the 10% tithe, okay, and then somebody's in need. You know, widow needs a van. So you get together three of your other business buddies and you buy our van. That's an offering. Okay, there's the offering. Okay.
Speaker 1:Now number four, the principle of first fruits. Now remember, first fruits are not the tithe, first fruits are not the offering. First fruits is outlined in Leviticus 23. When you enter a new venture that makes money, you're going to give the first of the produce. What I mean by that is David and I, by a building or a rental property or whatever, and let's just say the building. I did this with my, a building that I own, 10 plex, and the first fruits were the first month's rent that came in. I think at the time, man, this was 10 years ago rents were like 4,600 bucks or something like that. So I just took all that 4,600 bucks and I I gave it. Okay, now, that was the first fruits. Now, for the rest of the time, I don't give every single month all the rent. No, no, no, I take 10% of the net that comes in. Now I'm going to talk about system here in a second.
Speaker 1:So that's the principle of first fruits. It's you're entering into a new territory, you're entering into a new job, you're entering into something new. It's your choice on whether or not you want to give God a first fruit. A first fruit is awesome, it's. It's. It's a voluntary, voluntary, just like the offering. Principle of the offering, it's voluntary. The principle of the tide is that's mandatory. You have to do that. Now, in the Old Testament that was mandatory.
Speaker 1:New Testament, it switches to a stewardship. Yep, I believe we should. We should put these things on us, yes, as good stewards. But it's a little bit different in the New Testament, right, but God tells us, and we know, if you don't pay God the tithes, if you don't do it right, it's coming. He wants to take care of you. Yep, like you, buckle up, it's.
Speaker 1:You need to make sure that God is going to bless your finances, and sometimes the worst thing that can happen is that your finances grow. You're not paying the tithe, your finances grow and you're like see, I don't have to pay the tithe. Well, what are your relationships like? Yeah, what's your piece Like? When's the last time you heard God's still small voice? Yeah, like you, it ain't gonna work. It's just radical obedience is all it is. So.
Speaker 1:Number one, principle of generosity. Two, principle of the tide, the 10%. Then the principle of offering, which is spontaneous offerings, and then the principle of first fruits. You come into a new territory and knew something give God the first fruits. You don't have to. It's voluntary. And then fifth is the principle of entirety. This is where we find ourselves in Malachi 3, verse 10. It says bring the whole tithe into the storehouse. Now, we don't want to cheat God, so bring the whole tithe in there.
Speaker 1:The question now is what's the storehouse? That's the issue, especially Because it's like is the storehouse that big mega church With billboards and branding all over the place? The answer is absolutely 100% no. Where do we get that from? Because Jesus' own words in Matthew 6, he says do not store up, okay, don't put into the storehouse, okay. He says don't store up for yourselves Treasures on earth, where the maus and vermin destroy, where thieves break into steel, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where maus and vermin did not destroy for you, and you believe to not break in and steal, for where your treasure is there, your heart will be also. So what is the storehouse? The storehouse is heaven. How are we going to take physical money and put it into heaven? Right, okay, this is where our system comes in. Because if the storehouse is heaven, because God's telling us, store it up in heaven, right, well, and we're supposed to bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, which means that 10% needs to go toward heavenly things. It does not mean that we have to take 10% and give all of it to the church, to that one church that you're going to, okay.
Speaker 1:Now let me just pause one second. Oh boy, please put the rock down. Yeah, put it down. They are not un-circumcised Philistines. Put it down. Just listen, laharris out.
Speaker 1:I need to tell you this. I am talking to faith-filled entrepreneurs, business owners who know how to manage their money, who understand profit and loss, who you have good credit scores. I'm talking about people who own things and People stewards yeah, I'm not talking to the W2 employees making 30 grand a year and yet you know what. You don't have a whole lot there, but you do have a tithe. Give it all to church if you want, like that's solid stuff.
Speaker 1:But my message right now is specific to faith-filled entrepreneurs. My contention is that you have the storehouse, is that you are the storehouse. You are the one who has to create a system for how you are going to give the tithe, you're going to give your offerings and you're going to give your first fruits. And let me tell you what our system is. And then, this isn't the sayeth of the Lord, this is just hey, as we prayed through these things and thought through these, this is what we've done with our business.
Speaker 1:We set up two accounts, actually three accounts, but let me just start with the first one. Number one as a business, we set up an account with Waterstone, yeah, waterstone Foundation, foundation. Actually, we're shifting over to Waterstone, I think right now we're at the NCF, but we set up a specific business account and each month we take 10-. Actually, it's more than 10%. Remember, the 10% is the baseline. The Lord told us yeah, just don't say everything. Just yeah, we're not the Lord wanted us to do more than 10. But just start at 10. So just take 10%. So, each month, 10% of the net profit of our business goes into this account. Okay, now you can do that each quarter. You can do it once a year if you want. It's just whatever. It is 10% of the net.
Speaker 1:Now here's the important thing that you need to think about your net. If your net, if you literally are living out of your business okay, then your net is going to be really low. So what you might have to do is add back in some stuff. Okay, you're gonna have to add it back in. So take 10% of the net. It goes into that account. So that we put it into that that account.
Speaker 1:Donor, it's called a donor advice fund. Donor, that's what I was looking for the DAF donor advice fund. Now you don't have to start a donor advice fund yet. You can just create a new account, a new checking account or whatever, at a bank and call that your donation account. Okay, and with that, or you can call it your TIEV account, whatever Shift in the money from the 10% that's your baseline, each month or each quarter or each year, and goes into that account.
Speaker 1:Okay, now out of that account, what are you doing? You're looking for the four categories outlined in Deuteronomy, chapter 26. The widow, the orphan, the poor and the Levite, which means that the church is a part of it. Yes, spiritual leader. So the church, where you're getting fed, is a part of that. See, the deal was that in the Old Testament, it was the responsibility of the Levites to collect the TIEV and then to distribute the TIEV amongst those categories. Yes, the church does not do that today. The institutional church does not effectively do that.
Speaker 1:Today we wrote our second book, living Among Lions how to Thrive Like Daniel in Today's Babylon, and we grabbed the Evangelical Christian Credit Union's report and it had just come out. Over 27,000 churches across the country and all of these folks. The statistics had been released that 87% of the budgets of these large churches go to overhead and salary overhead for the property and the salaries. And so then the remaining 13% of that 6% was going to missions and then the remaining 7% of that would be distributed to some of these other needy people. Yeah, and so that's the reason why Jason and I were like, okay, we are now, we're setting up a donor-advised fund, we're going to set it aside and we are going to effectively steward that donor-advised fund to go out and effectively take care of all of the folks that God wants our tithe to take care of. So in the Old Testament they were required to bring 10%, okay, and what the Levites did was they would take that 10% and they were supposed to take 10% of that and put it into the storehouse and they literally that was to be there to repair the temple, that was to be there for all of the things that needed to be done. The other 90% of that 10% because they brought in the 10% tithe, 90% of that was to go to these four things. Okay, so it is very important. So now we are the storehouse.
Speaker 1:Now here's the beauty of this when you do it like this and you don't just blindly take 10% and give it all to the church, right, that gives you an opportunity to be on the lookout. You are now on the opportunity to be on the lookout. You have that opportunity to be on the lookout for people that you can help, okay, so now that's the first part of our system. So it's the business donation account, alright. The second is personally, david set up his own donation account. I set up my own donation account. Okay, you can do it through a donor advice fund or you can just do it in your bank. Then we take, obviously, the 10% is the baseline, but you can take a percentage 10% baseline of what you bring home. So if David paid himself 100k a year and I paid myself 100k a year, we take 10,000 each and I put 10k into my own personal donation account. Okay, that's different than my business donation account.
Speaker 1:So, in essence, what we're doing is double tithing and this is a principle we've done since the, since the get-go. But you don't have to do that, you don't pressure. That's just something God put on our heart. But we just wanted to open it up and let you guys know because when red asked and we've had several other people asked this well, this is how we do it and you can just to do what you do. That's the beauty of the New Testament. Yes, god is saying hey, what do you want to do if you have the Deuteronomy 26 mindset of I want to help the widow, the poor, the orphan and the Levi, and that opens up the gamut. I mean, you can help compassion international, you can partner with them. You partner with your local church. You can partner with, like David and I'm massively involved in love life pro-life organization.
Speaker 1:Talk about orphans, you know those little babies, and so the beauty with this system is. And then I, david and I've both talked with our kids and like, okay, guys, in our donation account I have X dollar amount, like I've got X amount. Now that's our families to give to people. I need you guys looking for people that we can give to, you know, and then I just love this. A month and a half or two months ago, trey text me and it's like dad, my server was an older person. They needed some money and I gave them, you know, a monster tip and I'm like great, Okay, I'll transfer from our donation account into your account because you know they really need it and we always tell them. But you got to make sure that when you're giving, you're saying Jesus loves you, like he's got a plan for you. That's right. This isn't just where people will be impressed with you. You're making sure that they know who you serve. You attach all of your giving to Christ. Yes, that's what you have to do.
Speaker 1:So, jason, are we. Are you gonna get specific on salaries? To? No, okay. So this is yeah, okay. So we pay ourselves a salary and if you're an entrepreneur, you're paying yourself salary out of your company, unless you're living out of the company, and at that point if your solarpreneur, it's a little different. Yeah, it'll. It'll eventually get diced up to where you need to pay yourself a salary, even if it's modest. Yeah, and I just take 10% of my salary every single month and it automatically goes to my church. Yeah, and they just boom, that's done.
Speaker 1:But then when I take distributions out of the company, off of those distributions, I take a percentage and slide that into my donation account. Personal donation account, yeah, and then our corporate Net profit. We do it monthly, you can do it quarterly or annually or bi annually. However you want to do it, we slide into our corporate donation account. So now, jason and I have three things going we have salary going to the church, we have personal distributions Going into the apportion of that, going into our personal donation accounts, and then we have our net profit Portion of that going into our corporate donor advised fund. So now, corporately, we're able to help different ministries that we see we can immediately, but the Jason and I get consensus there between the two of us. But then, from the personal side of things, it's my wife, my five kids, and it's Jason and his wife and their four kids, and we've allowed our family now to say these are the reasons why we have this storehouse and I have actually showed my son on many occasions yeah, where we have a lot more in the donation account than I do in every other account. Yeah, which is awesome and it's exciting. Yeah, because that's what God wants us to do. And, by the way, you never touch that account, never, never, never pull it out Because you need to pay your bills. No, it is gone once it's in that account. So that's what we're, not yours. But this is this is this is just what we did.
Speaker 1:Now here's another thing for your company. This is something really important because not only can you get a donor advised fund for your company to help all these outside Ministries, but you may have a company and I'm consulting one right now that's got loads of employees across two states. There's lots of needs that your employees have. So helping hands ministry it's also proven. It used to be called provision bridge. Actually, provision bridge and helping hands are One in the same. But what you can do is you actually set up literally like a donor advised fund with helping hands and and that Fund can actually help your employees as they have needs and it's a hundred percent tax write-off. So, waterstone, when you slide your your corporate money into that donor advised fund, it's a hundred percent right there, that's your, that's your write-off immediately and then they handle all the receding and the giving of the money and follow-up and all that Same thing with helping hands.
Speaker 1:If you want your employees to be helped because many of us have employees and they will have needs from time to time as well yeah, you want to help them and you can't just do it right out of the company, but you can do it out of a helping hands advised fund which also, when you slide money into that account and you let that account continue to grow, that's also an immediate tax write-off right from the jump. It's amazing what we have here in America now we don't give just because we can get a write-off. But as long as those write-offs exist which I don't think they're gonna exist too much longer, but as long as they exist we're gonna take advantage of them. Yeah, so that that that would be Waterstone donor advised fund, and then helping hands would be also a daff that would be used for your employee. Yeah, and very, very effective giving. So there we go.
Speaker 1:There, there's our, there are our principles, our five principles and our two-step system. So the principles principle of generosity, principle of the tithe, principle of offering, the principle of first fruits and the principle of entirety, the whole thing don't cheat God at all and our two-step system where we have our corporate donation account, and Then that's the first step and then the second is our personal donation accounts. 10% minimum out of each, you know, out of what we make, goes into each of those, and then you have your self an opportunity to be on the lookout for the widow, the orphan, the Levi and the poor. Now, the ultimate thing that underlies All of this is the principle that Boaz outlined in scripture who was the father of Obed Jesse? It was ultimately the grandfather. Wasn't, wasn't he the grandfather, great grandfather of David? I think it was the grandfather. Okay, see, anyway, I didn't know. No, great grandfather, I didn't have that prepped, but anyway, boaz was ushered literally into. I mean, he's the one that married Ruth and he was in the line of Christ and um I.
Speaker 1:The reason why boas was had done so well is because he honored the principle of not gleaning to the edges of your field, and that's what it says in the bible to business owners don't glean to the edges of your field where you're so bottom line driven that there is literally not an inch of room left for the working poor, or then inch of room left for giving. And so that's what roof did. She was gleaning in boas is field and because he didn't glean to the edges, he saved room for people and so roof just joined the gleaners. And, of course, the next thing you know now, boo wrote a boa. Boas and roof now get married and of course, the rest is history.
Speaker 1:So, as a business owner, you don't want to glean to the edges of your field. You need to save room in your company so that you can give. That that's very important, and when you do that, you are going to make room to be a blessing to so many people that desperately needed, that are doing things for the kingdom that you can't do, that we can't do. That is of ultimate importance. Yeah, that's it. That's awesome. I love that. Well, hopefully, you guys, you know whether, whether we're right, wrong and different. Either way, what God wants is, if your heart is in the right place and you want to give and you want to honor the Lord with it, he's going to honor you. That's right. So it's amazing. Thanks for hanging out with us. All right, god bless you guys. Subscribe, rate review and please let us know what you think and tell us what your giving plan is, because we want to glean some wisdom from you as well. Yeah, we'll do owner to own it next time. I gotta go work out. Happy Valentine's Day.