By the title of this post one might assume it provides practical measures, policies, and steps to protect your church from the misuse and abuse of church finances. It doesn’t. Take a step back, however, and look at the real protection we need. Finances, or the lack thereof, can so consume us that our hearts and minds drift from our real purpose. It’s no longer about ministry but paying the bills and dealing with financial concerns. So, while a list of practical steps may be helpful, our primary concern should be ministry and keeping in step with God, doing ministry God’s way.
The Real Protection & Safeguards We Need Because of the Real Enemy
We might cite a number of causes for financial problems. People may not be giving as they should. Pastors and staff want/need raises. Ministry leaders keep pushing for more money to be allocated to their areas. Utility bills and other expenses keep soaring. “Wolves in sheep’s clothing” may have infiltrated the financial team and misused money.
All of that, and more, may be true. God’s enemy, and therefore our enemy, the devil, “prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Pet. 5:8). Satan will try to seize these issues and use them to distract us, push us to despair, and tempt us to pursue solutions that fail to align with God’s purposes, design, mission, and heart for the Church.
We need spiritual armor so we can take our “stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Eph. 6:12)
We Protect and Safeguard Church Finances by Putting on the Armor of God
It’s our hearts and minds that need protection so we properly respond to whatever may be happening financially. God’s armor does that.
Belt of Truth
When enveloped in truth, financial management has something with which to align. We need to be girded with Truth, with a capital T, God’s truth. Then we will look at finances through the grid of God’s purposes, design, and mission for the Church. We need to get beyond budgeting merely to pay the bills and allocate funds to promoting and enhancing ministry.
- Budget Fit Your Church Purpose?
- Budget a Process of Body Life?
- Budget Fostering Body Life?
- Budget Reflect the Great Commission?
Breastplate of Righteousness
A breastplate guards our heart, but it needs to be made of something that can withstand rigorous attack. God’s righteousness does that, which is imputed to us when we put our trust in Jesus Christ. The more the state of our hearts matches our standing in Christ, the more likely we’ll be to ward off temptations to misuse funds, to get impatient with complainers, to grumble when issues arise, to lack integrity or honesty in the way finances are handled, etc.
- Church Finances & Christlikeness
- Praying About Church Finances is the Christ-like Thing to Do
- Encourage Integrity in Giving
- Managing Finances with Integrity
Feet Fitted with the Readiness that Comes from the Gospel of Peace
The Gospel keeps us centered and heading in the right direction. We’ll always be looking for better ways to steward money when the emphasis is on ministry and making disciples.
Shield of Faith with which You can Extinguish All the Flaming Arrows of the Evil One
When doubts and discouragement threaten to take over due to the church’s financial state, we need faith in a God “who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (Eph. 3:20). Then we will not be pierced and consumed with despair.
Helmet of Salvation
While the breastplate of righteousness protects our hearts, the helmet of salvation protects our minds. How subtly our minds can drift onto worldly ways of managing finances. To know and follow God’s ways, we mustn’t “conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Rom. 12:2). How easily our minds can go in negative directions when confronted with financial difficulties. We need hope that deliverance is possible. Certainly if God could raise Jesus from the dead, He can work in whatever our circumstances might be.
Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God
When temptations come to fall into despair about our finances, or even to misuse finances, we have a Sword to defend ourselves. Like Jesus, we stand on the truth of God’s Word (Matt. 4:1-11). We claim His promises and put His precepts above the allure of the evil one.
And Don’t Forget to Pray about Financial Matters
Immediately following the listing of God’s protection and safeguards, His armor, we read, “And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people” (Eph. 6:18). Through prayer we pull on God’s power and wisdom as we put on His armor.
- Prayer an Integral Part of Church Finances?
- Perspective When Praying about Finances
- Priorities When Praying about Finances
We pray “in the Spirit” because on our own we’re weak. As we walk in the Spirit, we commune with God about financial matters. We take our anxieties to Him “and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding” guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
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