07/18/2020
A. When you don't have a budget, you will not be successful in life.
1. Everyone needs a budget, regardless of their income level.
2. Jesus endorses a budgetary lifestyle.
a. You must calculate the cost before you begin building something. Otherwise, you may not be able to finish it (Luke 14:25-30).
B. What is it you plan to build?
1. Do you intend to build a relationship with God?
2. Do you intend to build a successful marriage?
3. Do you intend to build a house?
4. Do you intend to build a business?
5. No matter what you plan to build, you must have a budget.
C. Calculate, count, assess and figure out what you need to do to successfully complete what you start.
1. What is necessary to carry out the project, or idea, to completion?
a. Money
b. Time
c. Resources
d. Research
e. Commitment to the Word of God
D. There are consequences for not counting the cost of what you are building.
1. You will find yourself starting things and never finishing.
2. You will have only laid the foundation.
a. Many people get stuck in the foundation stage.
3. A foundation is not significant if there isn't anything built upon it.
4. When you don't plan the details, you become unable to complete the building process.
a. Are you the type of person who is always starting things and never finishing them?
5. Too many Christians are giving up and quitting at the foundation stage.
6. Finishers go to the next level.
7. God can help you get your building process back on track.
a. Use God's Word as your final authority.
8. When you don't count the cost, and you can't finish what you start, all who see will mock you.
9. As Christians, we are finishers. We finish what we start.
10. Your whole life is based on you completing the will of God for your life.
Finish what you start. Gal. 5:7-8
• Becoming successful financial is hard because it’s a marathon but must people are only prepared for a spirit. It’s like 20,000 in one area & you trying to get out a different exit by walking against the crowd.
• How will you keep yourself motivated when all the excited & the cheer of the crowd is gone?
• Champions are never remembered for how they started, but how they finished.”
E. Jesus' budgetary requirements for being His disciple:
1. Jesus says, "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26).
2. When Jesus says to "hate" your father, mother, wife, husband, children and others, He means to have indifference, or relative disregard for them in comparison to your attitude toward God.
a. God must be your priority, even over family and loved ones.
b. Get rid of selfishness-it's not about you anymore. Die to your flesh so God can live through your life.
c. It will cost you a desire to be like Him in order to be His disciple.
d. There must be a decision and discipline.
F. Live by a budget.
1. A budget is the act of deciding how much money you're going to spend on each item; a decision, written down, determining what you are going to spend based on your income, bills and debt.
2. Sticking to a budget is the act of following through with what is written on paper.
3. A budget can be the ticket to living the life you've always imagined.
4. The world's greatest budget doesn't, of its own accord, make any of your financial goals a reality. You must adhere to it.
5. If you can find any unmet financial goal in your life, that is a reason to get on a budget.
G. Five steps to developing a budget:
1. Have a financial goal worksheet.
2. Make a daily expense sheet (Monday - Sunday) listing item and amount.
3. Make a daily summary sheet, summarizing the categories the money you spend can be determined and listed.
4. Create a monthly expense sheet.
5. Determine your income and assets (of legal money that comes in and can be counted on).
