One of the reasons why Jesus bought our lives is so that we may experience freedom, and that freedom includes freedom from financial insecurity and anxiety anchored on money.
The Bible teaches us that financial stewardship honors God, and part of Godly finance is being wise with our money. And while it may feel automatic to assume that saving money is being wise, many Christians have stood against saving money, saying that it's an act of not trusting God to provide for you at any time.
While there are bad reasons to save money, there are also good reasons for doing so. When we save some of our income and put it aside as an emergency fund for rainy days, we do so out of a God-given wisdom. Proverbs 6:6-8 tells us, "Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest."
Paul also taught the early church to save in 1 Corinthians 16:2, saying, "On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come." Saving money can fast-track our work by giving us a safety net as we continue to pursue God's will. It is because wise Christians save that they can obey God when He calls them to give, go or sow.
But there can also be bad reasons to save. One thing we must learn about Biblical finance is that there is a very big difference between saving and hoarding. The difference has very little to do with the amount, but has everything to do with the heart's motives. We can save a million dollars and obey God and we can hoard a thousand dollars and disobey God.
What dishonors God is when we save as a response to a heart that trusts money more than the loving and generous Father that we serve. Yes, God gave us the wisdom and self-control to save, but He has also asked that we seek Him first to add everything upon us, including security. When we save out of the fear of the future, the unwillingness to give generously or an inability to worship God with our tithe, we most likely have our hearts in the wrong place.
What matters most is that in our saving, we still continue to trust God more than our emergency fund and that we save enough to give ourselves breathing space to steward our affairs well by providing adequate funding, including times where finances may get tough.
At the end of the day, Jesus died to give us access to the financial blessing of God, and also the wisdom to save and the heart to value contentment.
