The One Decision That Changes Everything (Money Lessons From Soloman)

All right, all right, everybody, welcome back to another episode of the King's Council podcast. We're back at you again. Back again, as Christian says I always say.

You do.

Okay, well, it's okay. They only hear from me once a week on this.

That's true. Yeah, and we're back again.

We're back. So it makes sense again. What song is that? Shady's back, back again, back again.

He's like hardcore liberal now, right? I think so.

Yes. That's too bad.

Yeah, I saw something recently. I think he was saying something about Trump.

It's too bad. Yeah, once you drink the Kool-Aid, bro.

Yeah, there's no going back.

Yeah, hopefully there is. There will be. Truth always wins, so I mean, one day they'll figure it out, right? Hopefully it's before they leave their flesh suits.

They die a Democrat.

Yeah, and continue to vote.

Oh, anyways, see, um, Pastor Landon from Mercy Culture. Yeah, I mean, this is— by the time this comes out, it'll be a little old, but he's getting some heat. He's getting heat for what he said.

Well, hey, if you're gonna stand up for truth, you got to be willing to take the heat, baby. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I love the way he's responding to it as well. It's kind of like, bring it on. Yeah, I'm about the Bible.

Yeah, that's business. They're calling him a cult and all sorts of things.

Well, he said, I mean, what we've said on this podcast as well, is that if you're a Democrat, you're not a Christian.

Yeah, I have a great respect for him. Yeah. And yeah, and to be clear, like, the Democratic Party was not always the way that it is now, right? Right. I mean, most of my family on my dad's side at least were Democrats growing up because they were all big with a union and things like that. And so like, I totally get that, but it is not what it used to be. And I'm fully in alignment with what Landon has been saying. It's that if you, if you believe in the Bible, you cannot possibly vote for a Democrat at this point. Yeah, we're probably going to get flagged on all sorts of platforms, but that's true. It is just reality. And for those that think, well, I'm sick of voting for the lesser of evils, until Jesus returns, you're always going to have to do that. But you sitting out, not participating in it is, I mean, I would say that you're not following your duty as a follower of Jesus Christ.

Yeah, we're called to be—

oh, sorry, I was just gonna say, you have to— we have to vote in what we— what we believe in. Otherwise, we're going to be left with what we've got. And if you care anything about your children and their children and the ability for them to even live in a democratic republic that we still currently have, quasi, you have to vote. And if every self-professed Christian actually voted, it would be a complete landslide. They couldn't even cheat their way out of this thing, right? Couldn't even— it wouldn't even be possible, right? There'd be— they'd have to count more votes than there are people in America. Yeah, true, right?

Yeah.

So just vote. Just do it. Do your duty and vote what the Bible says.

Yeah. If you don't think it's your duty to vote as a Christian, or just saying, oh, God will take care of it, it's our duty as salt of the earth. What does salt do? It's a preservative. Yes. What does a preservative do? It stops the decay of— at the time, of the foods, of the meats that they had that they were going to prepare.

Yep.

So there's definitely one party who's leading to the decay of morals and values, culture, everything about this nation more than the other. So if we're called to stop the decay, then we could stop the decay by getting people in office who are not destroying this nation. Yes, that's part of the minds of our children and the genitalia of our children.

Yeah, absolutely. We are called in Luke, it tells us to occupy. That means we have to take territory and fight for it. And that's what it's gonna take in order for this nation to continue the way most of us had grown up in, because it's just, it's a battle right now. But we all know Jesus already won. We're not wearing our Jesus Won shirts, but it is a battle still. We're called to occupy and preserve what we have left here on this earth. Your kingdom come, God, on this earth. As It Is in Heaven. Let's dive in.

Let's do it.

Yeah, so we are on the last segment here of our Kingdom Money principles. It's been so good talking about this stuff. Um, we're always going to talk about it, don't you worry about that. But, um, we, we just took a number of episodes here, a number of months with these, yeah, 2 full months of this being specific here on, on these Kingdom Money principles because it's important for us to talk about. You guys know it was ownership— God owns everything. Stewardship— uh, we are the managers. Worship, which is— it starts with the tithe, that is a sacrifice for worshiping, uh, him with what we're, what we're giving back to him that's already his. Uh, and now we're, we're in this, this understanding of what kingship actually is. If you haven't listened to last week's episode, please do so because we laid out the qualifications of what it means to, to be a king and a queen here on this earth. Right. Um, and this week we're going to dive into more just kind of practical things here, I think.

Sure.

Um, using King Solomon in the Bible, the wisest man that ever lived, uh, and with that wisdom he, he prayed paid for that. And so what he asked for— he could ask for anything— and he asked for wisdom, which as entrepreneurs and business owners, this is what we got to ask for, right? If we, if we have wisdom on how to run our business, money's not going to be a problem, right? And, and customer lead generation, sales, marketing, all that, that's not going to be a problem. God's the greatest marketer, the greatest salesman, the greatest literal everything on the earth. Uh, we have to ask him for it though. And, uh, when we receive that wisdom, then we got to put it into practice. 'Cause it's not just, wisdom isn't just knowledge. We know that knowledge is the accumulation of truth. Understanding is the assimilation of truth, but wisdom is the application of truth. And we're gonna dive into today some truth bombs that King Solomon actually gave us here, specifically in Proverbs. And then in Ecclesiastes, astes or astes? What do you say? Ecclesiastes or Ecclesiastes?

E's, I say E's.

Ecclesiastes?

All right, like testes. Of all words, what else ends in ease? I don't know.

What's that? Rice Krispies?

Well, it's Ecclesiastes. Testes. What else? Okay, speaking of grammar, what rap artist— you may know this, I don't know— came out with a huge debut album called Country Grammar?

I've seen him. I saw him with, uh, you seen him live? Yeah, bro.

Really?

Yeah. I want to say some lyrics, but there's cuss words in it, so I can't.

He's from St. Louis.

St. Louis. Yeah, dude. Um, man, I used to cruise the Loop in West End Springs, big, just, yeah, low riding. Yeah, man.

How old were you when he came out?

I had to have been I would guess maybe freshman. Okay, maybe 8th grade. I don't remember.

Yeah, Nelly.

Nelly.

Nelly.

Yes.

Yeah, I'm proud of you for knowing that though.

Oh yeah, dude, country drummer. Yeah, you know, you're like, yeah, dude, I know all these songs and right artists and stuff.

Just not Bobby Brown, Belle Biv DeVoe.

Clearly.

Yeah, but I don't know if you answered last episode. You know the song Poison, right? That girl is poison.

Yep.

Yeah, you had to think a second about that.

Yeah, no, I, I knew the lyrics right when you said it. Okay.

Did you ever see the episode of Fresh Prince? Totally getting off topic, but this is one of the funniest episodes ever. Did you watch Fresh Prince?

Yes.

Oh, it was so good. Yeah, the episode where, um, Boyz II Men, they were using Uncle Phil's house to record a video.

Okay.

And Will was just like a fanboy, right? So they came and started recording early in the morning. And Will and Jazz in their like pajamas came downstairs as they recorded and they just cut downstairs and started dancing in the video. It's one of the funniest scenes ever in Fresh Prince.

It's hilarious. Yeah, it's a good show.

It was. Yeah, well, I think Will Smith is a little, uh, cuckoo.

Yeah, nowadays.

But, uh, yeah, Hollywood will do that too.

Yeah, they absolutely will. Absolutely will.

But what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?

Yes. Yeah.

Absolutely. It's gonna be a lot of people who, uh, sold their soul and lost their soul for fame and riches and celebrity status. And once they're gone from this earth, they're going to realize, wow, that was a big mistake.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, I was deceived.

It will be sorely mistaken. It's unfortunate, but, um, we will continue to persevere and do our part, and hopefully they'll be reached one day.

Yeah. You know.

Yeah.

Will Smith performed at the BET Awards some song where he's in like a ring of fire, and Chandler Moore performed.

I saw that.

Now in Africa, they're like canceling Maverick City concerts because he did that.

Really?

Yep.

Yeah, because it was basically like a satanic ritual, wasn't it?

It looked like it.

I mean, lyrics of the words were pretty gnarly if you actually listened to them.

No, I didn't.

It was all about like—

but it wasn't a Christian song, right?

Definitely not.

And for Chandler Moore to, to do that, and now all of a sudden people are posting stuff where Maverick City, you'll see like upside-down crosses in some of the backgrounds and imagery and stuff. It's like I don't know if that's the case or not. Even if that's the case, I would bet anything— I mean, these guys, they get up and perform wherever they record a video. They're not inspecting the walls behind them, see if there's like a tiny upside-down cross. Maybe there's a— some bad seed that's in there that's intentionally doing that, but I can't imagine that they've all gone. And nowadays, not even that, that, uh, Chandler Moore has gone bad because he did that. Maybe it was just a poor decision to do that, right? But I don't know. But Maybe more people, secular people, know Chandler Moore is— maybe they're looking them up now and listening to worship music.

Enemies for evil, God will use for good. Yeah, question. No question.

Amen.

Yes. Uh, and money happens to be one of them. God called gold good in the garden, um, meant it for good, uh, but the enemy's— he's stated claim to it, right? And so this is why we're going to continue to talk about this, because it's important thing for us to, to not just know but to apply these concepts principles into our own life here. And, uh, King Solomon I think is a great example of a dude who was very wise but also made a ton of poor decisions. Thankfully we got the Bible to learn from those.

Who in the Bible made it through— like, you knew a lot about him, but he didn't make a poor decision?

Ain't nobody.

Like, look at Peter even, right? I mean, Peter is like legendary, right? A lot of people, Peter is their favorite character in the Bible.

Maybe Paul after He's— he was like on the road to Damascus.

True.

But we don't— I don't think there was any like reference. Granted, he was— authored most of it, probably not saying a whole lot of bad about himself, right? But he was— I mean, he was— I mean, he's who I would aspire to be, like a true committed— I had ran this race, right?

Yeah.

He beat his body and, uh, yeah, he did it.

He—

it's what he said. He's like, I've been faithful to the end here.

Yep.

He was. Yeah, I think we should all aspire to be like—

that's my boy.

That's my boy Paul.

All right, let's get into this.

Yes. All right, so lessons from, from Solomon. Specifically, we're going to talk about money on these. I mean, there's lots of lessons, but, um, that's what this episode is about, is about money. So, um, we're going to cover a number of Proverbs here, not even close to being all of them, but we've picked out a few here.

Yeah, a handful of Proverbs, a handful of verses from Ecclesiastes.

Yes.

So why don't we just get into it? Let's dive into it. All right, Proverbs 12:11 says, whoever Whoever works with his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits lacks sense.

So what's a worthless pursuit? What do you think?

Well, I think this could apply to money as far as getting rich quick, like quick-rich schemes.

Yes, right?

You're not really— we're not willing to put the work in.

Yep.

The sweat.

People that play the lotto, play DraftKings like yourself. When I get the invite from you, the most you can win is like $15.

So, well, there's usually like 4 of us in it, $5 a piece.

Don't they take their cut though?

I don't think they take 25%.

They take— I don't know what they take.

Well, check your earnings statement because you usually win everything.

That's true, that's true. I don't mean to boast. Yeah, you did it, not me.

It's funny because even when we went out to eat during the NCAA tournament I don't even— last year, whenever it was, but something's on, you're like, oh, let me put in a lineup on DraftKings. And having no idea, like, who's playing, even the players, you always win.

God's favor, bro. It just chases me down. Yeah, I can't help it. It's amazing.

I can't help it.

It's incredible. It's incredible. I'm not bragging on me, I'm breaking on my guy, man.

I'm sure he's so proud of you right now, boasting in your DraftKings earnings. I mean, that's just a one one segment of it, right?

It ain't— yeah, it had nothing to do with me. But yeah, back to this: whoever works his land will have plenty. I mean, keyword in this is works, right? It's like, we've got to work. What has God given us? Uh, and, and to some of us, that's— it's, it's your business, maybe it's your job that you're in right now, but you got to work it. And everything that we do, we have to work as if we're working unto the Lord, not for our earthly master, but we're doing it in excellence. And so when we, when we are diligent in that, we're going to be blessed. That's just a— that's a— it's an— that's the outpouring of God's blessing on our life when we're diligent with what we've been given.

Yeah.

But pursuing worthless pursuits that lack sense— and I would— yeah, DraftKings is pretty worthless. I'm not— I'm not doing that to—

you're not doing it to make money.

Yeah, it was more to like, well, if I have to watch this silly game, I'm gonna care about it for $5. Right, right. But I would say it would be following those You know, think you're gonna just strike it rich one time, then get rich. You've said get rich quick schemes. I don't even know what those would be nowadays. Bitcoin, maybe following that stuff, thinking you're gonna just trade and try to strike it rich one day. Yeah, there's a— there's still those that do trade, but they're— this is— that's what they do. Like, they're studying and, and they're, they're understanding what they do. It's not like they're not working at it. It's—

yeah, I've met a lot of people who, uh tried their hand in day trading. Just like, it's not something you want to try, train to do that, which is just basically, oh, this guy says this stock will be good, let me, uh, right, buy some, see if it goes up for a couple days and sell it. Let's—

here's, here's a, here's the key to that: just follow whatever Nancy Pelosi bought. Yeah, because it's probably going to go up.

There's an app now where you can— where I think you told me that. Yeah, yeah.

Although what if she's shorting it? What if she's buying short? Can you Do you know if she buys— I don't know, shorts, or—

I don't know, but you could actually set it up so once she buys, it actually buys it for you. You don't have to go in and buy it.

It's just like AI-driven. That's right. That's hilarious. Yeah. Um, so that would— I mean, that would probably be a worthless pursuit.

I don't know.

I mean, you're not really working at that.

You're not, but it's a form of investment.

A lot of people are, are doing well with I wouldn't rely on that as like how I'm going to put food on the table. How about that?

Okay.

If you have money to set aside to do that, that's what I would, I would consider that.

Yeah. People who've made a lot of money in stock market, the ones that I know at least, they have stories of losing everything in the stock market as well and then gaining it, winning it back.

Absolutely. Yeah. And even entrepreneurs, I don't know if I've met an entrepreneur that is like long-term, quote unquote, successful that hasn't had a number of failures, right, in their life. But they didn't know— they didn't learn that by not doing something. Yeah, right. So work at it, right? Have a good work ethic. Right.

Okay, second scripture from Proverbs. We got Proverbs 22:7: The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is a slave to the lender.

Good one here. This is obviously talking about debt, right? Uh, which is a very serious thing, especially in America here. Um, I don't know what the number is up to, but last I saw it was like—

was it like a billion dollars of credit card debt?

Oh yeah, this country. Yeah, yeah. But how many active credit cards are out there? I was trying to remember what that number was, slipped my brain.

It was like a lot. It was more than double the amount of actual people in this country.

Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, it's a ton of those. And it's the reality. If you've ever been in debt, you feel like a slave, right? And now I'm a firm believer there's an understanding of what true debt actually is. And to understand the game of money, you have to— this is something you have to work at, right? Like leveraging your home for a line of credit with an asset-backed, you know, a real estate-backed product, I don't necessarily consider that debt because you're now leveraging that money to be able to multiply apply it to it.

Well, it's good debt and bad debt, correct? Yes.

I don't think Dave Ramsey probably wouldn't agree, but, um, that's up to Dave, right? Right. Now, 99% of the population, you need to stay out of debt, right? Yes, yes. Because it will— you will become a slave to those lenders, jacks up your credit. It does a lot of just terrible things that prevents you from being able to have freedom. Yeah, right. So it is very wise of King Solomon. I don't know if he ever if he personally ever had debt.

Probably not when you're the richest man on earth.

Yeah, but I guarantee he leveraged them 30,000 stables, right? Right. He leveraged those things to accumulate and, and continue to get more and more.

Sure.

Right.

And what reading this reminds me of, the coaching call we did a couple weeks ago where you talked about the widow's oil and Elijah in 2 Kings chapter 4, and the widow's husband was in debt when he died.

Yeah.

And to pay off the debt, the sons had to go be bondservants to those that he owed money to.

Thanks, Pops, right?

So think about that if that's how things work today, right? Where it's like, how many parents, you know, think about you losing your children to indentured servitude because— which is really slavery, essentially— because you had a debt. And most debts are bad debts.

Yes, most are. Absolutely.

Gambling debts.

Yes, don't be doing that. Don't be putting your DraftKings on your line of credit. Yes, absolutely. Let's continue on. Proverbs 15:22: "Without counsel, plans fail, but with many advisors, they succeed." Right. Yes, this is such a good one. This applies to so many things, not just money, but we're trying to keep this on money on this topic. In business, you guys know this. I mean, if you're running a solo business as an entrepreneur, there's a lot of decisions that need to be made. If you're married, there's lots of decisions that need to be made. And I mean, I'm trying to be better at this, training to be better at this. Check me and my language. I know Roger was cracking the whip on me right there to just, you know, communicate more with Ash about this because The reality is her counsel is spot on always. And I'm not saying that just because I know she listens to this either. Love you, babe. But it is. And I think we— it's great to get counsel from those in our inner circle, those we know, like, and trust. That's part of what the King's Council community is all about, is being able to come up with ideas and bounce things off of each other. And hey, what do you think about this? And but getting that counsel is such an important thing. Um, because without counsel, plans fail.

Yeah.

Yes.

We gave Caleb Williams a shout out a couple weeks ago. Betterwealth.com, that's his website, right? Yes, betterwealth.com. Yeah, if you're seeking, um, a financial advisor, uh, start with him. Start with him. He's not necessarily a financial advisor, but what is he even categorized?

They're more of a coaching company, essentially, in the fact that This isn't always, but a lot of advisors, they're going to advise you on what makes them the most commission, right? It's just how it works. Uh, they're product sellers. Um, you could go to a more of a wealth management company, they're going to charge a fee, uh, of what your, you know, assets under management are. Um, or, and then there's advisors which are usually, they're slinging, you know, annuities and things like that because they get, they make the most money on those, right? Um, so it's great to have outside counsel that is more— you're going to pay a fee, but it's for, it's for counsel. It's like they're not, they're not attached to a product or anything else. And so that's why I love them as a, as a service, because they really truly, they're, they're providing you value not based upon what's in it for them, um, but true advice based upon your exact situation. So, um, yeah, so in, in— they're a great resource it doesn't have to be them, but they're a great resource. If you have an advisor, they actually encourage— if you have an advisor, great. They're going to work with them directly to help you put your money in the right places. But what I love about them, too, is they are three-dimensional thinkers. What I mean by that is, there's so many ways that you can leverage a dollar by having it in one account that's earning interest, but also utilizing it for other things that can earn interest. And we're called to multiply. We're called to increase. So why wouldn't we want to know how to do that to the best of our abilities? And the way we do that is we learn from others that have already gone before us, right? Whether that's financial stewardship, whether that's business, entrepreneurship, you know, marketing, lead generation, things like that. If you— I'm going to just shamelessly plug, we have an online challenge, right? So you don't have to leave the comfort of your home, but we're going to teach you some marketing and sales strategies and you can find out more about this on joinkingcouncil.com, in which we're gonna do these challenges more regularly just to provide education for free on how to, how to grow your business.

Mm-hmm.

Right. How to leverage, the tools and assets that are out there that you might not even know about yet. So, that's one way that you can get counsel. Yep. Yes, absolutely. Anything else on that? Nope.

All right. On to the next one. Proverbs 21:20: Precious treasure and oil are in a wise man's dwelling, but a foolish man devours them. Okay, so what does that mean? It essentially means that building wealth and saving is wise and spending is foolish, especially when you're, you're spending to just enhance your quality of life.

Yes, right. So keeping up with the Joneses.

Exactly.

Don Jones's.

That would be the message. Translation here, I'm sure.

Yes, absolutely. Uh, The Message translation— what verse was it? Was it like— I don't remember what it was, but it's talking about eating a prime rib.

Oh yeah, I forget.

It's so hilarious. Yeah, like, okay. Um, anyways, yes, so the point of this though, and even just some wisdom that we've gathered from the Better Wealth team, is that, you know, money can be can do two things. It can be controlled or spent, right? It can be invested, and that could be invested into not just like the way we think about into like a savings plan, invested into relationships, invested into your family, right? Right. Like a vacation with your family, in my opinion, that's an investment, right? Right. To get away, to, to get away from the chaos and to pour into your, your spouse, um, into your kids. That's an investment. And I think that's probably even just a word for somebody anybody right now thinking of questioning if you should go on a trip or not with your family. Um, but those, it doesn't have to be lavish, right? Those, those can be done very inexpensively. Um, but it just, again, it's how we think of money as a tool. Um, it's not always something that we're gonna just, we're spending it or we're wasting it. Uh, it is an investment to whatever we want to, we choose to invest into. Yep. So, um, anything else on that one, man?

No, man, let's keep it moving. We got a handful of these. That's good. Proverbs 22: 29. The generous will themselves be blessed, for they share their food with the poor.

Hmm, I like this a lot because this is— I think generosity, first off, is a fruit of the Spirit that we, we should all have as believers. This is something that we should be generous. We're called to be generous, and some of us struggle with that more than others.

Would that be the kindness part of the, the fruit of the Spirit?

Yeah, absolutely. Like, well, first off, generosity brings joy. Right? It's, uh, it brings kindness. I think it's, it's just something that is like a natural outpouring of what we do as believers. Yeah, right. Jesus, being the most generous person out there, literally gave his life for us. Yeah. Um, that is something that, that it should just be a normal act in our everyday life.

Yeah.

Um, but when money controls us, we're not serving God, we're serving money. Generosity becomes something, you know, that we don't want to do, right? We're holding on to tight-fisted.

Yeah, there's actually studies that have been done where generosity can increase happiness, can increase your self-esteem, and actually reduce blood pressure.

That's— yeah, I'd like to see those studies.

That's cool.

That's cool. Yeah, I mean, they're just— it's, it's the joy that you have. And this is why God likes a joyful giver. Yeah, right. So if you're, if you're giving out of— you're begrudgingly doing it, don't do it, right? Like, what's, what's the point? Because that's not, that's not the heart behind it.

So yeah, and don't do it. I mean, if you want to see if this is true, and if I'm generous, I'll just be happier. I mean, you could do it for that, but don't be somebody with like white knight syndrome where it's a pride and ego thing where you have to be the one responsible for, for doling out food to the homeless. You know, I've seen people like that and ain't nothing but pride, right?

Or if you're posting every time you give, posting to show social media like, hey, look, I gave this, like, right?

Okay.

You're so good, right? Um, yeah, I mean, there's a number of more Proverbs that we could go into on this, but the whole book of Proverbs is— it's wisdom. It is the book of wisdom, um, that we should, you know, adhere to at least, because it's really, again, it's just more principles. Like, if we do this, life will go well for us, right?

Right. Take a month, do a chapter a day.

Yeah, yeah.

That month will— you'll be blessed.

Yes, absolutely will. Absolutely will.

Yep.

Well, I wanna dive now into more just like specific lessons on money from King Solomon here. So we'll kind of pivot into the book of Ecclesiastes.

Like testes.

All right.

Ecclesiastes 5:10. He who loves money will not be satisfied with money. Well, I like the, what is this? The NIV right here. It says, whoever loves money never has enough. Whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless.

Meaningless. Which is pretty much what the book of Ecclesiastes is about.

It's all meaningless.

Life is meaningless.

Anything apart from God. Yes.

Yeah, it's partway through in reading that the first time, I was like, this is kind of a downer.

It's depressing.

Yeah, it's like, man, get me into some New Testament stuff.

I was about to kill himself, right?

But that's just so true. The dude who literally had all the most money on planet Earth was still miserable, right? Because he was making poor decisions. He wasn't walking in the kingship, the authority that he should have.

Yeah. After he had 100 wives and wasn't happy, he's like, let me get 700 more.

No wonder. I wonder how he still had money left if they had all those wives, right? Right.

I don't know how he had any fuel in the tank, if you know what I mean.

Serious, man.

Yeah.

Maybe that's why he called it the Book of Ecclesiastes. Oh, maybe they'll edit that part out. Or not. Or not.

Yeah, let's keep track of this episode, see how many followers we lose.

Yes, yes, we love you guys. Back to this. It is— if you love money, we know that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Yeah, right. And so that pursuit of it, if that's what you're chasing after and you're pursuing above and beyond your relationship with your Savior, it's— you're gonna be left unfulfilled. This is where I was at 5, 5 and a half years ago, man. It was just like, man, is this really what life is about? Just completely unfulfilled because my priorities— so it was— I was— I didn't have discipleship in my life, and I didn't really know what the purpose of it actually was.

Sure.

And so This is just a good reminder for us listening to this of like, yeah, if the question is like, well, how much is enough? Or how much money do you want to make? My answer is still going to be as much as I possibly can until the day I die, right? Because why would I settle for anything less than excellent in that? Because if God's given me the ability to do it, why wouldn't I go all out with this thing, right? Now, not at the forsake of my soul, not the forsake of me leaving my first love, but this is why we have to stay in check with each other and have accountability with each other, have counsel with each other, like Proverbs says. And, but to pursue it, like if you've been given that gift and ability, then go at it with all of your heart.

Yeah.

Right. It's funny, money's like the only question that gets asked in that respect. Like how much is enough? It's like, well, I don't know. How much love is enough? How much joy is enough? How much, Happiness. If you think about— you ever ask your— somebody asks like, for your kids, how much love do you want to pour out to them? How much joy do you want to give to them? How much money do you want to pass on to them? All of it. Literally all of it, right? I'm gonna— I'm gonna pursue this thing with all my heart until God takes me home.

Yeah. We went to your church today for, uh, the, the business ministry. You had a luncheon today and there's a guest speaker, right?

Ryan Skoog from Venture venture.org. You guys need to check this ministry out. Um, he's also a savage entrepreneur, right?

And he was talking about one of his businesses, like he sells— he's got a company where you could buy airline tickets like through his site.

Yeah.

So he talked about the pandemic in 2020 where, you know, went from— he was doing like 1,500— was it 1,500 a day tickets he was selling a day on a site?

I think that's right.

To none when the pandemic hit and flights got shut down and people weren't flying and had to refund 6 months worth of tickets. People that purchased 6 months in advance that he already paid taxes on, he already paid his employees, and he had to refund those tickets. And he was talking about how, I mean, they went through their cash reserve, they went— hey, and her partner went through her personal money and they were down to nothing. And he was praying, praying, praying, and God opened up the door to some cash flow. They bounced back, and it was a great story. Yeah, but somebody had asked a question about praying, like, what else? Like, were you actively pursuing, like, solutions for this? And he was like, oh yeah, like, the whole time. Yeah, like, this is a, a room of Christians. This is a Christian business gathering. But that prayer was in addition to— yeah, not that it's less important, but that's in addition to— I'm doing everything under the sun in my power to, to make things happen, to make things work.

Yes.

And that's probably why he's crushing as an entrepreneur, right? You have so many Christian entrepreneurs that are just sitting there praying all day about something but not actually putting their hands to the plow and moving.

Absolutely, absolutely. It's not one or the other, it's both and, right? Like, we are to pray continuously and train continuously at this thing. And as we pray and can seek counsel and, and seek the Lord. Seek first the kingdom. Yeah. And all that we do, everything else is going to be added unto us. Everything, right? Everything.

Yeah.

So, yep, it's good.

All right, let's move on. Ecclesiastes 11:2: Divide your portion to 7 or even 8, for you do not know what misfortune may occur on the earth.

Yeah, this is good, man.

Talk about this diversification.

Diversity. Is that DC Talk?

I don't know. We went over this. I don't know DC Talk.

That's why I asked.

I know Nelly.

I know I'm gonna ask you questions that I know you don't know the answer to. I can rub it in your face, right?

I know not one of those would be about grammar.

Toby Mac or DC Talk? Okay, Jared Jaden will let me know. Jared, let me know when you listen to this episode. He's a DC Talk fan. Anyways, diversification.

What does DC stand for in DC Talk?

I don't know. I'm thinking Disciples of Christ. Just completely made that up, but that'd be a good one. Yeah, that'd be a good one. Um, you're gonna Google it, right?

Yeah, while you break this down.

Uh, diversification. This is awesome, man. Like, even back in the day, this is a concept that we still today— you heard about, you hear about diversifying your portfolio, right? Or as I, as an early entrepreneur, I just had this like, I want to have 7 cash-flowing businesses. I just picked the number 7 because that's the number of completion, baby. I just thought that's what I want to have. And I'm still in pursuit of that. I've started multiple different companies, but usually at different stages. But that is still a goal of mine is to have those, you know, not all of our eggs in one basket, but to diversify. Because dude, if anything, the pandemic freaking showed us all of my eggs were in the basket of dinner seminar marketing, uh, which restaurants closed down, which is where you eat dinner, and we couldn't gather groups of people. So it was like a double dose of kryptonite for us. And, uh, but we had to persevere. As any entrepreneur, it's like, all right, well, this is the cards I'm dealt, what are we gonna do? So we had to figure ways around it. And if you're a true entrepreneur, that's just what you do. Now we can take that and we can learn from it and, and plan accordingly of if that ever happens again. Praise— please God, don't let that happen again. But it wouldn't surprise me, I'll tell you that much, if something like that did happen again in and around November 5th or prior to. But we— it's— we've now seen the playbook, so we don't have an excuse to not prepare or plan for it. And this is, I think, what this is really talking about. And I also love too that it's like 7 or even to 8. This isn't like into 45 different things in which you can't possibly, you know, because even if one of those hits big, you probably didn't have enough time, money, effort into it that it's going to be monumental because you got 45 different things going on, right? So 7 or 8 is still a lot. Believe me, that's a, that's a lot. But I think there's great wisdom in this, to be able to— whether it's putting money in money management in some sort of portfolio, just it is diversified so you can mitigate the risk that inevitably is there with any sort of, you know, monetary investment that a person makes. So it's good.

Yeah, decent Christian talk.

For real?

That's what it says, what Wikipedia says.

I don't trust Wikipedia, bro.

Well, you think they're making stuff up about Toby Mac?

Probably.

Why would somebody take the time to put something like that?

I don't know, I just— I had higher hopes for Toby than that.

Another theory is DC meaning he's from the DC area.

Oh, okay. All right, let's get back to this diversification.

Yeah, I think we talked about that. Yes, I had no idea what you were saying. I was looking up this DC talks.

This is what happens, guys, every time I'm like in deep thought, and I'm sure Christian's just Googling stuff, but it's gonna be a 4-hour podcast. No, we're almost done. Bear with us, folks, we're almost done. Okay, um, Ecclesiastes 11:4: He who watches the wind will not sow, and he who looks at the clouds will not reap.

Ah, break it down, break it down.

Yeah, this is, uh, I think this is great because this has to do with timing. Right? And I think those— the person who watches the wind just doesn't sow, right? And we're talking like S-O-W, right? The, the principle here that I want to unpack a little bit for these folks is just the principle of sowing and reaping, right? Right. So if you're just head is in the clouds, um, and you're, you're waiting for your opportunity but you're not seeking it, um, it's gonna pass you by, right? And if you don't sow, you aren't gonna reap, Right. And I think I remember who I heard this first from. But as entrepreneurs, I think one of the things that we're supposed to constantly just be looking for or open to is opportunities. Right. And I remember hearing opportunities are a lot like the bus, right? You're sitting at the bus stop and buses keep coming, keep coming, keep coming. But until you get on the bus, you're not taking advantage of that opportunity.

Right.

Sometimes you got to get off the bench and get on the bus.

Maybe that's right. Yes, I like it. Get off the bench, get on the bus. Buses don't do— I don't think so.

I was thinking J train again. We talked about that, I think, last— was that last week? Yes. Yes.

Yeah. Anyways, all right, work smarter, not harder.

You want to unpack sowing and reaping?

Well, we're going to in a bit.

Okay. All right, all right, we'll come back.

Yeah.

Okay, perfect.

Ecclesiastes 10:10: If the ax is dull and he does not sharpen its edge, then he must exert more strength.

So good on this.

Just sounds wise, right?

Right. Darn Solomon, so wise. Yeah. Yes.

So take the time, sharpen your tools.

Lots of principles to get a coach who's going to help you. Absolutely.

Yeah.

Also, even just rest. Yeah, right. Like, this is— I mean, God created everything in 6 days and then specifically on the 7th day created the Sabbath, said it was holy. But created it for man.

Right, right.

Which is cool to think about. Like, that's how God— he's thought of everything. And us as entrepreneurs, we oftentimes are like, we're chopping wood with a dull ax because we're fatigued. We haven't taken the time just to replenish, to reflect. Sure. And keep sharp. Right. And that's so important. So I cannot preface how, like, so important that is for us as entrepreneurs to stay sharp in our game. And I mean, there's just times where you're running ragged and it's like, you just, you have to take that time, take that, go sharpen the ax. You just gotta go sharpen the ax every now and then. Yeah, I love the story. Scott tells it way better than I ever would. Just the story of the guy sharpening the ax, the other dude, I'm not even gonna try to tell it now. It's a good story. He tells it on some coaching calls every now and then. So you gotta join our coaching calls to listen to that.

It is a good story. Yeah, I've botched it myself when I try to share it.

I've tried to do it one other time and I was like, I'm just gonna let Scott do it.

Yeah, you're usually a good storyteller like that though. Yeah, how about jokes? Are you a good joke teller? I don't hear you tell a lot of jokes.

Jokes, I love to tell them, but I, I don't remember them that well. Yeah, so some people— I've got a great like, like appreciation for people that can just remember the joke and they can— right on immediately.

Yeah, yeah, it's a gift. It is a gift, absolutely. I told I joked to your dad the other day. How'd I do?

Oh yeah, yeah, I was in the room. Yeah, that was good. Yeah, he chuckled.

Yeah, yeah, it takes a lot to get your dad to laugh.

It does. Usually it's like, oh, I count that a laugh too. Yeah, grumbling. So, um, but let's unpack. So work smarter, not harder. That's just— and this could be the counsel from others that we talked about, um but also just not being set in your ways too. I mean, especially with technology and the way things are advancing, there's so many tools available today. Shout out to our new program, the King's Council War Plan AI. Mm-hmm. If you're a small business owner and you wish you had like a dashboard that would show you exactly where your marketing dollars are going, how your sales are, are converting, stuff that would, would produce AI produce all of your social media content. I mean, I can't even tell you the ninja-level stuff that Mr. Josh Latimer and their team have built for us here within the King's Council. It's incredible. You got to check this thing out. It is King's Council War Plan AI. Now, we're always supposed to work hard, but the reality is, if you look at just culture and society, the highest-earning workers are not the ones that work the hardest. Right, the highest earning people that are making the majority of the money, they're not breaking their backs is what I mean by that.

Yeah, speaks about that quite a bit.

Yeah, they're working hard, but it's the mental fortitude that they're, they're working with, right? It's not the breaking of their back. I have great appreciation for those that do hard labor and things because Lord knows I can't do it.

You can't?

I can, I just choose not to.

Right.

Because there's certain things that just— working smarter versus harder would be example of mowing my lawn. Like, it's— it would be irresponsible for me to mow my own lawn.

Don't smirk at that. Why?

Because the 3.5 hours it would take me to mow that lawn, I can go make way more money doing something else, and I can pay somebody else to do it.

Okay.

Right.

I didn't realize it took that long.

Oh, if I did it, for sure. They're over here in about 7.5 minutes with their big tractors.

All right.

Right. But that's what I mean. That's an example of working smarter, not harder. Right. The dude is spraying off our dock. You know how long it would have took me to clean off that duck poop? I ain't doing that.

Right. Right.

And because I have the ability to go make money elsewhere. And I think for a lot of entrepreneurs listening to this, if you're spending time, again, not investing, but if you're spending time on those things that you could pay somebody to be doing them so you could be producing wealth on your end, then it's time to make a shift in that. Plus, it's— find a Christian entrepreneur that to sow into, you're investing in the kingdom economy. And that's an example of working smarter, not harder, right?

Amen.

Sowing and reaping. Yeah. Let's unpack this here. We'll land this plane. Struggling. You're all right, bro. Stick with this.

I just stuffed my face before this podcast.

I, I'm never gonna feed Christian before we do a podcast again.

Oh, it's not working.

Burping. Just kidding. Just trying to keep him awake here. But this is a principle within kingship that I think we— it's so important for us to understand the principle of sowing and reaping, right? And this happens in literally everything, with the words that you speak, with the thoughts that you think, man. This is why we have to take captive our thoughts. Uh, what we sow, we reap, no question about it. And then of course, this is with our dollars as well, right? What are you sowing into? What are you reaping with your time? Where do you— where are you sowing your time? It's going to be evident with what you're actually reaping, right? If you're scrolling Instagram for 7 hours a day, probably ain't reaping much.

Yeah, headaches.

Yes, no question, no question. Headaches there. Lots of examples that we could give, but I mean, we'll just start in Genesis, right? On the third day of creation, this is where God commanded the vegetation to bring forth, right? This is structure in our blueprint that we coach on within the King's Council here. This was the structure that we were able to, uh, you know, how we have the ability to even breathe oxygen, right? Right. But in that specifically, it was plants that had seeds. They were bearing seed, and of its own kind. Of its own kind. Yes. Fruit with seed in it of its own kind. And ever since then the beginning of time, this is a principle that has been in effect, right? An apple tree doesn't bear walnut trees. Are oranges considered trees? Orange tree? I think it's an orange tree.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, they grow from trees. Okay, I don't think they call it something else, right?

An orange bush.

Pear tree.

Yeah, pear trees are real. Screwed up that analogy there, but you didn't screw it up.

No, don't be so hard on yourself.

Thanks, bud.

Don't, don't throw that condemnation upon yourself.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I'm going to sow encouragement right now in the name of Jesus.

And you know what? You're going to reap it too. Yeah, because you reap what you sow. Yes, yes. Galatians 6:7-8 says, do not be deceived, God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. Yeah, come on. Yes. Yeah.

If you sow into your flesh, the darkness just begets darkness.

Yes.

You're going to reap corruption. You're gonna— you're gonna sow bad seeds, you're gonna sow evil, and you're gonna— you're gonna bring forth— what, what's gonna be brought forth is just darkness. Yeah. Corruption, evil in your life. That's why you see people when they go down wayward paths, I mean, that snowball, it gains a lot of momentum real fast when you start going down a, uh, the wrong path. And start doing things that are not of God.

Absolutely, absolutely. That's just when you were saying that, it's just the concept of love your enemy, man, because so many— if you, if you're a follower of Jesus, no question you have enemies, right? It's just, you just— we've got an enemy. Actually, at the, uh, business conference that— or not conference, but luncheon that we had, I was just talking about if you're in business as a kingdom entrepreneur, you are in business in the marketplace and like you have competition, but you also are in business against the enemy.

Right, right.

Like he's coming to attack your business and all of us, I guarantee if you've been in business, you know what I'm talking about is that just he's coming for you to steal, to kill and destroy. And that's where we have to keep the faith, baby. We got to, we got to and sow good things. Where I was going with that was just like the people that do us wrong, how easy for it is for us to, to speak negatively over them, you know, even in close discussions. I feel like I've been in conversation with you on some certain things in our past that's happened. It's just like, man, I've just had to repent of just the negativity that I would speak over a person because of how they wronged us in different situations, right? Again, your words that you're sowing, you're reaping something. And yeah, you will absolutely reap that. And that's on Hosea 10:12, says, sow for yourself righteousness, reap in mercy. Break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord till he comes and rains righteousness on you. So there's 3 things that I want us to take away from understanding the concept of sowing and reaping, right? One you had already kind of hit on is that we reap in kind to what we sow, right?

Right.

You plant an apple tree, you're gonna get an apple tree. You ain't gonna get an orange tree, right? So if you're sowing negative things and you're, you're speaking negativity, why in the world would you ever expect positive things to happen? In your life, right? It's going to be in kind to what you're actually sowing. So this is just like, to me, that's a challenge. It's kind of a fun challenge. It's like, this is why being around positive speaking people, it's like, why are they happy? Why are they always more joyous? Because they're sowing positive seeds, right? And it's just, it's not that hard to do. You just got to take captive those thoughts and start sowing what you want to actually reap. Yeah. Yes.

A little trivia about Hosea. Who was his wife? Do you remember? Or what was her profession?

I don't remember either.

Gomer. She was a prostitute.

Okay. Yeah.

And Hosea is an Old Testament form of Jesus where he paid for his wife, basically. Like she was a hoe. And then, you know, they got married and then she turned back to hoeing.

To Hosea.

To Hosea.

Yeah. Do you a point behind that, or is that just trivia?

Oh, that's just trivia.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, because folks, we're gonna keep along here. Not that Lucy was a prostitute, but one of my little names for her is my little Gomer.

Oh man, you guys get more than— more than what you sowed, you're reaping more. Okay, which is another one of my, uh, points of this. Okay, I'm not gonna get to that one but we reap proportionately to what we sow.

Yep.

Right. So proportionately, this is like, hey, if you sow sparingly, you're gonna reap sparingly, right? If you're tight-fisted and you're not generous, don't expect generosity to flow to you. Yeah. Um, that's pretty understanding. What is it, 2 Corinthians? It just tells us that whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. 2 Corinthians 9:6, right there. Yeah, pretty simple. All right, so we— again, we reap in kind with what we sow, we reap proportionately to what we sow, and the last one is we reap more than what we sow.

That's right.

This is the power of a seed, man. Yeah. What's this— the statement, you, you never— you can count the amount of seeds in an apple, but you can't count the amount of apples in a seed. Yep. It's such a good Illustration.

Yeah, right. I'd actually done the math. It's in some of our notes somewhere. It's not in this one, where how many stalks of corn is in a kernel. Oh, it is?

Yep. Okay. Remember, you helped author that.

Thank you for giving me props today. There's actually a, uh, a little flyer on the table that we didn't know would be there, but it was for Rylee's book, and a lady at the table started talking about what we do at King's Council. And Riley was like, very humbly, he was like, oh, this is actually a book that we wrote.

Yeah.

And I was like, oh, I told you I had to bite my tongue because nobody else would have context to what you're even saying, right?

Right.

I was gonna say, actually, I was gonna say, oh, thank you for being modest, but it's actually your book at the Rylee Meek.

But the story— we got to get this guy to bed, folks. The story though, I remember doing the calculation of the corn kernels of what the story you're going to go into and then sending it to you and being like, bro, do this math because it's very hard right now.

Yeah, but I did it for like just, just a couple seasons worth of corn and the millions amount of stalks that you have. Yeah, over a couple years just starting with a single corn kernel. It's crazy.

It's Fascinating. Yeah, so fascinating, right? And, and that's, that's true. Like, what we're sowing, it's, it's going to— it's, it's gonna— we're gonna reap it in proportion, but it's always going to be more than what we sow. And that's even just another testament of, like, negative words— oh snap. Yeah, I don't want more of that junk.

Yep, right?

So, so more positive things. Or if you're giving and you're generous with the dollars, sow those because you will absolutely reap in proportion and reap more than what you're actually sowing. These are principles, baby. This is, this is straight from the word of God. You can argue with, uh, gurus, like self-help books, but you can't argue with the word of God.

This is truth, truth, truth, truth.

To put a bow on all of this, yes, um, land this plane. Let's land this thing because this is the crescendo of these Kingdom Money principles. Again, God owns everything.

Nice word.

Crescendo.

I like it.

Spell that, grammar ass.

It's C-R-E-S-C-E-N-D-O. There's no H in it.

Yeah, someone will fact-check us on this as he's Googling it. But, um, God owns everything, right? We are managing it and we are worshiping. We get to worship. We can choose to either worship our wealth or worship with our wealth. Crescendo. Good job.

Thank you.

Um, so, uh, in that, then we get to walk in this understanding of kingship and start to walk out these principles, one of them being the law of sowing and reaping, right? And this is, this is where it gets really stinking exciting. Yeah. If you do this intentionally, right, right? We can unintentionally sow seeds and then we're still going to reap, right? But But once you gamify this thing, like gamify your life, this is how it can get fun. And it's not, again, to, we don't give to get, but giving always puts you in a position to receive.

Yeah.

Right? And if you're in that position to receive from the Lord, man, that's what kingship really truly is. We are the father, or we are, excuse me, the children of the one true King Jesus. He is King of Kings, Lord of Lords. And we, because of him and what he's done and what, how he's called us as kings and priests, we get to walk this life out. Yeah. There's plenty of times where we don't feel like kings. We don't feel like queens. Right? Yeah. But it doesn't matter what we feel like because God has called us kings and queens. And so we, that's who we are. That's the identity. But we have to own it and we get to then walk in that. It's not about your feelings. It's about who has God said you are. And that starts this process here. If we can start this process again of honoring God, he owns it, we're stewarding, I'm gonna worship him, this is my act of sacrifice. And then I'm gonna start to walk in these principles here of kingship. Man, the rest, I ain't gonna say it's easy. It's gonna be hard. It's gonna be hard, but it's gonna be worth it. No question, no doubt about it. It's gonna be worth it.

And the blessings and joy that you receive, say, they far outweigh any hardships that you may absolutely endure.

Absolutely. Well, it changes your entire perspective of the hardship to, right, I have to go through this, that I get to go through this, and what can I learn from this? Because all of us, I hope this, this walk, this life that you're in right now, um, the point of it is to hear when we get called home one day, is to hear the, the true words from our Lord and Savior: well done good and faithful servant. You've been faithful with the, with the little. And, uh, enter into the joy of the Lord. Yeah, right, like enter into the joy of the Lord. And that just gives us a different perspective of how to walk this life out here on Earth.

Yeah, amen.

Yes, amen. That being said, we got a number of fun topics coming up here. Uh, we were kind of chatting like, oh, what should we get into next? Because it's been a couple months of these Kingdom Money principles, but man, we got, we got a list, baby. So that's Uh, don't you worry, we're gonna have more, uh, fun-filled episodes with Christian here. I thought I heard snoring for a second.

No, I was the star.

Okay, okay. That being said, we're gonna get this guy to bed, and we'll see you guys on next week's episode.

Peace.