#99 4/8-9/2023

Seminar: Role of the Holy Spirit
Scam Alert: Online Sport Jerseys
Dave Ramsey: More Scam Info
Minute with Maxwell: “Busy”

(UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT)

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to Financial Freedom God’s Way Radio, where you are continuing to learn, apply, and pass on, Bible-based financial principles and applications so that you and your family will not only just survive, but can thrive during these very uncertain times.

Hi and welcome everyone, this is Bob Louder from Christian Financial Ministries, and it is an absolute honor to have you with, it really is. Where are we going during our 30-minute time together today?

1. First of all—during the Your Finances in Perilous Times Radio Seminar, you are going to discover the role the Holy Spirit wants to play as He and you and I together head you’re your personal road to Financial Freedom God’s Way—trust me, you don’t want to miss this.
2. Then you are going to learn about a sports jersey online scam that’s going around.
3. Dave Ramsey will talk with us about come current scams as well.
4. We will respond to a couple of your questions—if we have time.
5. Because we want to be sure to make time for a Minute with Maxwell as Christian author, speaker, teacher, trainer, mentor, and coach John Maxwell shares with us his thoughts on the word “busy.”

So stay tuned, it’s going to be another great time together with the Lord. You are not going to want to miss a minute of today’s program.

As we start, as we always start, please open with me in a word of prayer. Father, we thank You for meeting with us again today. Please give us ears to hear all that it is you have planned for us, all to Your glory, in Jesus’ mighty name, amen.

BODY

Radio Seminar

Review

My friend, these Radio Seminar times together I promise will help you to prayerfully earn and apply what God has to say about how to live the material areas of your life in ways that are going to be pleasing to Him.

Right now we are working through three foundation stones that will help guide you down your personal road to Financial Freedom God’s Way.

1. You have already seen that even though you are one of only 10% within the body of Christ who is ever going to step out and prayerfully work to discover and apply what the Lord has to teach about managing your material resources…even so, you still have some rather uncomfortable financial habits in common with others within the body of Christ and everyone else as well.
2. Plus you have also seen two of the three reasons that according to the Bible you should step out, learn, apply, and pass along what the Lord has to say in this area.
   1. First, because money is important to God given that that He spends more time talking about money than any other subject except for the subject of love. So, if you base what is important on whether it’s in God’s Word and how often it’s in God’s Word, money is an important topic to God.
   2. And secondly, because it’s important to God, it ought to be important for you to not only know what God has to say about money but also to practice and pass along what God has to say about money. And along that same line, you also discovered that how you choose to manage money and the other areas of your material life is a clear, visible outside indicator to you as to the quality of your relationship with God and others.
   3. These are some great points. If you missed last week, I suggest you head over to our website to relisten to the program, and read, and study the transcript.

Radio Seminar Responsibilities

Now, if all of this is true—and I’m telling you that it is under the authority of God’s Word, it is true—then this has a huge impact on you and how you move your way through this Radio Seminar and beyond. Let me show you what I mean. For example:

1. My responsibility—as we go through this Seminar—my job is not to teach you. My job is to share with you as clearly as God gives me breath, what God’s Word has to say and also I’m going to pass along to you some ideas as to how to begin to put His Word into practice in your life. But remember, I do not have the answers, Christian Financial Ministries does not have the answers—Larry Burkett did not have the answers and Dave Ramsey does not have the answers. God’s Word—that’s where the answers are. The answers are found in those 3000+ verses about money in the Bible.
2. On the other hand, what is your job—my job is not to teach, but what is your responsibility before God as we go thru these times together? Now, you’ve already seen this so this should be review for you—your job is to prayerfully listen, take notes, keep an open mind, and search for applications. Spend some time listening to the program on your radio then head to your computer and our website to relisten or read and study the transcripts. That’s your job. This is not casual radio.
3. In short, it’s not my job to teach, but it’s your job to be taught. So who is the teacher? You bet…the Holy Spirit! It is the Holy Spirit’s job to teach you.
4. Jesus tells you, doesn’t He, in John 14:26—remember that verse, it’s a great memory verse, you probably have memorized it, and you know this verse that says…

The counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things.

You see, my friend, the purpose of this Radio Seminar is not to authenticate me, or your pastor, or your church, or anybody or anything else. The sole purpose of this seminar is to help you get pointed to the right direction so that you can rise to whatever level the Lord has in mind for YOU.

And by the way, remember that, according to the Bible, the Holy Spirit—He is the Spirit of Truth. What does this mean? It means that you can trust Him. He is not going to lead you down the wrong path; He is not going to lead you to make a wrong decision. What He tells you to do or not do, to say or think is right and it is best. My friend, when the Holy Spirit drops a thought into your mind to do, there is a reason, so you had better do it. When He tells you that something is going to work, guess what, it is going to work, so do it. When He gives you instruction it’s because He is trying to help you. As you are taught and as you are led by the Holy Spirit you can trust that He is going to plant truth into your mind. You can trust that He is going to convince you of God’s will, and that He is going to remind you when you stray from it. Listen, nobody knows the Bible any better than the Holy Spirit. Nobody can teach it any better than the One who inspired it. Man, I am telling you that you have a fantastic teacher and it is not me—it is the Holy Spirit!

You see, I have the easy job. I get to hear what God’s Word has to say over and over again, and I get to learn more each time. You have the hard part. You’re probably going to sit through this Radio Seminar only once. However, you need to be encouraged, because you have a tool that stays with you—that’s God’s Word, remember, the Bible, Basic Instructions Before Leaving Planet Earth. And you also have a teacher Who stays with you—and that is the Holy Spirit. And, you also have the website that stays with you at christianfinancialministries.org with all of the transcripts and all of the program recordings. So you have some tools that stay with you. The most important is the person of the Holy Spirit.

My prayer is that when you leave this Radio Seminar you are not going to remember a single thing—not one thing that Bob Louder ever had to say—nope, not a single thing, nothing, nada, zip. My prayer is that your heart is going to be touched to remember and to prayerfully act on what it is that the Holy Spirit has to say to you–that you will recall and put into practice what the Holy Spirit gives you.

All right? OK.

Radio Seminar: Review

For the last several weeks have been some great times together with the Lord as He has been getting us ready for all that is to come. Before we get into the meat of what is to come, let’s take a quick look back and review, OK? Do you remember the three main things we talked about during our times together—the Foundation Stones?

1. First, first you discovered just a bit of all that you have in common—financially—financially and materially—not only with others in the Body of Christ, but also with those in the pre-Christian community as
   1. Remember, you are not alone—you are not alone in needing some help to learn how to manage the material areas of your life. You are not alone.
   2. And then you also saw how your uniqueness is beginning to grow, because unlike the pre-Christian community you have a blue-print for successful financial and material management all tied up and rolled up into your copy of God’s book of Basic Instructions Before Leaving Planet Earth.
   3. But then you are even more unique than that–remember, going way back—you are unique in the fact that you are one of the 10% or fewer of the folks in the Body of Christ who are ever step out to really attempt to learn and apply what God’s Word has to say in the area or money and material management.
   4. So, you have a great commonality in your need for help, but you are unique in how God is leading you to get that help. That’s the first thing.
2. Now secondly, you saw three great reasons to be here and learn to understand, apply, and pass on what God has to tell you about managing money. Do you remember what they are?
   1. First, contrary to what many folks have to say, the Bible says that money is an important subject to God.
   2. Secondly, because money is important to God, it ought to be important to you, because
   3. Number three, you stand to receive lots of personal benefits—some of them based on the fact that how you handle your material life is an indicator, to you, as to the quality of your relationship with God and with other folks as well.
3. Then finally, the last thing you saw—just today, you saw a little more detail about the specific seminar responsibilities that you, I, and the Holy Spirit have.
   1. Most importantly—it is the Holy Spirit Who is going to be doing the teaching.
   2. My job is to simply help facilitate all that the Holy Spirit wants to put forward.
   3. It is your responsibility is to listen, learn, apply, and pass it along.
4. My friend, listen, you need all of what you’ve heard this time, plus you need all that you will hear next time; you need it all to get ready to take a look at the first of the two most important financial principles in all of God’s Word.

Radio Seminar: Look Forward

So, that’s just a bit of review. But now, what about next time; what about next week? Well, next time you are in for what I believe will be another real surprise or two. Did you realize that some 2000+ years ago God wrote very specifically, He painted a very, very clear picture of what the American economy really looks like today? I don’t mean what it looks like “in these times,” some vague generalization. No, no. He gives you a very specific, written picture of what our American economy actually looks like this very day. There is absolutely no need to wonder about who’s telling you the truth in Washington. No, you don’t have to worry about that, because the next time we meet you are going to see God’s truth about our economy right from God’s Word. Don’t miss it.

Scam Alert: Sport Jerseys

Well, it’s time for a scam alert, unfortunately—or fortunately that you are getting the information and unfortunate we need to pass it along to you. Here’s the deal: You need to be sure your new sport jersey is the real deal when shopping online.

1. If you are a basketball fan, or football, baseball—whatever type of a sport fan you happen to be, wearing the jersey of your favorite professional or collegiate sports personality or team is a fashionable way to show your support.
2. But jerseys can be pricey and, as with most high-dollar items, scammers have invented ways to con people shopping for one, particularly online. If you are buying a jersey online, be sure to do your research and buy from a reputable business.

Here is how this scam works

1. You come across a website that boasts a large selection of sport jerseys featuring some of the most popular colleges, pro teams, and players. The site may claim to be endorsed or sponsored by famous athletes or boast an inventory of hard-to-find sizes. In any case, the website looks legitimate. As for prices, some scammers offer jerseys at regular prices—so there is no differential there–while others claim they are selling at deep discounts. They might explain the sale by claiming to be going out of business.
2. So, all look safe and you decide to buy a jersey, and everything seems normal during the checkout.
   1. The Better Business Bureau Scam Tracker has seen reports of scammers asking customers to pay through PayPal—which seems legit given that PayPal is a BBB approved vender–after which they may send you a “tracking number” for your order.
   2. In some cases, the jersey never existed, and you’ll be left waiting for a package to arrive that isn’t coming—or you are going to be waiting for that tracking number that never is going to show up.

If you discover you’ve been dealing with scammers or a counterfeit product vendors on line, it will be hard, maybe even impossible, to get your money back. In addition, depending on how you paid, scammers may now have your credit card number or other personal information.

Now, how you can avoid this and all kinds of online purchasing scams.

1. Only shop with reputable businesses. Plenty of trustworthy businesses sell sports jerseys, so shop with them! How can you tell if a business can be trusted? Look up business reviews on BBB.org and other third-party websites, particularly if you come across a new business through social media ads. Read customer reviews carefully, keeping an eye out for complaints about customer service and possible scams.
2. The second thing you can do is to watch out for deals that seem too good to be true. They probably are. If you find sports jerseys for unreasonably low prices or a company claims to have sold-out jerseys in their inventory, think twice before you buy. Scammers hope you’ll be so excited about the deal you found you’ll buy without doing any further research.

My friend, where there is money there are scammers and scams—even right here in the North Georgia and Western North Carolina mountains. Be prayerfully cautious as you shop on line.

Dave Ramsey

Interestingly enough, our good friend Dave Ramsey also has some thoughts for us on some other current scams and how to avoid them.

Ouch, it seems that our world is full of scams these days—we really need to take to heart and pass along the great advice we get from the Better Business Bureau and Dave Ramsey…thanks Dave.

Minute with Maxwell

Now, let’s start to wrap up our time together today with one of the highlights of all of our times together. Let’s spend a Minute with Maxwell as John Maxwell. I promise we will bet to some of your questions next week. For this week, we are running out of time. So, we are going to go right to John Maxwell as He gives us his thoughts on the word, “Busy,” this should be interesting. Let’s take a listen.

Busy is a great word. Thanks John. It just occurred to me that probably most of us who get involved with scams are just too busy to do our homework…is that possible. Remember also a great acronym for the word busy…have you heard this? B U S Y–Being Under Satan’s Yoke.

CONCLUSION

And that just about wraps up our time together. A couple of reminders for you: This is not casual radio. God has brought you here for a purpose. So, after you listen to this program, if the Lord has touched your heart—what you can do is to go over to our website at christianfinancialministry.org to either relisten to the program or you can read and study and even print off the transcript.

So, that’s it for us today. Let me closes us with a word of prayer. Father, we do thank You for bringing us together and teaching and encouraging us again today, and for each of the days yet to come, to Your glory, in Jesus’ mighty name, Amen.

Have a great rest of your day, won’t you, and we are looking forward to seeing you next time as you continue down your personal road to Financial Freedom God’s Way.