How to Spend Money God's Way

God gave the first humans a command about spending. In the garden, he told Adam: You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die (Genesis 2:16-17). God provided abundance. He set clear boundaries. He asked for obedience in what they consumed. The first human decision about spending went catastrophically wrong. Eve saw that the tree was good for food and took from it. Adam followed. They spent what they had no right to spend, and this choice brought death into the world.

Every purchase we make echoes that choice in Eden. We decide what to consume, what to pursue, what deserves our resources. These decisions matter to God because they reveal what we value and whom we trust.

How God Teaches Us to be Savers

God built lessons about saving into creation itself. He designed certain animals to teach humans about planning and preparation. Solomon wrote: 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 (Proverbs 6:6-8). The ant doesn't have a supervisor standing over her, demanding she work. She sees summer coming and knows winter will follow. She prepares accordingly. God points to this tiny creature and says, "Learn from her."

The story of Joseph in Egypt illustrates this principle on a grand scale. God revealed to Pharaoh through dreams that seven years of abundance would be followed by seven years of famine. Joseph advised Pharaoh to save one-fifth of the grain during the good years so Egypt would survive the bad years (Genesis 41). This wisdom saved Egypt and the surrounding nations from starvation. God gave warning. Joseph responded with a plan. Saving made the difference between life and death.

God's Very Nature Shows that He's a Giving God

God gives because giving flows from who he is. John writes that anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love (1 John 4:7-8). Love gives. It shares. It provides for others at cost to itself. This isn't just something God does occasionally when he feels generous. Giving is woven into his eternal nature.

We see this within the Trinity itself. Before creation, before time began, the Father loved the Son. Jesus spoke of the glory that I had with you before the world existed (John 17:5). The Father gave this glory to the Son. The Son loves the Father and does what pleases him (John 14:31). The Father gives all things into the Son's hand (John 3:35). This divine generosity existed before the universe came into being. God didn't start giving when he made the world. He has always been the Giving One.

God Wants You to Work and Earn Money

Work existed before sin entered the world. This might surprise us because we tend to think of work as part of the curse, something we endure until we can retire and finally rest. Genesis tells a different story. When God placed Adam in the garden, he gave him meaningful work to do: The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it (Genesis 2:15). The garden needed cultivation. It needed care. God designed humans to find purpose in this kind of labor.

The command to work appears even earlier in the creation account. God told the first humans to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion (Genesis 1:28). This wasn't punishment. This was privilege. God invited humanity to join him in bringing order from chaos, to cultivate what he had made, to help creation flourish. When we work, we use the materials and abilities God provides to help others thrive. We build communities. We spread his image throughout the world.