Money management.  Financial self-disclosure.  The Bible says that when two people get married, they become one flesh.  I believe that they become one spiritually, physically, relationally and also financially.  In other words, they become checkmates.  That is God’s design for your marriage and my marriage.  And when you have two self-centered sinners merging together, you have got some tension, don’t you?  Last week we talked about conflict in marriage and this week we are still going to talk about conflict in marriage, but specifically in the area of finances.  There is pressure around money.

George Gallop estimates that 56% of all divorces occur due to money matters.  Time magazine recently stated that the number one conflict in marriage has to do with arguments over dollars and cents.  We are so serious about money management, and especially as it relates to marriage, that we have dedicated an entire weekend where we talk about what the Bible says regarding money.  For far too long the church has only emphasized one aspect of money management – the tithe.

You go to church after church and they talk about giving money to the church, giving money to a building program, the first 10%.  And that is important.  I will talk about that subject briefly, but the churches miss God’s overall genius and His thought process on money management.  God, that’s right, our loving God wants to have some serious input into your finances and my finances.  But for some strange reason we like to compartmentalize our lives, don’t we?  We say that we will trust God in the spiritual domain but we will keep our financial affairs ourselves.  We say we made the money, it is our money and we will do with it as we please.