 If you're working a 9-to-5 job and you're not making at least $10,000 a month, you need to watch this. 10K a month is nothing. Very, very easy to be doing. Imagine you help Jeff Bezos. Imagine you help DL a month. 10K is nothing. 10K a month is so easy to make. And if you're not making at least $10,000 a month, heck, even $5,000 a month online, what are you doing? I think a lot of us can agree that money is stupid. We spend our whole lives trying to get it. We work for it. And yet we're not supposed to love it, but we're irresponsible if we don't have enough of it and we worry about it and we compare how much we have to how much other people have and we scheme about how we can get more of it. And it's just exhausting. It's just plain exhausting. Now for me, money was a place of trying to gain assurance that I was okay. It was a measure of saying, am I behind? Am I doing enough? Am I being responsible? And I kind of began to obsess about it. Now the truth is if we were to have a little therapy session right now and I bring you back to the root of where this really comes from, it comes from my deep desire to wanting to be married at an early age and wanting to be in a relationship. I loved the idea of having a wife and being in a relationship and I knew that as a man my goal and my responsibility would be to provide for her. And so even from an early age that then meant that one day I would need to have enough money and that that would become kind of a marker to say if I was ready to get married or not. And so then I just began to save like crazy. That wasn't super hard for me because I'm naturally a saver but it would cause me a lot of anxiety because I'd worry. I'm not even messing with you guys and maybe this tells you more about my bad mental state than anything but from the age of like 15, 16 I'd worry about the job that I would be able to get and being able to provide for my wife. And so then I would just save like crazy and I would look at my bank account all the time even as a teenager because I was scared I wouldn't have enough. It became the primary determiner of my piece a lot of the time. If I saved a lot that month, if I worked a few extra jobs, if I put in some more hours if I saved what was in my bank account and it looked a little bit higher than it did last week I'd feel good and I'd feel secure and I'd be able to allow myself to have some peace. But if I knew some unexpected purchases or I needed to invest in something or buy a laptop so I could edit videos, all of a sudden this deep pit in my stomach began to form and I would feel anxious. I would begin to get in this cycle of thinking that it's all going to fade away and I wouldn't have enough. I was simultaneously focused on my online ministry and putting all my attention and energy into preaching the gospel online but then also getting consumed and wrapped up in this social media content that was telling me that I needed to be making more money and if I'm not making enough money then you can make more this way and I just go down these rabbit holes of dropshipping and all this other stuff. If you're working a 9-to-5 job and you're not making at least $10,000 a month you need to watch this. 10K a month is nothing. Very, very easy to be doing. Easy. Imagine you help Jeff Bezos. Imagine you help DL a month. 10K is nothing. 10K a month is so easy to make. 10, 20, 25, everything. And if you're not making at least $10,000 a month even $5,000 a month online, what are you doing? I feel so dumb and stupid and behind and irresponsible because I wasn't measuring up to the expectation that I had for myself and also I was putting so much energy and attention into the online ministry. I had dropped out of university. That's like strike one. I was living in my parents' basement. Strike two. I went to a missions conference one time. I hate to be jumping around like this, but I went to a missions conference one time, set up a booth to talk about my ministry daily disciple and somebody had came up to me and they said, okay, where's your headquarters? Because at that point maybe I had 16,000 subscribers, but I was putting my heart and soul into this and I really cared about it and wanted to tell people about it. And I basically said in my parents' basement and this lady laughed at me. She literally laughed at me. She said, hey, I guess you got to start somewhere. And I'm sure she meant it in good fun, but that took a big shot to me, like big shot to my ego. And it's good, God humbles us and he keeps us humble and that's a good thing, but it's still once again reaffirmed this insecurity that I was behind. What I kind of realized is that in our life we used a bunch of different coping mechanisms, whether that's money or trying to acquire fame or achievement or success of some kind or using our smarts and we find peace in those things. If we have one of those things, then we begin to equate our peace with it. And the second that that deteriorates or we no longer can find peace in that or comfort in that, then we try to look for another thing. And if we can't find another thing, then we are just emotionally destroyed. But this is when the story takes a little bit of a turn. You see, over five years I would say, like 18 to 23, when I was 23 I actually started making a little bit of money that I could support myself. I was not crazy about money, just enough that I could support myself. And so I was like, okay, I think I want to move out of my parents' basement. So I moved out. And I began to kind of get in that cycle again of looking at my bank account and worrying if I would have enough. It got to this point where it didn't matter how much I brought in that month or if I kept another job or did a couple side jobs or did some work for some other people and maybe made a little bit more money. The truth wise is that when your heart, when your heart is focused on what you have it is never enough. When that's when your attention, where your attention is it is never enough. And this is actually a biblical principle. Ecclesiastes 5.10 says, People often mistakenly think that it's just rich people who love money but the truth is anybody can love money. Anybody can desire money and be obsessed with money regardless of how much you have. You can be dirt poor and still be obsessed and love money. But what God says is that those who love money and are obsessed with money will never have enough. It's like a curse on them. It's like if you love this thing so much you'll never have enough of it and you'll never feel content with it and you'll always be anxious and you'll always just be in a state of panic and obsession and it will just be disastrous because you love this thing that cannot bring you fulfillment. And this reaffirms what the world is doing. They are trying to convince you that you need more, that you are behind, that you need to buy this thing and this course in order that you can make more money or you need to switch careers in order for you to make more money or live the lifestyle that you deserve or look at what these other people are doing. Man, you can't afford that. What are they doing that you're not doing and it's this constant state of rat race, of hurry, of discontentment, of unease within our souls. And so what I have sought to embody over the last few years is a new philosophy. It's this idea that money is a tool to buy time back with my friends, with my family, for creative projects, for things that I find meaningful, for service. Now, contrary to what some Christians might believe, money is not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing. But it's also a tricky thing to manage. It is tough. It puts responsibility on your shoulders. I think of the parable of the talents. A master gave three servants different amounts of money. He gave one five talents, one two talents, and one one talent. The five talents man, he goes out and he doubles his talents. He trades it. Another one with the two talents, he goes out and he trades it and he has another two talents too. They're multiplying what they have. The man with the one talent, he just goes and digs it, digs a hole and puts it in the ground so he doesn't lose it. He did nothing with what he was given. So it is a tool for us to steward. But if it becomes an obsession, then it then becomes an obstacle to our intimacy with God and understanding that he is our primary desire and delight and security and peace. Here are some practical things that I did to get out of this money obsession mindset. I began to buy my friends coffee every single time that we went out. So if we went, that would be a pretty normal thing for my friends to do. We would go out, we'd have a chat and we'd get some coffee. I would try to buy them coffee every time. It's on me, I got you. And that would just teach me that it's good to like over your money. It's good to like over your money. Now this might seem like an obvious thing, but the second thing I did was set up direct deposit to give to my church. So I didn't even have to think about it. So I didn't even let the opportunity to say, you know what, I can't afford it this month. Or, you know what, I can't do this. I'm scared or I'm anxious about my financial situation. So maybe I need to withhold some of this. No, it's just gonna leave my account and it's gonna go straight to them. And that is what I'm gonna give the rest of God. I'm gonna trust God that he's gonna provide for me. The other thing that I'm going to do is invest in myself. For a long time I put off buying a laptop or a better laptop after I dropped out of university to edit with. And my old laptop, it was so slow and it was the only thing I could afford at the time. But it was so slow and it would make editing a video such a long ordeal. But then when I got a little bit of money I saved up for a laptop and I thought, okay, this is a good investment into the ministry. So I bought a laptop and it ended up speeding up editing so much. And this is obvious for a lot of people. But for me, that was a tough purchase because I was so used to the mentality of just, okay, I just gotta keep it. Because I need to make sure I have enough so I'm okay and I'm not left on the street these these core anxieties that are creeping up in me. But then saying, okay, you know what? It's okay. And this is going to be a good investment and this is going to push the ministry forward and help that many more people because I'm able to put out more content. Each one of these, as small as they may seem we're an act of trusting God. I think in Matthew 5 where Jesus says do not lay up for yourself treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal but lay up for yourself treasures in heaven where neither moth or rust destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal for where your treasure is there your heart is also but then what it leads, he leads right into this therefore I tell you do not be anxious about your life what you will eat and what you will drink nor your body what you will put on is not life more than food and body more than clothing look at the birds of the air they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns and yet their heavenly father feeds them are you not more valuable than they? to me this is a mic drop moment for Jesus because he basically just said do you think I'm stupid guys? I provide for birds lowly stupid birds and yet you don't think I will provide for you? how dumb do you think I am? and how dumb are you to think this? because obviously I'll provide for you I provide for the flowers of the field for the trees of the forest for the birds of the air for the fish of the ocean for all of creation it's all fed out of my hand and you think my most valuable of creation would fall through it? that makes no sense whatsoever and so what I do, what I've done is continue to remind myself and put myself around people that remind me as well my wife is amazing at this that God will provide for us that he always has and he always will yes that doesn't mean that life is going to go perfectly that doesn't mean that we'll have everything that we want but it means that regardless of how much we have he is working his purposes out in our life so if things get hard financially man he's teaching us something he wants us to rely on him that much more and to show that we don't need these other things in our life to be content that we can be fully satisfied just in him so I encourage you put yourself around people that will bring that out of you that will remind you of the truth of this situation that will pull you out of that anxious state because hey friend you don't need to be there you don't need to be obsessed with money you don't need to be looking at your bank account all the time and I recognize that a lot of you and a lot of us we've been in challenging financial situations and I'm not denying the reality of that but what I am saying is that you don't need to let that current circumstance destroy your peace and destroy your relationship with God because friend you don't need to be looking to those things and you can't be looking to those things for your peace or for your security or for your satisfaction because when things are bad you think that once they get good then you'll be happy and you'll be peaceful and you'll be satisfied and sure a certain amount of comfort will come with that of course I'm not denying that but ultimately your peace your satisfaction boy comes from God and your relationship with him and you need to be training yourself that and teaching yourself that even in the hard times because in the good times man it's going to become that much more hard to remind yourself of that I hope you were encouraged by this video and if you were subscribed because I'm putting out new videos all the time encouraging you and equipping you to follow Jesus daily it is my pleasure and it is my privilege to be able to speak on here to you guys and thank you to everyone on Patreon that supports what I'm doing honestly I could not be doing what I'm doing here in making this content without you guys supporting and if you want to support me and my ministry that would be absolutely wonderful and you can click the link in my description to sign up today and get access to our exclusive community also it's a bonus videos and bonus content that would be absolutely awesome until next time God bless