I’ve been doing a lot of reading recently, and it seems like anything that I pick up talks about an economic crisis. Or, I turn on television and I get advice. Or, I see advertising trying to convince me to buy things that I don’t need.

I’ve been asked, “What advice should I be careful of?” The way I approach this question is this: I understand what good solid biblical advice looks like and then I test everything against it. This is the same technique that banks use to train their tellers how to spot counterfeit money. They don’t study all of the possible counterfeits, they study the real thing. Knowing what real money looks like enables the tellers to be able to identify something that is a fake. This is how we should all seek to determine if the advice we are getting is good advice or not. We should hold it up to the Bible. Therefore, in order to be able to spot bad advice, we need to have a good grasp of the Bible and what it says.

So what do you do if you have followed bad advice and are stuck in a financial crisis. Unfortunately, there is no easy way out, no magic cure. Your best course of action is to begin following biblical wisdom and get your house in order. How do you do that?

• First, you set up a budget, reduce your expenses, and cut down to the bare essentials.
• Second, you use the cash flow that you free up to pay off your short-term debt so that you don’t have those big credit card payments.
• Third, you begin to save some money so that you’ve got money set aside for the emergencies of the future. Whether it’s braces for your child, an accident, or a house or car repair, you need some money set aside for those unexpected things that are going to happen.
• Finally, you take a total look at your finances and set some long-term goals. You should prioritize those goals so that you organize your finances according to a plan.

If the advice that you’re hearing is not consistent with those four principles, it’s probably not good advice. Always hold up the advice that you hear against God’s Word to see whether or not it makes any sense or not.