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Eighteen years ago, a comment from Kelsey, my then ten-year-old daughter, helped me tighten the focus of my business life and the mission of our company. We were on our way to soccer practice, and I made a call using my recently installed car phone (depending on your age, you may not recall the day when “mobile” phones were bolted into cars).
After the call, Kelsey looked at me and said very simply, “I liked it better when you didn’t have the car phone.” It was the voice of God sounding like the voice of my daughter. I was distracted, and she was telling me that life was better when she had more of my attention.
Kelsey did me a favor because her comment has given me a greater awareness of distractions that take my attention away from the things that really matter in life. Kelsey also did our clients a favor because my personal focus has shifted the focus of our financial planning and investment services company. Our passion is to improve the quality of our clients’ lives, not merely to increase their net worth.
In 1986, I founded Cornerstone Wealth Management, LLC to teach clients how to manage their financial life so that it gives them a life but does not become their life. We train our clients to do financial and investment planning so that their relationship with money serves Kingdom purposes and is not a distraction from the things in life that really matter. We believe living a Kingdom-oriented money story is about cooperating with God's Spirit so that we are being transformed from the inside-out into the likeness of Jesus. It isn't merely about knowing and cataloging the Bible verses that speak to the subject of money. It is about metamorphosis-change not only in what we do but in the person we are becoming.
Our message to our clients is that transformation into the likeness of Jesus produces a person who is grateful, generous, and content. Such a person handles money well because he embraces the truth that he is a receiver. He has nothing that he has not received. The self-made man does not exist.
The core quality of gratitude creates the joy of generosity. The one who is becoming like Jesus gives as an act of joyful worship because of who he has become. Because inside-out transformation is occurring, generosity feels more joyful than it does sacrificial. We believe that the qualities of gratitude and generosity set people free from an unending desire for more. When our relationship to money is directed by personal, inside-out transformation we experience the joy of handling money as God intended, and we are not preoccupied by things we do not control.
Each of us is writing a personal money story that is built on our beliefs about money. The good news is that we can begin writing a new money story based on God’s truth. While we live in a world that is uncertain, we can increasingly trust God and can focus our attention on the things in life that really matter. A transformed money story must also embrace the truth that money can never deliver what it promises and that there is no such thing as the absence of risk on this side of eternity.
Memories from my DTS days
Dr. Waltke praying at the beginning of Bible Introduction. Dr. Hannah giving me a love for church history and appreciation for those who have gone before me. Dr. Seume introducing hymns in chapel. He enhanced my love for God by making me aware of the words I sing. Dr. Reed’s encouragement in “Effective Pulpit Delivery.” Haddon Robinson exhorting us how serious it is to stand before a group of people and say, “Thus says the Lord.” “Christian Home” with Prof. Hendricks. My wife, Diana, was able to sit in on the class with me and it has changed our marriage and family to this day.
Where do I begin with DTS's contribution? Diana and I love Dallas Seminary and our four years there were some of the richest of our life. DTS enhanced my love for God and for the gift of his Word. I learned to think biblically and this finds expression in the life of every client we work with. DTS gave me the tools to study and teach the Scriptures for transformation into the likeness of Jesus to the glory of God.