Inviting you into the heart of inspirational experiences and unforgettable testimonies, Conversations will spark your curiosity and encourage you in your walk with God.

<p>Inviting you into the heart of inspirational experiences and unforgettable testimonies, Conversations will spark your curiosity and encourage you in your walk with God.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

It Is Written

John Bradshaw

Conversations with Julian Archer

My guest is Julian Archer from Queensland, Australia.

Retired in his 30s after a stint as a very successful businessman.

And he's written about his business success, but in ways that you might not expect, at least not to begin with.

I'm the child of what you would call serial entrepreneurs.

Not because they sold breakfast cereal, but because cereal in the way of 1 business after another.

In fact, the last 1 we sold was 2007, and that was business number 12.

Now you had this, it really was a conversion experience.

As I understand it, you became very successful in business, but rather than owning the business, the business was owning you and leading you away from faith in God.

The last few grew even more and more rapidly.

70% compound per annum, Every year, 70% on the year before and just bang, bang, bang, year after year.

We had what we used to describe as a tiger by the tail or a tiger by the ears.

You know, if you've got a tiger by the ears, you're holding onto it by the ears.

The challenge that comes with that from a spiritual point of view is that I didn't have the time.

I didn't have the focus to maintain that daily saving relationship with Jesus.

I just got so distracted by everything and started to actually really quite like some of the perks of being wealthy, of being in a business that was doing really well, getting quite proud and self-sufficient and that sort of thing.

And that really wasn't good for me spiritually.

I travel around the world running a ministry called Faith Versus Finance.

It came out of that battle that I had as an affluent Christian.

How do I maintain my relationship with Christ in a materialistic society?

Now you must do this because you sense there's a need.

Like there's a lot of people dealing with what you went through.

Yeah, look, originally I didn't know that.

I thought I was the only 1 that was struggling with this.

However, as I started to share with people, I realized, no, this is a very common thing for Christians around the world.

So who are the people struggling with matching together their faith with their financial situation?

Is it the Bill Gates's and the Jeff Bezos's of the world?

How far down the food chain do you have to come to get to that level where people are starting to have that struggle?

You know, you can be living in a slum in Calcutta, aspiring to 1 day own, say, $100, and put all of your focus on that, just as much as you can be living in Marin County, California, and trying to work out how you're going to get from 500 million to a billion, and it still takes all your focus.

It can happen to anybody, anywhere, if our focus comes away from the giver of the gifts onto the gifts.

Okay that's a really important point so it's really I think it's really important to point out you're not against money.

Okay you don't have an extra grind with wealthy people.

Okay, I know wealthy people have often said to me, thank you for not making us feel guilty for being rich or we feel like we're being hecked for being wealthy.

It's very evident that God's not against wealth.

If you look in the Bible, there's some really very rich people.

I think what's interesting to point out is they were instruments of God.

If we go right back to Genesis, we have 1 of those first wealthy men, I guess you would say, and that was Abraham.

And it's very clear there, God says to him, he says, Abraham, I'm going to bless you so that you can be a blessing.

So, we are as wealthy people or as any person who has been entrusted with anything from God and that doesn't have to be great wealth, we are conduits for God to pass those blessings through.

And if we keep passing the blessings through, then we have peace, we have satisfaction, we are greatly blessed because it's more blessed to give than to receive.

If we start to dam it up and start to pile it up, that's when we have problems.

I think it was the Clint Murchison Jr., He was the founder of the Dallas Cowboys and he said that money is like manure.

He said if you spread it around it does a lot of good but if you pile it up it stinks.

I thought it's quite an interesting illustration you know we have we have manure in our wallets.

If we pile it up, it starts to stink, but if you spread it around, it does a lot of good.

I hear what you're saying is that this challenge of getting wealth out of focus and being owned by what you own could really happen to anybody.

It could, yeah, regardless of where you're at financially, materially, in life.

Do you think wealthy people have a peculiar challenge, an especially difficult challenge when it comes to maintaining a relationship with Jesus?

Yeah, yeah, and Jesus shares that very clearly.

He says that it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven.

He doesn't go on and say, But if you give lots away, you'll be okay.

You know, he just says, look, if you're rich, it's gonna be tough.

It's gonna be really hard to maintain a saving relationship with me.

And in another place, he says, you can't serve God and money, or mammon, as he called it.

I used to, you know, I can still hear myself thinking this and saying this, but Lord, I can serve them both.

What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna put all my time and focus and energy into the businesses and make lots of money, and then I'll give most of the money to you.

And That way I'm serving you, God, and money.

I think it's important to point out Jesus did not say you can't have both God and money, right?

You just can't serve God while serving money.

I think it's really interesting that Jesus made it clear.

He never said it's really hard for poor people to get into heaven.

I think those people who don't have money, any money or a lot of money.

And you know, most of us, we want to be rich.

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Conversations with Julian Archer

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