Eve, we are pretty close to being live.
Let me check that.
Might be a second away now.
There we go, we are live, it is happening.
All right, ladies and gentlemen,
from all over the world,
it is a delight and an honor to introduce,
if you don't know him already,
and to welcome those who do know.
It's a pleasure for us all to welcome Bruce McDonald.
So welcome, Bruce.
Hey, Benji, thank you so much.
I must admit, I've been absolutely looking forward
to spending this time with you and with others,
so thank you.
Yeah, a pleasure.
And Bruce, I'm not sure how well you know Sebastian,
or if you've met Sebastian before,
but this is Sebastian,
partner in all sorts of glorious Kingdom ventures.
It's good to see you, Bruce.
I've followed a little bit of your stuff around the wagon,
so it's good to see you in person.
Yeah, good to meet you too, Sebastian.
You're to be honored for sticking with this wonderful man.
Benji, I'm sure it's an adventure.
Hey, the best things in life are adventures,
so it's been fun.
Yeah, and I mean, it really is,
that really, to me, as well as another element
and facet that's really key to Kingdom business
is just great adventures with great people.
And I mean, that's hard to beat in life.
If you're on great adventures
with great people doing great things,
then you really are living a pretty quality life.
So Bruce, we wanna get right into it today
and really maximize your time,
and just again, so delighted to have you with us.
But would you like to pray for us as we kick off?
And if you guys don't know Bruce,
he is definitely a man who really carries the spirit
and carries fire, and he is really in season now,
and he's ready to go.
So if you wanna light us up,
I'm sure there's some pretty fiery prayers
just waiting there,
ready to light people up all over the world.
So you take it away.
Praise the Lord.
Heavenly Father, we're just so delighted to be together.
Lord, a moment in your presence
is better than any spent anywhere else.
I just thank you, Lord, for great people
who would sacrificially set aside time to be together.
And we know that you have sent your Holy Spirit
to join each one.
You've sent your Holy Spirit just to bless each one.
And Father, we wanna say,
we just love the great Holy Spirit.
We love him.
And so right now we invite his presence
into this next 40 minutes or so together.
We pray, great Holy Spirit,
that you would be pleased to speak to our hearts
and envision our lives and fire our spirits.
So bless each moment we spend together
and each person who joins in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Hey, well,
it's really, really good to have you with us, Bruce.
We were just chatting before we went on live
and just talking about how
you were really one of the first people
that I heard speaking in a church
and we hosted you down South.
And we loved you so much when you came
that we were like, man, we're gonna do this every year,
have you come and speak on biblical finances,
kingdom finances in the church,
and then also in the ministry school as well.
We just loved having you come.
And what I really, really appreciated
is that you were such a, especially back then,
such a breath of fresh air
of someone who really brought helpful
and biblical and holistic teaching on finances
that actually made a difference
in people's lives right away.
So I just wanna thank you for that
because when we met
and when you were first teaching us about finances,
I mean, we were just starting to get on that journey.
We were just starting to make some transition for ourselves.
But when we heard you speak,
I mean, Alana and I both left those meetings
and came back home and we're like,
okay, we've got to implement this.
We've got to implement this.
And we were back in the days,
that was for us back in the days of struggle street
where we didn't have income,
really much income at all,
didn't have multiple streams of income.
We're struggling with credit card debt.
We were struggling with debt on all fronts, really,
and just struggling to get any momentum,
but implementing little keys that you gave us back then
and implementing the other things
so we could get our hands on
slowly started changing
the whole balance of finances for us
replaced of struggle to a little bit of breakthrough
to like just a little bit of freedom
and then a little bit more freedom
and then started to kind of shift over to momentum
and then like, wow, like this.
place of excitement where opportunities are running to us and we're running to opportunities
and doors are opening. So I want to thank you so much for that. And I guess just with
that introduction, I'd like to open up this question to you because you must deal with
it so much. How often do you come across people in church whose mindsets around finances are
toxic or unhealthy? I think that in some ways, I'd almost like it if I ran into it more often.
And I say that simply because I think that a lot of times as Christians, we're so quiet
on this issue. We don't talk to one another. We're so insular. And we're going to talk
about Liberty Trust as part of our conversation, I'm sure. But one of the things that God's
spoke to me when we started Liberty Trust was that the devil uses a simple method to
control God's people financially, divide and conquer. He's got everybody working away in
their little silos. He's got everybody working away in their little world. But we're not
communicating with each other. We're not helping each other. And certainly, we're not talking
about it in healthy ways. And so you create what you just described as a toxic environment
and where it's okay for the church to be in the world. It's just not okay for the world
to be in the church. And yet we've got Christians everywhere that are carrying enormous debt
and have useless financial practices and are reaping the consequence of that. So that was
a long answer. But in some ways, I wish I'd find it, but people would talk to me more
often because that's the starting point. Then we can talk about how to bring change.
I love that, Bruce. It's amazing because you're absolutely right. There's such a hunger.
But when cultures where we're unwilling to have the conversation, then it kind of gets
stuck and pushed under the rug. And, you know, we end up having, you know, small, small,
small conversations about what is possible, rather than kind of an expansive reality. So
I'm curious.
Just before you jump in there, there was one thing I just, I love what you're just talking
about there about, about working together. That is, that is the low hanging fruit right
now. Yeah, that is some of the most low hanging fruit in the world right now. Because I mean,
what we're seeing right now is we're seeing protests break out all around the world. Let
me just paint a picture of how ridiculous we look now. I'm for the protest is 100%. If we
weren't having a baby on Tuesday, holy moly, I'd be flipping down there. But here's what's
happening. We're all protesting, we're praying for freedom, we're praying for God to move.
And we know that financial institutions that there's corruption there, we know that big
business has corruption there, and that they're actually, you know, just outright facilitating
a lot of the chaos in our world. Now here we are protesting and fighting and praying
and loving and serving and doing everything we're doing in church. And then at the same
time, we are banking with the people who are catalysts of chaos. And we're giving them
our insurance money every month. And and we're doing nothing of our own. But here we are
just funding all the chaos doing everything we can to fight against it, but then funding
it like on a daily basis. And I think for those people who run the banks and insurance
companies, they sit back there laughing their heads off with one another. Because like here
we are like, No, stop it. But then it's straight out of our banks that we have funding the
chaos ourselves. And I'm like, to me, that's a straight dysfunction. Totally. And so so
Bruce, um, see, maybe we'll come to your question. I know you were just about to ask a question.
But I think straight off the back of this, Bruce, you've done something. You haven't just
sat back and complained about that you've actually done something in that space of saying,
guys, let's work together. Let's, let's be communal. Let's like, like the Jewish people
are community. I mean, gangsters and immigrants get this, but the church struggles, you know,
like they do like, they work together on finances and things like that. But you've created something
absolutely beautiful. And we'd love you to unpack that for us. And then I know Seb's
got a hot question coming for you.
Yeah, well, what Benji's talking about, for those of you who have joined us today is an
entity which my wife and I started 33 years ago called Liberty Trust. Wow. Liberty Trust.
As I'll go, why don't I start where we are now approximately where we are now we work
our way back just a little bit. So Liberty Trust currently has loaned something like
$75 million interest free to New Zealand.
families to New Zealand Christians to help them to purchase a home or to help them to pay off their
home more quickly. It's created a trust fund of something like 23 million dollars and the power
of that trust fund is the fact that it's in perpetuity. The trust fund will never be less
than what it is today because the funds that we have are loaned, they're repaid,
they're loaned, they're repaid and wonderfully Benji and Sebastian it's extraordinarily
exponential so it just gets faster and faster and faster. At the present time we loan a million New
Zealand dollars, that's about 650,000 US dollars every two months and it just gets faster and so
while I just mentioned we've loaned 74 or 75 million dollars as at today, at five years from
now it will be over 100 million. Five years from that it will be around about 150 million. It just
keeps going and it keeps increasing in momentum and how does it happen? It happens for two or
three significant reasons. Number one, it's community. Number one, you create community
and people don't want just to make their own economy do well, they want everybody else's
economy to do well. Knowing then when that happens they will prosper. The second thing is
it uses the principle of a seed, people sow before they reap.
So therefore it's inevitable and so you know Liberty Trust, Benji I'll just
conclude with this thought, Liberty Trust has just embraced the power of perpetuity
to create income that you never plan to spend. You only plan to invest it for kingdom purpose
and let it grow, let it do the work that it's capable of doing. That is so so powerful. Now
this is actually one of the things that we've been talking about. I mean this is a royal mindset,
this is the type of mindset that the elite understand. What you just said there is genius
because you've the whole concept of creating a fund that you never intend to spend.
That I mean so few people do that or think like that or understand the power
of what that produces because when you create this fund that you never intend to spend,
talk to us about the compounding power of that. Like how does compounding returns
factor into that and how does that factor into the process of you being able to exponentially
loan more and more? Just as we go into that let me just start with a thought
because we're talking about the church as well as us as individuals or as Christians as individuals
and one of the thoughts that I challenge churches with all the time is I say that too many churches
are bakeries not storehouses. See a bakery, both storehouse and bakery deal with flour
or deal with produce but in a bakery you consume it. You bake a loaf of bread within days it's gone
and I see that with a lot of Christians with their money, I see that with churches with their
resources they get income in but they consume it all the time and they've got
breaking up a little bit there with our man Bruce
and
stored for a season yet to come and that's what we've all got to do we've got to it's
sorry mate we just lost you there for a second just cut out for a second you just go back maybe
like 30 seconds we just missed that we were hanging on every word and definitely want to
make sure we catch that you would just talked about how churches that you know that operate
as bakeries not storehouses and they're consuming what's coming in if you just want to unpack that
a little bit more yeah yeah thank you so much so the thought that I have is that when when
you have something like Liberty Trust you're seeing that money that is held in perpetuity
money that is not consumed that's where it really becomes powerful for whatever endeavor that you're
involved in if you can create an environment and people listening to this you can look up the
Liberty Trust website but if you just get the thought in your mind that some of your money is
never to be consumed it's to be generational it's to work long see look you know Benji I'm 68 now
I'll declare it right open it now I'm 68 but when I've died and gone Liberty Trust will just keep
doing this it's not
dependent on my life, it's not dependent on my resource, it's a fund which will never stop
doing wonderful things. And the potential is to do it again and again with all kinds of things.
Powerful. So, yeah, off the back of that, can you explain to us more about this concept of
compounding? How is it compounding? How is it that your fund is going to start? You said,
you know, it's going to loan, what did you say, like another, in the next five years,
in the next five years after that, what is it going to be loaning out? Yeah, so we've loaned
around about $75 million now. Five years from now, that will be over $100 million. Five years
from that, it will be going close to $150 million. And within a decade, it'll be over the $200
million. Now, that is a sizable amount. And it's created because of the principle of sowing and
reaping, and holding funds in perpetuity. Liberty Trust will never be worth less than it is today,
it will always increase because people are contributing. And for every dollar they contribute,
they're eligible to borrow, they're eligible to borrow $6. And so therefore, and then they
repay that. So the money just keeps doing the wonderful thing it does, helping people to own
home, purchase home, sorry, and own debt free. Awesome. Yeah, that's so cool. Seb, let's come
back to you, my man. Yeah, I love it. I'm curious, Bruce, where did this all start for you? What was
the kind of the thing that pushed you over the edge and realizing that that wealth is and money
is for for us as believers to really learn how to steward and go on that journey? Where did that
where did that start for you? There's probably a number of of sources for that's a wonderful
question. One of them is that I have no background in economics. I don't own a business.
I'm not an accountant. And I'm not an economist. But when I and I've been a pastor for many years,
but I never went to Bible school. So when I felt God call me, I just left my teaching profession
and started to serve God. And so, Sebastian, you gotta understand, I was green as grass,
the things that I didn't know, were just, you could write a book on the things I didn't know
about pastoring or working in church life. And so what I decided to do, I'm so grateful for just
the simple thing I decided to do. Because what I decided was as a pastor, if people join my life,
yes, I wanted to believe that their life would be improved.
What right did I got to ask people to follow me if their life was not improved?
So what I decided to do in my first year of pastoring, I decided to read for those it's the
chapter of blessings and curses. And there are 15 or 14 verses of blessing. And then there's 54
nightmare verses, 54 verses you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. And so I said to the Lord,
what I need to learn is to teach people how to be blessed and how to avoid being cursed.
And so that started, because in verse 12, it says this, you shall lend to many nations,
but you shall not borrow. In verse 7, when you talk about the curses, it says you shall be the
tail and not the head. Others shall lend to you, but you will not lend to them. But verse 12 just
captured me because I said to the Lord, I don't know anybody who lends to others. All the Christians
I know borrow. So I said, you have to teach me Lord, how to do that. Teach me how to lend to
many nations and not borrow. And this is a liberty trust adventure came out of God showing how that
could happen. And so here we are now, I've loaned and those that walk with me, we've loaned around
$75 million. That's worth giving yourself a pinch. That's awesome. Come on. Come on. So good.
It's amazing. I love that. And I know there's so much to unpack there. The slavery of being the
or instead of the lender that, you know, the, but if you could
just get deeper for me a little bit, you know, what that what
that means for how we, you know, view the purpose of money. You
know, we we've talked, we talked about wealth a lot, we talk as
like a legacy thing, we talk about, you know, money kind of
gets thrown in there as, as a, this tool sometimes, and
different things like that. But how, how do you relate to the
purpose of money? And what does it what does that really look
like? As as you walk that out?
Yeah, that's really what people have got to start with, isn't
it? And what I believe, Sebastian, what I teach, and
Benji has heard me share it is that I believe that while there
are multiple reasons for using money, or multiple ways in which
you can use money, there are only four purposes for money,
only four purposes. And, and if people can get their head
around that, and realize that, while all the money that comes
into our, our economy may look the same to us, it doesn't look
the same to God. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, all the
trees look the same to them. But to God, two trees look
different. He treated them differently. And what we've got
to understand is that when, when God sees money, it may look the
same to us, but it doesn't look the same to him. He knows that
money has different purposes. So let me just review them. If we
open up the first purpose for money, easy. It's spending. It
doesn't take a spiritual effort. But Hindus can do it, atheists
can do it. All of us are pretty good at spending money. And we
have to, unless we're going to live on a desert island. The
second purpose for money is that money is made to give. And I
want to tell you about, I'm going to say this, I hope I
don't sound like I'm proud. I love to give. Most days, I pray
and ask God for more money to give. I love you. It's not so
much what can come to us, that's important. But it's much more
important what can go to us. We don't want to be a well, we want
to be a conduit, we want to be a tube. And so money giving is
very important. The third purpose for money is that money
was made to save. We call it grandma's rainy day fund. But
effectively, saving money is realizing that in our future, we
will need items and we need to prepare to be able to purchase
them, a car, a new phone. But things that are going to do
value, but we need them. And if you don't save, you're going to
have to buy those things. And so many people find that out all
the time. And then fourth purpose for money, and that's
the game breaker, is investment. And investing money, as Benji
just touched on a few moments ago, it's money that we never
plan to spend. It's money that we don't work for. It's money
that works for us. And I just hope that every single person
that listen, I feel emotional as I share this with you, you have
to understand and get a strategy today. We're part of
your income, you know, your increase, you know, you will
never spend it, it will always be invested for yourself, and
then in time to come for your children, and for your children's
children, so that the proverb is made true, which says, a good
man leaves inheritance to his children's children. It only
happens for invested funds, money that's working for you.
And Benji, isn't it so much fun when you do that, because you
can go to sleep, and your money is still working for you. You
can go on a holiday and your money is still working for you.
You know, you can...
Let me show you something that you'll really like. Just let me
just quickly interrupt you on that. This is something that
we're working on right now. I think we've started probably
nine new income streams in the last four months, and this is
one of them. You'll really like this, and you'll probably want
to know more about it later on. But just on that concept of your
money, making money for you. This is trading bots. And so
we've got some cryptocurrency, but there's these things called
bots that we've really spent a lot of time understanding. And
basically, you put a bot on it, and it trades the fluctuation
in price. So the price is always going to go up and down. But a
bot basically is like having a renter on your cryptocurrency.
If you think of cryptocurrency like a rental house, and a bot
is basically like a tenant. So this money here, bots just print
me money every minute of the day. They're just printing money,
and it's based exactly on it. And that's, I guess, in a sense,
this is what you were talking to me about.
about years ago, and now we get to do it like every day, and
every minute, you know, like these are just, it's just
printing money for us all the time. So yeah, just wanted to
just, like, say yes, it's awesome. This is fruit of what
you've been talking about, you know, talking to us about for
years. It's like, man, this is opening so many doors right now.
And the cool thing is, we have to believe that God wants it to
be like that God expects that, you know, Benji, you've heard me
talk in my seminars about Ecclesiastes chapter nine, this
incredible little story that Solomon tells us, where he says,
you know, that there was a poor man living in a small city that
came under siege from a great army. This is what Solomon tells
us. And he says that poor man, by his wisdom, delivered the
city. But then it tells us no one remembered that poor wise
man. And so my challenge to every listener is that people
don't remember poor wise me, they don't remember them. And so
therefore, if we want to be influential, if we want to be
people who make an impact, we have the income stream,
Abraham was a super wealthy man. Sorry, mate, we just lost
that last sentence. So if you just go back just a just a tad.
But that was beautiful.
Yeah, let's be honest, the men of the Bible were extraordinarily
wealthy. Abraham was probably if one of the wealthiest, if not
the wealthiest man in his generation, he may only have
been put into place to by Job, who was probably a contemporary,
you know, I've been studying Joseph a lot lately, Joseph went
through incredible difficult times, how do you prosper as a
slave, Israeli slave in Egypt. And yet the Bible tells us that
the end of that man was that he was extraordinarily wealthy. He
prospered, he saved two nations, he prospered his boss to the
point that the boss probably became the wealthiest man on the
planet of his time. And it's David, once again, started as a
poor shepherd boy, a relatively poor shepherd boy. And he
concludes by being able to contribute billions of dollars
of value into the temple that Solomon wants to build. So we
need to see that that journey, Benjamin, that journey is your
journey. So that journey is your journey. God hasn't changed.
He's the same. Yesterday, today, and forever. If he does that with
his servants in the Bible time, he does that with his servants
today, we just have to learn how he wants us to do it.
Guys, I want you to pause and I want you to say that's my story.
All right. That was such a good word, Bruce. I just want
everyone just to say that's my story. Wherever you are, God has
a journey just like Joseph, you know, from the prison to the
palace, and it could be overnight, or it could be a
process, but he wants to take us and I just want to really
affirm that word. I just want you to say, hey, that's my
story. And the reason I want you to say that is because whatever
story you believe you'll live from, you know, whatever story
you're telling yourself about wealth, about your potential,
about what God's plan for you is, whatever story you're
believing you're going to live from. So if you can change your
story, you're going to start to completely, you know, shift how
you're living. So Bruce, what a beautiful word that that is our
story. So even in the comments for those who are watching, I
just want to encourage you like rewrite your own story right
now. And that's part of what we've been saying with, you
know, in the summit, get yourself a create a new vision
for your personal finances. I love that Bruce, you just
highlighted how Joseph one man came up with an economic
strategy, a blueprint from heaven that came from a vision
and that economic strategy that he got in a blueprint from
heaven saved nations. And I want you guys to say that's my
story, you know, like get a blueprint from heaven that gives
you economic structures that save nations. There's no reason
why that can't be your story. So I want you to come into that
place like Todd was talking about in the last session of
massive agreement, you know? Yes. So anyway, I got excited
there. Why don't you carry on Bruce?
Look, let's just just hover, hover, just hover for a moment
about the life of Joseph. When you when you think about it,
Joseph never became the number one man in his business. He
never was a number one man. He was number two to his dad.
Number two to Potiphar, number two to the jailer,
and number two to Pharaoh.
He was always the number two man.
So it's not as if everybody who's listening
has to become a number one man.
The second thing I'd say, Joseph,
he never owned his own business.
He always worked in the business of another.
Now, I'm hoping there's lots of people who are in business
and that is listening.
I hope there's lots of entrepreneurs that are doing that,
but you need to understand it's not the only strategy
to make you influential.
Number three, Joseph never compromised his integrity.
He never felt he need to bend the rules
to get where he wanted to go.
He just kept being the great man he was.
And number four, he finished fabulously wealthy.
And so it's a journey.
Benji, I think there's a secret here
for a lot of our younger listeners.
I think there's a real secret, which I love.
I hope they can grab it.
This has been my number one thought for 2022.
You're hearing it hot off the press.
This is my thought.
We need to think like an owner.
Always think like an owner.
Remember, Joseph never owned his own business,
but he always thought like an owner.
And so therefore, everything he did
was to prosper the entity he was working for.
And so in a circumstance,
he could easily have got bitter and angry
and felt that life had passed him by.
He just couldn't believe it.
And you know, Benji, the reason I believe
is that because he believed the word of God.
Now we call the word of God, the scriptures.
We call the word of God, the scriptures.
What we often don't think
is what's the root of the word scripture.
It's the word script.
And today people need to write a new script.
They need to believe that when they read the scriptures,
the scriptures read them,
and then they write the script
for their lives that will change everything.
So thank you for talking to the listeners
and saying, guys, say something different.
Start a new story.
Write a new script for your life.
Come on, that is excellent.
Yeah, you guys get to be the authors.
That's so good.
Love it.
Well, hey, we're gonna be bringing in
for a landing pretty shortly.
That's so powerful, what you've already talked about.
I've got one, I think one more key question.
How does, is there an element of compounding returns
that's connected to your Liberty Trust strategy
that is gonna enable what you're doing to be exponential?
Yeah, the only exponential factor
is the continuing contributions of the givers.
We don't invest any funds
except in helping people to purchase their own home.
So we don't have an investment strategy
whereby we've got a portion of our income
set aside for shares or crypto or anything like that.
I felt God just said, I'm not to do those things.
And Benji, you'd laugh.
Are there so many people over the years
that have come to me and said, hey, I've got this idea.
Hey, why don't you do this with your money?
Or if you did this,
you could be this much further down the track.
I've just got God saying, keep it simple.
Just sowing, reaping, sowing and reaping.
So that's our-
Oh, you've frozen.
And that's-
I'm not saying that others are not.
Oh, you've frozen there for a second, Bruce.
But I think you're back with us now.
And that's the thing with wealth attracts opportunities.
So if you're sitting there with a pile of money,
of course, people are gonna come
because wealth will always attract money.
Well, it'll attract money.
It'll attract opportunity, it'll attract open doors
and it'll attract people who have opportunities there
as well.
So no surprises there that you've had a lot of offers.
So, yeah, that's just so good.
Seb, I know, I think you've got another question there
burning that, Bruce.
I think you're gonna love what Seb's saying.
Yeah, I'm just curious, Bruce,
for you to give us a bit of an update on Terima
and what's been happening there for you.
Terima, sorry.
Yeah, my accent's getting in the way there a little bit,
but give us an update.
What's been happening for you there
and help bring us into the fold a little bit
Yeah, thank you.
I was hoping we'd get a few moments to talk about that.
So thank you for the invitation.
Probably the update that I wanna share most
is that somewhere between India and New Zealand,
my latest book is on a ship.
It's called,
Living as a Circle Inside a Square,
which embraces the Terima concept.
So I'm gonna give you a little bit of an update
a principle, but for those who may not know it, you know, I talked about a few moments ago about
the four purposes for money. And you say, okay, Bruce, I didn't know that, but I've written them
down. And now I'm making a commitment today that I will use the four purposes for money with all
the money I receive with all the increased I receive. But once we've made that strategy,
let's just recap those for everyone. It's spending, saving, investing, and giving. So
in whatever order you like, that's not a priority, but just the four of them,
you can drop them down in the comments, write them down somewhere. Spending, saving, investing,
giving. And please today, activate it today. Just make a decision. You'll never get increased
without doing all four purposes with all the money you get. Now, once you've done that,
the question comes up, what's the formula? How do I know what goes where? How do I know
how to outwork those four purposes? And that's the really underlying to Sebastian's question.
And I believe that the word of God has a clear strategy. It has a clear plan on how to do that,
which is operated by Jewish people and has been through the years. So that today,
while Jewish people only make up about 4% of the population of the US, Sebastian, about 4%
of your population are Jewish, they hold about 40% of the wealth. They are phenomenally wealthy.
And it's because they apply not only to Teruma principle, that's the first step of a strategy
that's really found and undergird in Leviticus 19, verses 9 and 10, where it says, when you
harvest your field, you shall not eat all the harvest. You shall save the corners. You'll leave
the corners of your field for the poor, for the stranger, for the widow, and for the foreigner.
And so here you've got where the Lord says, I want you to keep the corners of your field. Now,
as a farmer, that's easy. For us that are urbanites, a bit more challenging, but let me
just do it for you. If your field is a square and you leave the corners, what you are creating
is a circle inside a square. That's the secret to using money. And I can see Benji smiling
because he's heard me say this so many times. It must have been indelibly written in his brain.
But you need to know that every single bit of increase I get, I use the circle inside a square
every single time. So Teruma is the first step, the first fruits of that. And it begins a journey
with your money where you know, I tell people, I say it in my book, I'm the boring guy.
I do money the same way every single time I receive increase. But the cool thing is it works.
And so Teruma, I believe, is incredibly valuable. I think I've got a teaching session on
those that don't know, Bruce, what is Teruma? What does that even mean?
Yeah, Teruma is a Hebrew word, which basically appears, I'm trying to remember,
87 times. It's got the right to 87 times in the Old Testament, three times more than the word
tithe. And it was a special offering. And Teruma, the middle of the word Teruma is the word
room. And room means to lift. And so in our English Bibles, the word is translated as the heave
offering, or the lifted offering. And it was actually the first fruits. And so they bring
their first fruits from their harvest, from whatever the increase that, and they would lift
it up and replace it in the hands of the priest who was in their life. And when they did that,
and they lifted it up and put it in the hands of the priest, it became Teruma. It became the
Teruma offering. And Sebastian, it was the smallest of the Hebrew giving offerings. But for them, it
was the holiest of the thing. And so it was just the way in which they did the first fruits offering
that empowered all the rest of their giving. So that's a very abridged version, but I hope that's
helpful. Yeah, it's good. I mean, it was like a 2.5% type of thing. You know, it was just a little
a little portion. Yeah, it's one, it was a man who lived at the same time as Jesus. In fact,
he died when Jesus was about 12. His name was Hillel. He was a Hebrew rabbi. And some people,
you know, Benji, some people consider him the most important Jewish teacher after Moses himself.
So this man is highly respected. And he realized that lots of people were by the time he,
you know, by the time of Jesus, lots of Jews were no longer farmers.
So they were uncertain what their first fruits was to be.
They were uncertain what Turuma was to be in terms of value.
And so he said, if you're a generous giver,
your Turuma, your firstfruits offering
will be 140th of your harvest, as you said, 2.5%.
He said, if you're an average giver,
your Turuma offering will be 2% or 150th of your harvest.
And if you are stingy, that's my word, not his word,
all right, the Hillel did not say stingy.
But if you're a miserable giver, then it will be 160th.
And then he said this, if you are a generous giver,
your whole body will be full of light.
What an incredible promise.
Your whole body will be full of light.
Amazingly, in Matthew chapter six and verse 22,
Jesus quotes him.
I don't believe it's accidental.
Jesus uses exactly the same term.
He says, your body will be full of light.
I think he took the term from Hillel
because the people he was speaking to at that time
knew that saying, and so it made perfect sense to them.
It's an economic saying.
Wow.
Yeah, wow.
That's powerful.
Hey, that's so good.
Bruce have loved absolutely everything.
And I think we'll probably just bring in for a landing here
and we've got our next session coming up
straight off the back of this,
which is going to be Stephanie Lind,
which is going to be amazing at the 3 p.m. New Zealand time,
6 p.m. Pacific.
So it's in like 15 minutes.
We've got Stephanie coming in.
Bruce, just one final thought for us on implementing
what would be one key in terms of how you would implement
if someone's wanting to take a step from here.
Yes.
One final key, absolutely critical.
When it comes to money, do everything with percentages.
Percentages are the power,
because then it doesn't matter whether your income
is 1,000, 10,000, 100,000, or 10 million.
Just follow the concept of the circle inside a square
or the four purposes of money,
but understand that God thinks
and God operates in percentages.
The tithe, for example, is a percentage.
When a thief was killed,
he had to give back the money plus 20%.
Everything, you'll notice everything God does
is about percentages.
So people, see the power of percentages,
use them, never forget.
That's beautiful, appreciate it.
One thing I'll give to you guys as well,
and we'll probably talk about the five jars coming up
at some point in the journey as well,
but for us, when we really started
to try and implement this,
we realized that we couldn't save 10%
because we just didn't have jack or money.
We were in survival mode.
And so, but we could save a tiny little bit,
and every time you take an action and implement,
even if you can't do what the full percentage is,
that's a great guide,
but just do like a tiny stepping stone towards that
because you'll find that every time you make
an incremental but sustainable change,
it starts shifting the whole balance.
And over a period of time,
the whole balance will shift for you
from lack-based living to an abundance-based world.
So Bruce, thank you so much.
Do you wanna pray for all of our team as we wrap up here
and just pray a blessing on them as we close?
Absolutely, I'd love to pray for that little baby
you've got coming too.
Oh, yes, here we go, Tuesday.
Hey guys, thoughts just start to go through your mind,
but let me just say this.
God's plan is to take us from shortage to sufficiency,
from sufficiency to abundance,
from abundance to overflow.
That's the journey you're on.
You say, what does my journey look like?
That's what it looks like, from shortage to sufficiency,
from sufficiency to abundance, from abundance to overflow.
Plan for that to happen in your world.
And-
Yeah, turn it into a script.
I'm gonna pray for you.
Yeah, I love it.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for this time together.
I feel so alive right now.
And so I just thank you for the privilege
to just talk together about your wonderful word
and your wonderful plan.
I just bless every single listener.
I bless those in New Zealand who are listening,
those in the U.S., those in the UK, those in Europe,
wherever people have tuned in, South America,
wherever people are listening,
may they know such a feeling of empowerment
that-
they can make a difference in their world.
Bless each one, I pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Thank you, sir.
We'll bless you and we'll catch you real soon.
And everyone else, we're gonna be live again
in 15 minutes with Stephanie Lynn,
which is gonna be an absolute delight.
So bless you, Bruce.
Everyone else, take a quick break
and we'll be right back.
See ya.
Take care, God bless.
Bye-bye.