As we’ve repeatedly stated, here, here, and here for example, cash flow is a much better indicator of true wealth than net worth.
Net worth is a static number that doesn’t impact your life. As a matter of fact, the more wealth that you have accumulated, the more unlikely you are to want to dig into it and spend it either for your own enjoyment or for the Kingdom purposes that God might lead you to. Stored wealth gives the illusion of safety yet it binds people with fear and never satisfies. Perhaps this is one of the reasons that Jesus told us not to hoard.
Cash flow, on the other hand, brings life into our finances. It enables action. When the new money comes into our hands, we’re not paralyzed with fear over losing it. I’ve often had clients tell me that they are willing to “risk” new money, but not the money they had previously accumulated. This is a great example of what hoarding does to you: you don’t want to let what you’ve hoarded slip through your tightly clutched fingers!
What is the difference?
If you have $100 that you earned last year and you just made a new $100, what is the difference in the two bills? I don’t know, but there’s a real emotional/spiritual enslavement that happens when we hoard.
Let me give you a picture illustrating the difference between Accumulation (Hoarding) vs Velocity (Cash Flow) as seen in nature: In the Holy land there are two great inland bodies of water -the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee. The Jordan River flows into the Sea of Galilee and then it flows out of it down to the Dead Sea. Because of this flow through of water, the Sea of Galilee is full of life and was the scene of the disciples’ fishing expeditions. The Dead Sea, on the other hand, probably gets the same amount of water flowing into it. And it’s actually the same water that flows down from Galilee. But because it doesn’t have any exit, it accumulates and grows stale. The Sea is death to any living thing. Because it does not have a free flow of water moving through it.
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