Moody Podcast Network

What if financial success isn’t the destination, but simply the foundation for something greater?

We spend a great deal of time thinking about how to earn, save, invest, and manage money wisely. Those things matter. Faithful stewardship requires care and wisdom with what God has entrusted to us.

But what happens when you’ve done many of those things well and still find yourself wondering, Is there something more?

Scott Highmark, President and Co-Founder of Mosaic Wealth, a Certified Kingdom Advisor®, and author of The Significance Pyramid: Climb Beyond Success to Find Lasting Significance, believes there is.

His “Significance Pyramid” offers a framework for moving beyond financial success toward a life increasingly shaped by purpose, generosity, service, and ultimately surrender to Christ.

Our culture often encourages us to keep moving “up and to the right”—more income, more achievement, more possessions, more recognition.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with achievement. The problem comes when we expect it to satisfy desires it was never designed to fulfill.

Highmark points out that even people who reach the top of their professions often discover that the fulfillment they expected doesn’t last. Accomplishment may bring genuine satisfaction for a season, but our appetites continually reach for something more.

Ultimately, the human heart's deepest longing cannot be satisfied by another financial milestone or professional achievement. We were created for God Himself.

That conviction is at the heart of the Significance Pyramid. Every life points somewhere. The question is whether ours ultimately points toward ourselves or toward something greater.

The pyramid's first level is stewardship.

Stewardship involves wisely managing all God has entrusted to us—not simply our money, but our time, abilities, opportunities, and relationships.

Financially, that means understanding what we have, knowing where it is going, and learning to live within our means. Practices such as budgeting can sometimes feel restrictive, but healthy financial boundaries can actually create freedom. When our finances are in order, we can spend and give more intentionally instead of constantly reacting to financial pressure.

But stewardship is only the foundation. Once money consumes less of our attention, we can begin asking deeper questions about what our resources are actually for.

As Highmark puts it, money can help fund our purpose, but it cannot help us find our purpose.

The second level is symmetry, or alignment.

Most of us can quickly name what matters most to us: faith, family, marriage, generosity, service, relationships. But would someone looking at our calendars and financial statements reach the same conclusion?

Symmetry means aligning the way we actually live with the things we say we value.

James 1 describes a person who looks at himself in a mirror, walks away, and immediately forgets what he looks like. In a similar way, we can profess certain priorities while organizing our lives around completely different ones.

Highmark tells the story of a successful executive who traveled more than 150 days a year. His children were nearin

Did you know your family history can quietly shape your future?  Today on BOLD STEPS, Mark Jobe digs into Exodus chapter 20 with a look at generational patterns and how they take root, much like filling out a family history form in a doctor’s waiting room.  The first step toward breaking a cycle is simply admitting it exists … for more, listen to Bold Steps with Pastor Mark Jobe.

Bold Steps Gift: Goliath Must Fall: Winning the Battle Against Your Giants - Louie Giglio

Visit or watch Mark Jobe at New Life Community Church

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Our struggles with sleep impact every area of life, from physical and spiritual health to emotional well-being and thinking clearly. Dr. Matt Rehrer will join us to share his personal experiences with sleep challenges and provide us with tools to better understand our sleep patterns, manage stress, and find rest in the God who never sleeps. With clarity and compassion, Dr. Rehrer will explain how sleep works, why it often fails, and what our restless nights reveal about both our bodies and our souls.

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We open the phone lines today so that you can ask Laurel Slade-Waggoner any question you have on the topic of narcissism. This dangerously deceptive personality disorder causes abuse and can harm generations with triangulation, manipulation, love-bombing, etc. It can leave the abused recipient questioning their own sanity. How do you cope with a narcissist while maintaining your own mental health? Join us for the answer to that question and more on today’s broadcast.

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Does investing have to be complicated to be effective? Some investors prefer active strategies, while others want to simply track the market. But what if the best approach is something else? On the next Faith & Finance Live, Mark Biller joins Rob West to explain Sound Mind Investing’s “Just-the-Basics” indexing strategy. Discover why simplicity, diversification, and a little flexibility matter. Then, it’s on to calls. That’s Faith & Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. That’s weekdays at 4pm Eastern/3pm Central on Moody Radio.

Faith & Finance Live is a listener supported program on Moody Radio. To join our team of supporters, click here.

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To learn more about Rob West, click here.

To learn more about Faith & Finance Live, click here.

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One of the main criticisms of Christians, both inside and outside the church, is that they are too judgmental. Is that a fair criticism? Author and teacher Shannon Popkin answers that question and tackles the big finger pointing verse, “Judge not lest ye be judged.” She’s also concerned about believers being less judgmental of themselves. Hear biblical encouragement for your soul on Chris Fabry Live.

Featured resource:
Kinda Judgy: Finding Mercy for Myself and Others in Six Stories of the Bible by Shannon Popkin

September thank you gift:
Resolve Conflict and Find Peace and Hope with Adult Children by Kathy Koch

Chris Fabry Live is listener-supported. To support the program, click here.

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How do you forgive someone who has wronged you, and how do you forgive yourself? Or maybe a better question is, how does your faith help you forgive others? A recent study seems to indicate that Christians who don’t attend church regularly have a harder time forgiving themselves and others. If you wonder how we can apply the truth of forgiveness in our lives or you’re struggling to forgive someone – or yourself – don’t miss Equipped with Chris Brooks.

Featured Resource:
Article: Casual Christians have a harder time forgiving themselves, others: survey

September thank you gift:
The Special Needs Parent by Dr. Joe and Cindi Ferrini

Equipped with Chris Brooks is made possible through your support. To donate now, click here.

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Today, on Karl and Crew, we continued our weekly theme, “It's Complicated!” filled with amazing stories! Marcus Warner, Stasi Eldredge, and Dr. Drew Dickens joined us today. Marcus Warner, the co-author of “The 4 Habits of Joy-Filled People,” and host of “The Four Habits of Joy Filled People Podcast,” discussed the nature of joy and how to rewire your brain for a joy-filled life. Then Stasi Eldredge, cofounder of “Wild at Heart” and author of “The Ladder of Love,” shared how to heal emotionally and build spiritual intimacy with Jesus. Finally, our regular guest, Dr. Drew Dickens, an AI expert, provided the latest update on AI, including how to approach it cautiously and some of the tools he designed. You can hear the highlights of today’s program on the Karl and Crew Showcast.

If you're looking to hear a particular segment from the show, look at the following timestamps:
Stasi Eldredge [ 06:45 ]
Dr. Drew Dickens [ 16:11 ]
Marcus Warner [ 28:38 ]
Devotional [ 38:26 ]

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Investing can feel overwhelming. With countless funds, strategies, market forecasts, and opinions competing for attention, it’s easy to assume that successful investing requires constant analysis and a complicated portfolio.

But it doesn’t have to.

For decades, Sound Mind Investing has offered an indexing strategy called Just-the-Basics, designed around simplicity, diversification, and minimal maintenance. According to Mark Biller, Executive Editor and Senior Portfolio Manager at Sound Mind Investing, a straightforward indexing approach can also work alongside more active investment strategies.

The key may not be choosing between active investing and indexing, but understanding how both can fit in a well-designed portfolio.

Index investing begins with a simple idea: rather than trying to beat the market, investors seek to earn approximately the market’s return.

They typically accomplish this through low-cost index funds that track a particular market benchmark. Because these funds generally require less active management, their expenses tend to be lower than those of actively managed funds.

Over time, those lower costs can be significant. “Indexing is based on the idea that an investor is going to give up trying to beat the market in favor of just earning the market’s return,” Biller explains.

Sound Mind Investing’s Just-the-Basics strategy takes that concept and keeps it intentionally simple. It uses three stock index funds and, when appropriate for the investor’s asset allocation, a bond index fund.

Once established, the strategy requires relatively little maintenance—typically an annual portfolio rebalance. That simplicity can make indexing especially appealing to investors who don’t want to continually monitor markets or make frequent investment decisions.

Investors sometimes treat active management and indexing as competing philosophies. Either you try to outperform the market, or you simply track it.

SMI takes a different approach. Although the organization may be better known for its active strategies, Just-the-Basics was actually the first investing strategy introduced in the SMI newsletter more than three decades ago.

Rather than viewing active investing and indexing as an either-or decision, Biller suggests thinking in terms of both-and.

That approach can be particularly useful for investors whose workplace retirement plans offer mostly index funds. For example, an investor might use low-cost index funds inside a 401(k) while employing active strategies elsewhere in the portfolio.

Combining the two can create another layer of diversification without requiring every investment account to follow the same approach.

If simplicity is the goal, why not simply purchase a total stock market index fund?

That would certainly be easy. But SMI has historically used three separate stock index funds instead. There are practical reasons for that.

When Just-the-Basics was first introduced, total stock market index funds were not yet widely available. More importantly, many workplace retirement plans still do not offer a true total-market option.

Most plans, however, offer something simila

Peter thought fishing was all he had left.  Today on BOLD STEPS, Mark Jobe shows how Jesus met Peter in his failure, telling him to cast his nets on the other side one more time.  It’s a small act of obedience that points toward a much bigger restoration than Peter ever expected.  Learn how trusting God’s plan means letting go of your own plans and timeline … listen to Bold Steps with Pastor Mark Jobe.

Bold Steps Gift: Goliath Must Fall: Winning the Battle Against Your Giants - Louie Giglio

Visit or watch Mark Jobe at New Life Community Church

Become a Bold Partner: https://www.moodyradio.org/donateto/boldsteps

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.