06/24/26 - The Biblical Basis for Estate Planning

It's not what the world wants to give us or what the world thinks we should or should not do.

Our foundation as believers is to always come back to the Word of God, find what the principles are that the Lord wants us to enact, and then our lives are to conform back to His character based upon those foundations.

So we've gone through a very practical approach today.

through the life cycle of estate planning.

We talked about that relationship is important.

Counseling and wisdom is important.

We've talked about that most estate plans fail, that they end up falling apart at some place and at some point if we only have a document mentality.

So that document mentality is I need paperwork and somehow the paperwork is going to save the day if I become incapacitated or if I die.

Now, anyone who's listened to the show for any length of time understands that my perception is that the document will not assist us when we truly need it, unless it was just formed.

And so if it's a brand new document, we have a greater chance.

So the whole philosophy... of estate planning should be around a relationship with an estate planner.

Through a relationship, we can have consistent updating.

We can have the proper viewpoint from the legal side.

Based upon relationship, you have an opportunity to communicate things that are changing in your family back to the attorney.

And so the whole concept of of relational estate planning is that by relationship we can build up a plan but instead of having it wear down in efficiency and effectiveness instead of it falling off because of legal gaps tax gaps or family gaps financial gaps or other things that we can continually fine tune it Now, also in relationship, we talk a lot about education to the family.

So in other words, is the next generation prepared? Is the next generation ready to receive what we are about ready to give them? Most estate planners look at it as wealth transfer.

In other words, from the creator's perspective, I am about ready to give whatever I have over to the next generation.

versus the concept that says is that next generation and by the way that doesn't have to be just kids that could be is my church ready to receive what i'm about ready to give them right is the other non-profit are my nieces and nephews um are my brothers and sisters are my kids and so That tends to be the most common place that wealth flows is to children.

But if you don't have children or if you want to continue your acts of giving through estate planning, then is everyone that is a part of your plan, are they ready as a whole? Is each individual or each group ready to receive wealth, not does the document or is the document just ready to give it away? And that's really the concept and where most estate planners are is that I'm going to create a document that just simply transfers versus the concept that says, are those who are going to receive, are they ready to receive? And so that's the relational approach is, number one, we have to have a consistent ability to review and change because life, the law, taxes, everything is constantly changing.

But if I just gave you a document and pushed it to you and said, it was nice to meet you, let me know if I can help you again, the average individual is not following that.

when things change in estate planning.

So we assume that the document is ready, and that's an unfortunate part is that we assume.

And so what I want to do with today's show is I want to bring that relational concept back to a biblical foundation, because unfortunately what we're trying to make sure is that Estate plans don't fail is that I want to create predictable known outcomes in estate planning.

And an estate planner can't do that without relationship.

And an estate planner can't do that if we are not of the same mindset and word and that the client is ready to move forward with it.