Do You Want To Be Healed?

After this time, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem for the feast. Now, in Jerusalem by the Sheepgate, there is a pool which in Hebrew is called Bethesda, having five porches. In these porches lay a great multitude of sick people: the blind, the lame, and the paralyzed, waiting for the movement of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water. Whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was made well of whatever disease he had.

Now there was a certain man there who had been sick for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been in that condition for a long time, He said to him,

"Do you want to be healed?"

At the top of page seventeen in Becoming Your Own Banker, there is an excerpt from the fifth chapter of the Gospel of John, which Nelson quotes: When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, He asked him, "Do you want to get well?"

That's really the question I have for you today: Do you want to get well? Do you want to be healed? If you want to be healed, then I have a message for you. If you don't, then we probably can’t help you much.

What is the purpose of all of this? Duryea Financial? What is Michael talking about? What is Nelson really talking about?

The purpose is to take away pain caused by a problem. Jesus came to heal the sick, to cast out demons, to raise the dead, to preach the gospel, and to have men turn and be healed and saved. He invites us to be co-laborers in bringing His kingdom to pass on earth. Infinite banking is part of that mission. If it were not, I would not be interested in it!

So, what's the problem that the Infinite Banking Concept addresses?

People don’t have enough money. That’s the problem. People wrestle with money, struggling with insufficient cash flow and resources to achieve their goals. Infinite Banking addresses this problem directly.

So why do many people feel such a lack of financial resources? The cause of this problem is that 97% of the wealth in the world is owned and controlled by 3% of the people, a phenomenon known as the Pareto distribution. This principle applies across various fields: 97% of professional basketball games are played by 3% of players, 97% of musical talent resides in 3% of individuals, and this applies to wealth distribution as well.

The reason many people struggle with their financial resources is that they are financing everything they buy with institutions they don’t control and where they have no ownership. Nelson Nash emphasizes that you don’t have to be rich to create a banking system that meets your financial needs. You just need to change your thinking.

Many people have trouble with this book because it’s not just a book. It’s a workbook meant to be walked through with someone else. It’s meant to be an experience.

Nelson discusses the spending habits of American families, focusing on a hypothetical young man making $28,500 per year after taxes. He allocates his income as follows: 20% on transportation, 30% on housing, and 45% on living expenses. Many of these expenses are financed through loans, leading to a lack of savings. Matters are worse today: the current savings rate is less than 5%. People are saving less than 5% of what they make.

It’s essential to realize that every purchase should be viewed through the lens of potential interest costs. Paying cash does not solve the problem of interest; it often compounds it. Nelson suggests that instead of paying interest to banks, we should redirect that money back into our own financial systems.

Consider the hypothetical young man again. He saves less than 5% of his disposable income. If he were to change his mindset and focus on building a system that allows him to leverage his cash flow instead of losing it to interest payments, he could significantly improve his financial situation.

What if he could build a savings component into the financing of major items?

What if he could recapture and save a percentage of the money he spends on housing, vehicles, appliances, education, and other major expenses?

Nelson makes a compelling point: when you’re making payments, how much of that money is actually going toward reducing your debt? A significant amount often goes toward interest and closing costs, especially in the case of mortgages. If he were to pay off a loan early, he would still be paying a high percentage toward interest, not principal.

What if we could finance cars and keep and compound the interest we had been paying to the banks in the past? Even if you did not like the strategy for accomplishing that, aren’t you at least curious how that works? And why no one ever told you that it works?

The idea is to recognize that financing through banks leads to a cycle where individuals feel financially constrained. This feeling does not go away by financing things with cash. In fact, it can often get worse. By redirecting the interest payments back into their own system, individuals can build wealth rather than perpetuate a cycle of debt and eliminate the constant loss of capital through the cost of financing: which happens whether we borrow or not.

Infinite banking is about understanding how you finance your purchases, how bankers have set up a monopoly system for earning the cost of financing (which, again, is always present), and how to shift that paradigm to create financial independence. By changing your mindset and leveraging your resources, you can escape the cycle of feeling financially constrained and start building wealth in a reliable, abundant way.