Courtney Markley Center for Financial Discipleship Heart of Money Financial Counselor Finish Line Podcast
Finish Line Podcast Episode 130

Courtney Markley, Cofounder of the Center for Financial Discipleship, on Why Generosity Starts with the Heart, Not the Budget

You can know the biblical principles of stewardship and still find that fear, security, comparison, or past experiences quietly shape the way you use money.

What changes when financial decisions become less about finding the perfect formula and more about surrender, healing, and learning to follow Jesus with what you have?


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Meet your guide

Courtney Markley is a financial counselor, co-founder of the Center for Financial Discipleship, and host of The Heart of Money Podcast. Her work grew out of her own financial journey after she and her husband accumulated roughly $100,000 of debt while Courtney was working in the fashion industry. Even though she understood money and knew what Scripture taught, she began realizing that her deeper struggle involved insecurity, emotional attachment, and the place money held in her heart.

Today, Courtney helps individuals, pastors, and financial advisors move beyond surface-level financial advice into conversations about spiritual formation, emotional health, surrender, and generosity. She explains why financial discipleship cannot be reduced to formulas for saving, spending, or giving, and why healing your relationship with money begins with your relationship with God. She also explores how faithful risk and small acts of generosity can gradually deepen trust.

By the end, you may see your financial life less as a problem to solve and more as an ongoing opportunity to become increasingly responsive to God.

What you’ll gain

  • Why better finances often require heart change before behavior change
  • How to uncover what secretly drives your financial decisions
  • Why biblical stewardship cannot be reduced to a formula
  • How surrender changes questions about saving, giving, and risk
  • Why financial discipleship should begin with your relationship with God
  • How small acts of generosity can gradually strengthen your faith

Inspired? Take your next step

Try the Game of Life Simulator

Step into a four-minute interactive experience and see what unfolds as you decide how to manage your resources.

Start the Game
Game of Life Simulator Mobile Screenshot
Game of Life Simulator Mobile Screenshot

Quotes to Remember

  • “I find that as people journey with Jesus, they eventually find themselves back to how He initially designed them.”
  • “Maybe all my money problems don’t have anything to do with my income and have everything to do with me.”
  • “You don’t have to have millions to be generous, you just need something in your hand to give away.”
  • “It’s easy to have a gospel conversation if someone is willing to have a money conversation.”
  • “Generosity is not a math equation.”
  • “Lord, I’m willing to be made willing.”
  • “Is more money your end goal?”
  • “Learning how to live like Jesus with your money takes a lifetime of living.”
  • “We have to do the heart work to prepare us for the mission work.”
  • “If you didn’t make decisions based on money and only made decisions based on obedience to God, what would your life look like?”

Links from the Show

Bible References from the Show

Psalm 24:1 | The Earth Is the Lord’s

The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein,

Matthew 13:1-23 | Parable of the Sower

Mark 12:41-44 | The Widow’s Offering

John 6:1-14 | The Feeding of the 5000

Luke 3:1-14 | “What Then Shall We Do?”

Matt 6:24 | God and Money

“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

Use Our
Free Guide

Have you considered the ways you are uniquely called into generosity? We’re not all called into the same adventure.

Enter your information below and we’ll send you our free PDF guide to explore the specific adventure you were called into.

Generosity Profile Image

Use Our
Free Guide

Have you considered the ways you are uniquely called into generosity? We’re not all called into the same adventure.
Generosity Profile Image
Enter your information below and we’ll send you our free PDF guide to explore the specific adventure you were called into.
Generosity Profile Image

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