imonlywood.com

FREEDOM IN JESUS-JESUS AND MONEY

While we’re on the subject of money…let’s take a quick look at how it deals with freedom in Jesus! This one particular aspect of freedom in Jesus could be studied for a good long time, as can each of the others. For the sake of time, we’re gonna look at some basic information here, but try not to get too terribly bogged down, so we can move on to some other things that are just as important, if not more so!

First of all, we all know that money is NOT the root of all evil…the LOVE of money is (1 Tim. 6:10).

“Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income…” (Eccl. 5:10).

Money, itself, is not “evil”…rather, it’s a tool that can be used for either good or evil, depending on who is in possession of it and how they choose to use it. With that said, it’s also fairly evident that God loves to bless his kids with prosperity. In the last post, for instance, it was pointed out that Abraham was a wealthy man. Abraham was not, by any means, the only wealthy man in the Bible. In fact, the list of wealthy followers of God is a long one that includes Jacob, Job, David, Solomon… countless others…great men of God that were blessed with great wealth! There’s a passage in John that hints that Jesus, himself, may have been blessed with a degree of wealth.

“When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.” (John 19:23)

In today’s society, even with so many things done by machine, how much would a seamless garment cost you (assuming you could even find one!)? A seamless garment. Think about that for awhile…how was it made? Who made it? How did Jesus come by it? Either someone thought enough of Jesus to offer him this garment, that was surely an expensive article of clothing…or Jesus bought it for himself. If it was given as a gift, Jesus didn’t refuse to take it because it was expensive…he accepted it! If he bought it for himself, then he obviously had enough money to buy it! Now there are all kinds of directions we could go in here, and all of them would make interesting studies, but for the moment, just realize that however he came to possess it, Jesus owned that seamless garment!

In other words, it’s perfectly acceptable for kids of the King to have and enjoy nice things without feeling guilty over them. At the same time, we’re warned against greed and selfishness, and encouraged to share what we have, whether a lot or a little, with those in need. The gospels proclaim the fact that it’s hard for a rich man to enter heaven. How come? It’s not because he’s rich…but because he’s selfish and greedy! Wealth is perfectly acceptable in the kingdom of God…in fact, as we shall see, it’s not only acceptable, but it’s a promise from God to his kids! (Noooooo, this is not a “name it and claim it” type teaching, and it’s not promising everyone great riches…lol…it’s simply a look at what the Bible says about wealth!)

For instance…

“The blessing of the Lord brings wealth, and he adds no trouble to it.” (Prov. 10:22)

Now, I realize that that’s only one passage from the entire Bible, but this post isn’t about our prosperity as Christians…it’s simply taking a look at whether or not it’s ok for us, as Christians, to have wealth. The reason? So many people, Christians and non-Christians alike, think, for some reason, that having wealth is a bad thing or sinful. It’s not! NOT having wealth isn’t a bad thing either! It’s not what you have, but how you USE what you have, whether it’s a little or a lot. I really don’t want to hang around and dwell on this thing too much longer, cuz there’s so much more to learn about so many other things!

Before we move on, though, let me repeat one more time…wealth is not a bad thing. Lack of wealth is not a bad thing. Hopefully, in the next few posts we’ll be able to see how this ties in a little with the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world!

HOME BUSINESS BLOG-MY FREE HOME BUSINESS

Today, I’d like to share with you just a little on how to promote your free home business. Of course, there are as many ways to promote your free affiliate websites as there are people to promote them! I’d like to share a few of those with you today, along with the pros and cons of each one.

The first way I’d like to touch on today is email marketing, or safelisting. Rule #1, you do NOT want to start sending out a bunch of random emails to people you don’t know without their permission. You know, as well as I do, that nobody likes to be spammed (plus it’s illegal)! There are ways, however, to send emails out to folks you don’t know WITH their permission! One way to do this is with landing pages, which we’ll cover later. Today, though, we want to look at safelisting.

Safelists are lists that you can join that are full of people that have agreed to receive your emails. In return, you agree to receive their emails. While this can be an effective way to get your business out there, keep in mind that the same people that are receiving your email, agreed to do so in order to be allowed to send YOU their offers! While you can join most safelists for free (of course, most of them offer upgrades), the free ones are often ineffective.

Once you upgrade, you can email a lot more members a lot more often. Another benefit of upgrading is that you often receive a LOT less email! The typical set up is this: Free members can email free members once a week, and receive emails from everybody in the list. Upgrade to “pro” and you may be able to email all free and pro members two or three times a week…and receive emails only from the pro and “executive” members. Upgrade to “executive” and email ALL members of the list as often as you like…and receive emails only from other executive members. The upgrades are normally fairly modest in price.

Obviously, the executive memberships are far more effective if you decide you want to try safelisting. Whether the lists are free or paid, the list is already there for you. You can have an instant list of thousands! The downside, is that it’s very competetive, and can be very expensive if you upgrade in a few of them. If you’re making money from them, it’s worth it, of course, but if you’re just starting out or if you are on a limited budget, it might not be a wise investment. Personally, while I do use a few of them, I don’t spend too much time or money on them.

I will share with you a few that I do like, though, and that I’ve found to be fairly responsive. Number 1 on the list is:

ListJoe is a great list to start with. It’s a little pricey to upgrade, but worth it IF you want to make safelisting one of your preferred methods of marketing. If you’re not intending to do much with safelists, I would recommend you starting as a free member.(Actually, it’s more of a list builder than a safelist, but it works much in the same way…but it has the added benefit of building your list, too.)

List-twister is another good viral list builder. It’s still fairly new (and fairly inexpensive to upgrade), and as it grows, so will your list!

Herculist seems to be a pretty good safelist to start with. Of course, you can join as a free member, or upgrade to different levels. Either way, it currently has a list of around 56,000 members. I’ve been a member for awhile now, and it might be worth your taking a look.

TargetProBlaster is another one I use, mostly because there’s a lifetime upgrade of only $10 to send out emails to a list of around 50,000 currently.

One of the absolute favorites on my list is the Pearls of Wealth safelist group. You can join any or all of them. Most of them are free to join, and you can join as many or as few as you like. If you’d like to try the safelist submitter, feel free to do so, as long as you understand there is a monthly membership fee (that you can cancel at any time). The Pearls lists are generally pretty responsive, and are all over the world (which is great for your international free home business!). I would recommend you joining a few of them for free and getting your feet wet before jumping into the submitter, unless it’s something you can easily afford. Another great alternative that I’ve used a few times is that you can send out a one time ad to all lists for $5. That might be something else you’d like to try before you commit to a paid membership. See how it works for you.

Just as a note of caution here, if you happen to run across these blasters that charge you $20-30 for a lifetime membership to “blast” your ads to millions a day…STAY AWAY! I’m sure there are probably a few legitimate ones out there, but I also know that many of them are just wanting your thirty bucks. I’m not talking about some of the safelist submitters (which are different altogether) like Pearls of Wealth, or iPostAd…but about the blasters that promise to send your ads to 150-700 million people a day for a one-time lifetime payment. It’s your money, but…

Safelists can be quite effective. I’m not a huge fan of them, although I do use them on occassion, too! Don’t rule them out totally, but don’t get too hung up on ‘em either! There are other ways (totally free) that work just as well or better!

If you’d like to follow along on My Free Home Business blog for more info and tips, feel free to click the link!

LEGITIMATE FREE HOME BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES

The age old question: Are there such things as  legitimate free home business opportunities? The answer may surprise you! First of all, let’s look at the reason you’re investigating this avenue in the first place. Maybe you were laid off and in today’s economy, it’s pretty tough to find a decent job…or even a not so decent job. Maybe with the economic turmoil, you just need a little extra cash! Don’t despair…and don’t run around throwing money at a lot of different programs that promise to bring the cash rolling in with the click of a button!

Back to the question: Are there really such things as legitimate free home business opportunities? There are a surprising number of “free” home businesses, that (not so surprisingly) really aren’t free. They may be free to join, but they often require you to upgrade or maintain a certain dollar amount in monthly purchases to qualify to receive your money. The money YOU earned! In spite of those guys, there really and truly are a few legitimate free home business opportunities on the internet! We’re not talking about the survey thing, or the clicking ads for pennies type thing, but real, true, honest-to-goodness home business programs that can earn you a substantial income!

Most of these offer upgrades too, but don’t REQUIRE them, like many other “free” opportunities. Of course, the upgrades offer the potential to earn even more money, but it’s a choice that YOU make. You can honestly remain “free” as long as you like and still receive your earnings…and with a little time and effore, those earnings can be rather lucrative!

Likewise, you can spend as much as you want on advertising or promoting your new business…but it’s really not necessary if you’re willing to put in a little time and effort in learning about the free ways. Yep, it may take a little longer and require a little more effort, but it’s just as effective, and in the long run, the advantages lie with the free ways. They can self-produce for you over a very long period of time, simply by putting in a little work in the beginning.

Even the free home business programs may cost a little bit to start up, though. We’re not talking about a major investment, but even with a free affiliate website, for instance, you’ll need a place to host it. There are tons of hosting services out available for very little cost…usually less than ten bucks a month! And you might be interested in getting your own domain name…another small investment. It’s really easy to find those for well under ten bucks, too!

A lot of internet business folks recommend autoresponders, as well. Do you HAVE to have one? Not at all. Especially if you’re selling affliate products! That’s a choice you have to make for yourself, but it’s an investment that you might want to consider at some point down the road, especially if you’re selling your own products or trying to build a list. Another twenty bucks of so a month. You can easily do without the autoresponder, as many affiliate programs will have their own, but even if you go all out right off the bat, with the domain name, the hosting and the autoresponder, you’re looking at forty dollars or less a month to operate your home business. There’s NOWHERE else where you can do THAT!

Are there really such things as “legitimate free home business opportunities“? You bet! You just have to take a little time to find it…