Breaking the Bondage of Debt, Part 1

Breaking the Bondage of Debt, Part 1
(by Pastor James MacDonald)

I was talking once with an accounting professor at a local college. He told me about a student who came up to him and said, “I am going to get a credit card.” “Why are you getting a credit card?” the professor asked. The student replied, “Because I want to buy things I can’t afford.”

Sound familiar? Are you buying things you can’t afford? Are you spending more than you make, year after year? I have heard it said that there are three classes of people in the world today: the haves, the have-nots, and the have-not-paid-for-what-they-haves. Sadly, that third group is the largest—by far.

Debt has become so pervasive that people think it has always been this way: “Well I am sure my father and my grandfather and my great-grandfather were in debt just like I am.” No, they were not. In fact, any surface study of the past fifty years will indicate debt was not nearly the problem that it is today in our society. Back then if people couldn’t afford something, they didn’t buy it. What a novel thought!

Did you know that the average person owes $3,900 on his or her credit card? Statistics say that if you pay just the minimum payment on that card plus the interest and late fees that inevitably come, you will never pay it off. Never! Now, it will probably drop by the wayside in heaven, but as long as you are on this earth you will never pay it off.

How did we get into this situation? Some of the very first credit cards that were issued came from gas companies who were eager to find new ways to expand their market share. Many other companies followed suit, realizing the rich rewards that came by luring people into buying now and paying later. By the late 1970’s banks started issuing credit cards, but only to those who qualified for one.

Now I get ten offers a week in the mail! “We will give you three cards.” “We will give you five.” “Take our credit card and use it to pay off all the other credit cards.” “We will give you a low interest rate” (For awhile!) Credit is now given regularly regardless of the person’s ability to pay. It is totally out of control! In fact, so many credit card companies are competing for market share that they have actually begun going to college campuses to sign up unsuspecting students and start them down the road of financial slavery. And that’s exactly what is—slavery. Proverbs 22:7 says, “The borrower becomes the lender’s slave.”

So what does God's Word have to say about being in bondage to debt? When the children of Israel entered the Promised Land, God instructed them how they should live in order to please Him. There were blessings for obedience, and this included the area of finances. Deuteronomy 28:12 says, “The Lord will open for you His good storehouse, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand; and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.”

But there were also curses for disobedience. In verse 15, it says, “But it shall come about, if you do not obey the Lord your God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes with which I charge you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you.” Flip over to verses 43 and 44: “The alien who is among you shall rise above you higher and higher, but you will go down lower and lower. He shall lend to you, but you will not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you will be the tail.” One of the curses for disobeying God was being in bondage to debt.

So how about you? Are you in bondage to debt? Is there a lack of joy and peace in your life regarding finances? Are you up to your ears in payments, so that you can hardly function? If so, God wants you to break free from this. But you won’t get to the good place of financial liberation and victory unless you first break the bondage of wrong thinking. Ask the Lord to forgive your selfishness and lack of self-control, and to give you strength to do the right thing. You have to change the way you think about spending before your actions will follow suit.

[ May 16, 2002, 10:19 PM: Message edited by: HeDied4U ]