I don’t think I’ve ever heard a sermon or teaching on debt although it’s something that plagues the lives of millions of people around the world. My guess is that there are more people enslaved to debt than there are to sex slavery and I believe that we have a role as Christians to free ourselves, as well as others, from financial debt.
Jesus often talks about money in the Gospels, if fact, almost half of the parables are on the topic of money. Clearly, it’s something that God sees as important to mankind. We, as believers, should be seeking to have knowledge in this area. Why would God speak so often on this subject? I think it’s because everyone in the world uses money! Whether it be cash, coins, or electronic, people use it to live their lives.
Believers in Christ are to be faithful stewards with all that we own. I heard a quote once saying, “It’s not wrong to have possessions, it’s wrong for possessions to have us.” Jesus said that we will serve either God or money and we cannot serve both. We have to choose which God we will serve. What we do with the money we have matters to God. He is a God of details who knows the number of hairs on your head. He knows how much you have in your bank account and what you do with it too! God takes debt seriously.
Proverbs 22:26-27 says, “Do not be a man who strikes hands in pledge or puts up security for debts; if you lack the means to pay, your very bed will be snatched from under you”.
There are also a few parables in the Bible where Jesus uses the analogy of sin being like a debt we owe. Jesus paid in full the debt of sin! And we have been freed – not by our own works – but by His grace. When we come to Him and confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us of all unrighteousness. Our part in paying off debts is to humble ourselves, admit what we did wrong, and admit that we cannot pay our debts without Jesus.
So, Jesus paid our spiritual debt of sin, but does He also pay our physical debt?
I believe so!
Here’s why:
(I am not very comfortable sharing these details with the world about my debt, but I know there is power in confession and I believe other people need to hear this as well.)
Presently, one of my main gifts is Giving, but I wasn’t always like this. I grew up very tight fisted and held on to my money. I never spent the little that I had on others or gave it to the church. I spent it all on myself. When I was 19 years old, God began to break this out of me. I began to give away a lot of money and I soon discovered that I had a gift of giving. It brought so much life to me when I did this!
Before coming on the World Race, I had $6000 in student loan debt and had to raise $16,250 USD for the trip. God was speaking to me and telling me not to sow into my own trip and into my own debt, but rather to sow into other people’s missions trips and other people’s debts. He said that through this act of giving, He would provide for me. It was not an easy choice to make. At the time I made about $3000 a month and had very little expenses. I could have easily got out of debt and put a lot towards the trip, but God had other plans.
As I told a few people about this plan, I had various responses. Some said, “That’s awesome! Go for it!” and others said, “Are you really hearing from God?”. That response hurt. I was hearing from God and it was not an easy task to follow out. It required faith and the last thing I needed was discouragement. But instead of getting discouraged, I pushed forward to hear God again more clearly. I stuck with it and watched as God opened up many people’s hearts to giving. I didn’t do a single fundraiser and I only sent out support letters and talked with people about it… but the money came in and in July I became fully funded!
Before leaving this year, I was worried that I wouldn’t get to use my gift of giving a whole lot due to the lack of money in my bank account. In December before leaving, God was leading me to give away $1000 to a friend a few weeks before I left. I was planning to use that money for extra spending on the Race, but I followed God and gave it away. Within 2 weeks of leaving, I received from 2 different people prepaid visas that totaled $1250! At the start I was just using them for me. I figured “This is the money that God blessed me with to spend on myself this year”. But in month 2, something clicked in me and I realized I had these visa cards to bless other people with. So I began to do that, and again, it brought me so much life.
But last month when I was in Thailand, I looked at my bank account and did not like the numbers I was seeing. I was $700 in credit card debt and had a little over $100 in my bank account. What I came to realize is that because the Canadian Dollar was much lower than the American Dollar, I miscalculated the amount of money I was spending. While the Americans on my team would say stuff like “Oh, that’s only $1” I should have been saying “Ok, so that’s $1.32”. I miscalculated a lot and was not very wise in my spending.
I decided to fast and seek God in this and something He spoke to me was to continue giving what I have. He told me to not worry and trust in Him. This was a common thing He would speak to me before the Race when I was fundraising. Keep giving and don’t worry. So I continued to give, but I did not stop worrying. I was frustrated that I was in debt. This led me to act on my own accord. In the Bible, God tells us to not put Him to the test, but there is one area that He gives us permission to do so. This is in our giving. Read Malachi 3:10. I had known this for a while, but never tested God in it. So I figured I would try that. What did I have to lose? More money? Oh well. It was worth a try. So I was on Facebook and a missionary who was in need of money posted their need. So I went online and donated close to $1000 with my credit card. A week later another missionary posted a need as well. So I donated to them also. About $1200 this time.
About a week later I had a lot of weight on me about my financial situation. My $3000 limit credit card was nearly maxed out. I still had around $5000 in student loans left to pay too. We had a “team time” with our team and I talked about what was going on in my life. I explained my whole situation to them. My teammate Wayne who is full of wisdom and compassion, very gently asked if he could speak into my life. I said “yes” and he began to speak truth to me.
He said, “I think it awesome that you are giving money away, but I don’t think it is right for you to use your credit card to do that. That money isn’t actually yours, it’s borrowed money.”
This was hard for me to hear at first because I believed my actions were right. But what Wayne said was very true. God is the owner of all the money in the world. We are stewards of the money He entrusts to us. But credit cards aren’t money that we have. It’s an illusion of the real thing. It’s like pretend money. It is borrowed and then we have to pay it back.
God spoke recently on this subject to me saying “You can’t sow seed you don’t have”. Here I was thinking that I was sowing into the Kingdom of God with the money that God entrusted to me, but I wasn’t. It was not my seed to give. And it had led me further away from being debt free than when I started!
I realized that we do this with our sin as well. We get overwhelmed by the sin in our life and we try to fix it on our own. We desire to be righteous and be like Jesus, but we often try to do that without Him. I’m am very guilty of this. The way that we receive Salvation, is when we die to ourself, admit we are wrong, ask for forgiveness and receive God’s grace.
This is what I am having to do now with debt. I had to die to myself, admit what I did with the credit card was wrong, ask for forgiveness and receive God’s grace. I believe God is a Redeemer and will redeem my mistakes. Whether it be pornography, judgmental thoughts, selfishness, or foolishly going into debt, God is my Redeemer. I was wrong in what I did. For my actions, I deserve to stay in debt and suffer for my wrong choice. But God is slow to anger and quick to love. He is full of mercy, grace and forgiveness. I confessed where I went wrong to God and now I am confessing to all my friends and family who are reading this.
I am excited to see how God will redeem this situation. He is faithful and will do it.
“Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow!
Oh praise the One who paid my debt and raised this life up from the dead”
I am not out of debt yet, but I sing these words with Faith knowing God will redeem!
