Do You Ever Wonder Why God Discourages Debt?

Do you ever wonder why God discourages debt?

In more than 30 Bible verses, God talks about debt. Although He never forbids it, He certainly does discourage it. Did you ever wonder why?

Let me offer you three of God's principles that we violate when we go into debt. But please don't stop with these three. Continue to look for other principles in God's Word that are violated when we incur debt.

Here are three to get you started...

Debt presumes upon the future: How many of us have ever gone into debt with the payment terms being: "pay in the future as the Lord provides and blesses?" I would be pretty surprised if any bank would offer anything like that. Usually payments are due on a certain day each month with some pretty nasty things happening if we don't make those payments on time.

Going into debt presumes upon our future that we will make those payments. James 4:14 says: Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.

Debt blocks God's direction in our lives: Did you ever think that one of the easiest ways for God to lead us is through providing or withholding money? If God owns everything (Psalm 24:1) and if He loves us (1 John
3:1) and He wants the best for us (Jeremiah 29:11, Psalms 84:11), why can't He provide us with the money to get it? Maybe it is not His timing or it is not His will for us to have it.

Suppose we want to buy a car. If God owns all the gold and silver (Haggai 2:8) He certainly has the resources to give us what we need to buy that car.

Maybe God knows that car will take us to places that are not honoring to Him. Maybe God knows that car will take too much of our time that belongs to our family or serving Him. Maybe God knows that car has bad brakes and we will be in a serious car accident.

Just as God directs us to move forward by providing (Philippians 4:19) He also tells us to wait by withholding (Galatians 6:9). How often do we miss God's direction in our lives by going to the bank for a loan instead of praying and waiting on God's timing?

"You ask and do not receive, because you ask with the wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures" (James 4:3).

Debt puts us in bondage: When we borrow money we become slaves to our creditors (Proverbs 22:7). "The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower becomes the lender's slave". Slavery is a yoked relationship.
(Galatians 5:1) "It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery".
The Bible is clear that we should not be yoked to non-believers (2 Corinthians 6:14) "Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers.
For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?". (NKJV)

We rightfully focus our attention on business partnerships and marriage as yoking relationships, but how many of us look at our creditors in the same light? The Bible tells us it is a yoking relationship and we should look at it as such.

1 Corinthians 7:23 "You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men". - George Hutchison is an instructor and financial counselor with Crown Financial Ministries and a member of the Keswick Board of Trustees

Great Quote: "If we are true Christian believers, we are called to a life of faith, and the faith-principle is meant to cover courtship, married life, career, finance and Christian service, indeed everything.
It never impoverishes our life; it enriches and transforms it!" - Dr. J.
Sidlow Baxter