STAY CLEAR OF DEBT!

I was at the bank this morning, trying to stop the 'standing instruction' i'd set up a while ago. As usual, i chatted up the customer relations officer who first tried to 'sell me' a loan and when i told him that i wanted to stay clear of loans, he related an interesting story to me. Apparently, an Indian working for the government, earning a salary of 35,000 dirhams, had recently taken a huge loan to avail of the 'exchange rate' opportunity due to the fall in the rupee against the dollar. The day, the loan was granted to him, he also lost his job!

There was an interesting article i read on this very topic. I have 'gleaned' some important points from that articel for our enlightenment. Satan's goal has always been to create so much debt that it is impossible for the individual to pay it back. Debt creates a relationship of servitude and slavery to the one who offered the 'apple of death'. Satan does not care what kind of debt one adopts: money, promises, material things, food, time, tithe, favors, or sins. In the Old Testament times, loaning money to fellow Jewish brothers was only under the condition of charitable giving. It was absolutely forbidden (still is) to charge interest to a brother of the race. The children of God were not to borrow, or loan, to people outside their race. If they did, they were accused of forming partnerships with the "unequally yoked." The early Jews knew the interest charged would create long-term bondage. Under Hebraic law, if a person loaned money to a brother and he refused (or couldn't) pay it back, the loan was then considered "charitable giving." This was not determined until the end of the seventh year. If the borrower was caught a second time "stiffing" a fellow brother for a loan, he was to be treated as a foreigner. This included no financial dealings, which would force him to leave the community.  

Nowadays, when an individual cannot pay a debt, he considers ideas such as bankruptcy. Bankruptcy is not a biblical solution, nor does God support these kinds of resolutions. Bankruptcy laws are changing to make it easier for individuals and corporations to go this route. It used to be when a person went bankrupt, his assets were turned into legal tender and the money would be used to pay down the debt. As the years have passed, bankruptcy has become a way of escaping from the responsibility of paying debt.

 God tells us to "be in debt to no man" and to pay up all of our debts, unless we are forgiven of that debt.