Financial Bondage

Financial Bondage

Those who find themselves in unmanageable debt are enslaved to their creditors.

DEBT

Romans 13:8 - Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law.

You are in debt if:

* You do not have the money or any other means to pay for goods or services that are owed to other people

* The total value of your liabilities exceeds your total assets

REASONS FOR INDEBTEDNESS

In order to become debt-free it is advisable to stop the behaviors that lead to more debt. I have listed some of these:

Debt is not always a financial problem, but can be caused because of a person’s inability to curb spending.

Debt is not always a financial problem.

1. Impatience

Wealth is something that is built up over many years. But there are so many people who want to become rich overnight and they take silly risks in order to achieve this.

Today people want things to happen instantly. They do not want to wait or work for what they want.

People will invest in dicey “get rich” schemes, make unwise investments, and engage in business ventures that could be ill-timed, or ill-advised, or even illegal. They take loans from the bank in order to finance these schemes and end up in a worse position than they were in before.

2. Wrong relationships

Most business ventures are more risky when they involve one or more partners. Many well-meaning disciplined, financially secure people have found themselves in huge financial trouble, all because they entered into a partnership with someone who squandered the money and made huge debt for which all parties are responsible.

I always advise people to avoid going into business with anyone because many times it means abdicating control of your financial well-being to others. When it comes to your money, never trust another person unless that person is your spouse. Only trust yourself.

3. Not anticipating hard times

Proverbs 27:1 - Boast not of tomorrow, for you don’t know what tomorrow will bring.

Many people find themselves making debt without thinking of the possibilities that hard times and trouble can occur overnight.

Be aware that there can be unforeseen factors that cause debt especially in times of adverse financial circumstances or when global financial fortunes change.

For example, there was a time in my life when my debt became unmanageable because of inflation. I had invested in a few properties and paid a large down payment on each one of them. I rented these properties out and made a small profit after paying the mortgage and services. Due to inflationary pressures at the time, the banks increased their lending rates on the mortgages in line with the inflation rate to a point where I was paying double the initial amount on each mortgage.

It is difficult to make provision for these kinds of things. However, I managed to hold on to the properties at a time when so many other people lost theirs. It is very important to make adequate provision to survive in difficult times.

TRAPPED

If you only manage to survive from pay-check to pay-check, you are in financial bondage because if unforeseen circumstances occur, you will not be able to make up the shortfall and you will probably be late in paying your creditors.

Being debt free means having no debt. Those who find themselves in unmanageable debt are enslaved to their creditors. This is especially true when the debtor is unable to service that debt. This is not God’s best for His people and these kinds of situations do not bring glory to God. God does not want us to be in bondage to anyone.

Proverbs 22:7 - The rich rules over the poor, And the borrower is servant to the lender.

Despite there being a lot of information available, so many people in the body of Christ cannot fulfill their divine purpose in life because of financial difficulties.

Too many Christians fall into the trap of excessive debt and financial bondage which means that a great portion of the money they are working for is going towards paying interest on those debts.

God wants us to be blessed with abundance and we should not have to struggle just to survive. There is more to life than work, work, work.

God’s people have to learn to live in complete financial freedom.

There are so many gifted and anointed men and women that God wants to use in ministry to touch nations, but they cannot move out because they are stuck with mortgages, car loans, and credit card debt. If any unforeseen situation arises, it causes them to fall deeper into debt and they become even more bound by their financial situation.

If God’s people are to fulfill their divine purpose, they will have to make an effort to become financially free. Someone once said that the most expensive word in the Bible is “Go” (Go into the world and preach the Gospel…). It costs money to travel to other nations.