Your Independence
In the 61st chapter of Isaiah, he said this - "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed and qualified me to preach the Gospel of good tidings to the meek, the poor, and afflicted; He has sent me to bind up and heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the [physical and spiritual] captives and the opening of the prison and of the eyes to those who are bound."
Today marks our nation's Independence Day, a time to reflect and be thankful to God for the vision of a free country given to our forefathers, and how during the course of several trying years they courageously overcame nearly impossible odds and many gave their lives so we today could experience the liberty and freedom from being an independent nation.
We are living a free country, but many are in bondage in their finances. This bondage of debt takes its toll on people physically and mentally over time. It has resulted in people of both high incomes and low losing homes and cars, strife in marriages and even divorce.
God plainly and accurately stated it in Proverbs 22:7 that "the borrower is servant to the lender". You know from your own experience for this verse to be true, in how you work day after day to satisfy the lenders you've borrowed from, and it can feel like an endless cycle of servitude.
But God has shown us a better way - in Romans 13:8, "Keep out of debt and owe no man anything, except to love one another". Of course this sounds desirable and positive, but how do we get there? God shares a basic approach in Proverbs 21:20, "There are precious treasures and oil in the dwelling of the wise, but a self-confident and foolish man swallows it up and wastes it." He is simply telling us to spend less than we make.
If you click on the archives section under November 2019, the post titled "Seeds from A to Z" has a large group of areas where you can make changes immediately to free up money, allowing you pay down existing debts.
Just as there is an almost limitless amount of things and places you can spend money on, we all have our own unique areas of spending that are different on where we can be tripped up. You know what areas of discretionary spending that you've indulged which have caused your debts to swell. If that is in question, write down every expense over the next month and it will show those areas.
Where you want to be one month from now is having achieved an incremental level of independence over debt, even if it seems small. Perhaps by making a change in one area you freed up just $10 which helped lower your credit card bill... that is progress, that is applying your faith, that is demonstrating to you the positive result of what you did. God will certainly bless you for making that initial effort - we have seen it repeated many times where God brought financial blessings to people who began that effort.
You will see your independence from the lenders evolve more and more, as balances are reduced, then credit cards and other bills are retired. The sense of freedom gained by removing debts is exhilarating, and I can tell you from experience of having lived free of debt for nearly 20 years that it is absolutely worth the effort and the only way to go.
Lastly, believing that Jesus knows all - including the difference between serving Him and being in bondage to the enemy, keep with you and cling to these words: "Come to Me, all you labor and are heavy-laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest."
God Bless you and may He show Himself greatly to you,
Paul
