The Debt

 

The Debt

There is a debt we all were born with, that every single person... past, present and future owes. There is no amount of wealth that can pay it off, nor any number of good deeds or works performed that will retire or even reduce it. 

    The Bible states in Romans 3:23 that "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God".  It matters not that one person may have tried to be good from their youth, while another has rebelled and lived a life full of destruction - both of their eternal outcomes will be the same... unless they receive the atonement, the payment for their sins that is the centerpiece in all of God's Word provided by His Son Jesus Christ.

    Those who believe that doing good works will get them to Heaven lack the understanding of what God says in His own Word that our righteousness and best deeds and justice are as "filthy rags" in Isaiah 64.

 

    Thinking that being good or performing works will suffice is like a person owing a financial debt to the banker and then arriving at the bank to pay with Monopoly money.  It doesn't matter how much they brought, the banker will certainly not accept it as payment for the debt. God states in His Word what is the only payment for sin... in Romans 6:23 that the wages of sin is death.

 

    However, the remainder of that verse contains our hope..."but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."  He was the one who paid our debt, by the shedding of His blood for our sins - paying our penalty, and God credits that to the account of those who believe and He declares them righteous because of what Jesus did in His awesome love for humanity.

    Consider that if there really was any way possible for man to pay for his own sins... that would then mean Jesus left Heaven, came to earth and suffered an excruciating death for no reason. 

    The late Charles Stanley simply stated it as "Jesus is called Savior because He came to rescue us from the penalty of our sins."

 

    We have been given the ultimate gift in Christ, and have done nothing to earn it. Our proper mindset is to be humble and receive it as a gift and be grateful. What if you had given a gift to someone, and they instead regarded it as something they earned from you? How would you feel? Salvation is a free gift extended to us.

 

    If you have accepted Jesus, as we have remembered and celebrated this month His crucifixion and triumphant resurrection over death, let us regard that we owed a debt which we could not pay... and He paid that debt for which He did not owe.

 

    If you have not yet accepted the free gift of salvation, given by the blood Jesus shed on the cross for your sins, there is no better time than right now to answer the call God has placed on your heart, and be reconciled to Him forever.

 

    You can ask God right now to save you, to accept Jesus as your Savior. In Romans 10:9 it is written "if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."  And you can know that your debt has been paid in full.

God Bless you and may He show Himself greatly to you,

 

Paul

For God

 

For God

"The King will reply, Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'

    These words spoken by Jesus in Matthew 25:40 were to let us know how much and how personally The Lord Himself views acts of giving we as believers do. Today we're going to look into this and other verses of encouragement that we can relate to giving in our finances.

    This first verse is so awesome, in that it is relaying now, exactly one of the "scenes" that will take place in the time to come... that in His complete knowledge of us He is regarding every single instance we reached out in love towards others. The verses in Matthew preceding this were of the acts of kindness done, in giving food, drink, lodging, clothing and by visiting and caring. Some of those acts involved giving of time and effort, and others had an actual cost.

    That cost of giving generously to others in the name of the Lord, is simply immeasurable in three ways: (1) The impression it can make on the other person towards the Lord, it can reshape their view of God, that they really are loved by Him. (2) The advancing of His kingdom here on earth. (3) Those treasures are now being stored in heaven, as we'll cover in our next verses below.

    "Do not gather and heap up and store for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust and worm consume and destroy, and where thieves break through and steal. But gather and heap up and store for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust nor worm consume and destroy, and where thieves do not break through and steal." (Matthew 6:20)

    Jesus was simply illustrating the difference between two ways of handling treasure - that all we gather on earth is eventually destroyed, and all we gather (give or use) towards heaven will last eternally. This flows with the first verse of Him remembering our acts of kindness being regarded as unto the Lord, and here stating He remembers the treasures we chose to yield to Him.

    The ways He wants to personally relate to us and us to Him, come through shining below.

    "Whatever your task, work heartily, as serving the Lord and not men" (Colossians 3:23). We can receive strength, encouragement and a lifting of our burden in doing our occupation working unto the Lord.

    "Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My House. And test Me now with this," says the Lord of Hosts, "if I will not open the windows of Heaven for you and pour you out a blessing without measure." (Malachi 3:10). See how personally God is speaking to us in giving, and how He will respond Himself? 

    "Come to me, all of you who weary and burdened, and I will give you rest". (Matthew 11:28). Cast your burdens, financial and otherwise on Him, and receive the peace and rest He promises.

    And lastly, be encouraged that our God knows all and will remember your efforts:

God is not unjust, he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them. (Hebrews 6:10)

God Bless you and may He show Himself greatly to you,

Paul

    

    

    

Love Is

 

Love Is

    If you have been a believer in Christ for any length of time, you probably know the verses Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13 about what love is quite well. Today, we will look at how living out certain parts of those verses can translate in our finances.

Love endures long

When you're facing the temptation to plunge into debt right now for something, instead of waiting until you have the funds or waiting for the proper timing God is showing you - this requires longer-term endurance and faith in Him, what His word says and remembering what He spoke to you. We can be encouraged to wait by remembering that He who spoke this loves us dearly, knows what is the best for us and wants that for us.

Love is patient

Similar to the character above, but this can be more directed to the near-term, having patience to put off that purchase until the next paycheck, to not move forward until you've explored all options - like a different model, seller, or to consider a pre-owned item. By waiting when you sense God is showing you to do so may open a different door you had not expected, but He knew all along.

Love is kind

The root word of kind relates to showing oneself useful and to act benevolently. We can carry this out in being sensitive to needs we see and giving towards those needs, especially to those in poverty. To get deeper into this, I encourage you to click on the Archives section to the right of this page and go to the November 2021 post titled "Giving Is Living"

Love never is envious or boils over with jealousy

Simply stated, one of the worst things we can do is to view someone else's belongings and foster envy for them and be jealous. The first "victim" in this mindset is that is wipes out our gratitude to the Lord for what He has provided us - I feel our thankfulness to the Lord is one of the most precious things to protect. The envy then drives our hearts towards these things and erodes our heart for the things of the Lord.

Love is not boastful and does not display itself haughtily

In Psalm 62:10 it is written "if riches increase, set not your heart on them". Remembering that the Lord is our source will anchor our hearts and help keep us from yielding to the fleshly desire to act boastful, with pride and arrogance trying to impress others with material things. Going back to the earlier action of giving to others (not to be seen), it is the opposite of being prideful, for it is yielding to God's will.

Love does not insist on its own rights or its own way

In the marriage relationship regarding finances, sometimes one spouse will have a greater appetite for spending, while the other wants to pay down debts and save. While we need to be open to the needs of our spouse for certain things and not insist on our own way, the household's overall direction should be to follow God's word and seek to keep out of debt and owe no one anything as it is written in Romans 13:8. If both spouses will yield to this principle in unity, God's blessings will follow after them.

Love bears up under anything and everything that comes

Whether the "thing" that comes is a job loss, a sudden expensive event out of the blue, or a lack of foresight that resulted in sizeable debt. Whether together in marriage or single, our focus is to cling to the Lord (and if married, cling closer to each other in unity during this season). We're given the instruction for how to proceed in Philippians 4:8 - "Be anxious for nothing, but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God." Staying connected with God during this time with strengthen you to bear up through it.

    Go to the top of the post and look at the picture of the heart garland which has some of the characteristics of love written on them. Consider how they are connected together, and that as we yield to live out those ways of love we are then more closely connected together with God, who wrote them.

    Lastly, be encouraged by the two verses below, that although they are from different books and authors, I feel they tie together nicely in their order, giving us the direction to go:

No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. (1 John 4:12)

Do everything in love. (1 Corinthians 16:14)

God Bless you and may He show Himself greatly too you,

Paul

2026 - The Strength Of The Ox

 

2026 - The Strength Of The Ox

"Where no oxen are, the crib is empty, but much increase [of crops] comes by the strength of the ox." (Proverbs 14:4)

    As we begin 2026, I want to share my longtime thoughts about an aspect of this verse, and how applying the wisdom from it can help in managing our finances.

    Going way back, many times I sensed a parallel of the benefits of the ox to the use of technology and innovation - especially in the workplace, as I saw how the company I worked for of humble beginnings grew leveraging technology from being literally a garage start-up to having their first million dollar month in a relatively short timeframe.

    So, how and where can we apply technology to our finances? Let's cover some today.

    Start with the area of tracking your spending. You can do this yourself, building a basic digital spreadsheet in Excel, entering the categories you've spent on and then staying with it to see how much you've spent and what needs to be adjusted. You can also purchase software that will create budget spreadsheets and will produce reports and graphics for illumination.

    One budget spreadsheet for purchase to consider is from the site "Mama's On A Budget", which offers biblically-based tools to help set up an easy to use sheet. Here is their website:

https://mamasonabudget.org/

    To apply more effortless and powerful technology in this approach, there are financial tracking tools available for a subscription fee (some have free versions) which are very powerful. A few well-rated apps are shown below, with each having certain strengths.

EveryDollar (from Dave Ramsey)

YNAB (You Need a Budget)

Simplifi by Quicken

Rocket Money

Monarch

    This post is not to endorse certain apps... though I was very impressed with the first two above. Dave Ramsey's site provides action steps and helps to set aside money towards finding margin to pay off debts. View the apps/sites above to point you in the direction of locating one that will work for you personally. The ones which automatically link to your bank accounts will reduce your time and effort to see results. Most will auto-categorize your spending. 

    Most apps will require a subscription fee, and my general advice is to avoid as many subscription fees as possible, but given how implementing these particular apps will in turn show you how to save money each month towards paying down debts (some even provide coaching advice for paying off debts), they will prove to be worth it. Concerning subscriptions, one feature is they will show you what you are spending on them and allow you to unsubscribe with a few clicks.

    How about spending less money when you do spend?

    For groceries and online shopping, investigate apps such as ibotta, Fetch Rewards, Rakuten and Checkout 51. You can locate offers, scan receipts and receive credit towards gift cards or reward payments in return for your loyalty.

    For gas, it could not be any easier to save money than by downloading the GasBuddy app and then being able to quickly locate the best prices for gas in your neighborhood, or somewhere else when you are on the go and otherwise have no knowledge of the area.

    Instead of rummaging through garage sales (which can be fun sometimes), if you have a need for an item and are open to pre-owned, utilize the technology of Craigslist. There, you can quickly search for specific items while placing specific limitations of price range and location.

    For dining out or to-go, leverage the benefits of signing up for the restaurant's dining clubs. Granted, you do have to deal with e-mails arriving almost daily, but they will include timely discounts for dining with them and many will offer free birthday and anniversary meals and desserts. Groupon is another easy tool to locate dining and entertainment discounts for places that do not have their own discount club.

    When you've identified a certain item you want to purchase, a quick check of Google coupon codes can show you if a discount can be applied.

    Please consider the amount of time you already spend using technology in less than productive ways - by gaming, social media scrolling, surfing and such, and instead taking a portion of that time to apply some of the suggestions above and have that technology bring you tangible benefits that can help pay down debts and progress towards debt-freedom in 2026.

    And lastly, be encouraged to lean on Who is greater than technology, for the Lord knows more than all the search engines of the planet put together, can move faster than the greatest supercomputer man can create, has deeper and more specific wisdom for you than the ultimate A.I. to yet be devised. Seek and learn and follow His voice from the Holy Spirit to you, for He will provide specific direction... knowing all that is out there, seen and unseen which affects you personally.

Our Lord is great and powerful. There is no limit to what he knows. 

(Psalms 147:5)

God Bless you and may He show Himself greatly to you,

Paul