Stewardship

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Debt, debt everywhere, not a single mite to spare!

OK, not as good as the Rhyme as the ancient Mariner. Yet so many of us find ourselves enslaved to debt. Here I’m talking about financial debt, but debt comes in many forms.

Surrounded by and Enslaved by Debt

Individually we become enslaved to debt when we live beyond our means. Not only are we trying to reap before the harvest is ready, far too often we try to reap what was never sown. This happens when we view the material world as something we are entitled to, when we try to keep up with the Joneses.

We pay such a heavy penalty when this happens, especially when it comes time to pay the piper and the cupboard is bare. (hows that for mixing up nursery rhymes?) When that burden of worldly debt consumes us, we are unquestionably enslaved to it. It causes worry, often great strife within families. Some of us get to the point where we get some of those dreaded “collection calls.” More worry, more strife.

This also comes at the collective level. Here in the USA, our government (that’s us collectively) now owes over $13.8 TRILLION of debt. That’s more than the average annual income of our citizens. We pay a terrible price today. Our offspring will continue to pay the price. Yet, we continue to collect more and more debt on the part of the people.

God is our Provider. Everything that we have comes from Him. Yet we squander His bounty. How He must grieve.

There is, of course, one debt that we can never repay. Yet as Christians we MUST recognize and honor it. Therefore, we must become enslaved to this debt as well.

That debt is, of course, the sacrifice of the Son to rid of our sins.

Once we have become enslaved to earthly debt we can’t ignore it. We incurred it, we owe it. There’s no Christian way to get around it.

But our first allegiance is to Jesus. The debt we owe Him is eternal.

Shalom, Art
Alive in The Word

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