Tough Issues: Money Part 1 | Mike Popenhagen
Tough Issues: Money Part 1
9.1.24
Realities of Debt
Debt obligates us to someone other than to God.
Proverbs 22:7 The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.
2. Debt can negatively impact our relationships, our future and level of generosity.
Nehemiah 5:3-5 3 There were also some who said, “We have mortgaged our lands and vineyards and houses, that we might buy grain because of the famine.” 4 There were also those who said, “We have borrowed money for the king’s tax on our lands and vineyards. 5 Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children; and indeed we are forcing our sons and our daughters to be slaves, and some of our daughters have been brought into slavery. It is not in our power to redeem them, for other men have our lands and vineyards.” NKJV
3. God wants us out of debt.
Romans 13:8 8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another. NIV
Moving Beyond Debt
Make a commitment to God & self to get out of debt.
Proverbs 6:1-5 My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor, if you have shaken hands in pledge for a stranger, 2 you have been trapped by what you said, ensnared by the words of your mouth. 3 So do this, my son, to free yourself, since you have fallen into your neighbor’s hands: Go—to the point of exhaustion… 5 Free yourself, like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter… NIV
2) Do not acquire anymore debt.
Deuteronomy 28:12-13 12 The Lord will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. 13 The Lord will make you the head, not the tail. If you pay attention to the commands of the Lord your God that I give you this day and carefully follow them, you will always be at the top, never at the bottom. NIV
3) Put God first in your finances.
Malachi 3:8-12 8 “Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me. “But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’ “In tithes and offerings. 9 You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me. 10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. 11 I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” says the Lord Almighty. 12 “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the Lord Almighty. NIV
4) Develop a written plan for your finances.
Proverbs 21:5 5 Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty. NLT
