Overcoming Financial Stress (3)
Proverbs 22:7 The rich rule over the poor. The one who borrows is a slave to the one who lends.
In the world of high finance, many use debt to make more money. It’s called a leveraged investment. You borrow someone else’s money, invest it, and hopefully make more money. I don’t know about you, but I don’t live in the world of high finance.
In so-called developed economies, the big worry – both for financial regulators and individuals – is the easy availability of consumer financing. Worse still, people often use debt, not to fund investments or even a home, but to buy useless trinkets that they really don’t need.
It gets much worse in poorer countries, where often out of a simple aspiration to have just a few nice things, economically vulnerable people are lured into a downward spiral of debt from unregulated money lenders, payday loan sharks and others. And as a result …
Proverbs 22:7 The rich rule over the poor. The one who borrows is a slave to the one who lends.
Wherever you’re at in all this, please, listen to God’s Word. Be very, very careful with debt because you can all too easily become a slave to it by squandering tomorrow’s financial blessing today.
Sure, sometimes debt makes sense – to buy a house, or a small loan for a vehicle that you really need.
But too much of it is what’s called easy debt; bank credit cards, store credit plans, consumer buy-now-pay-later schemes that seem so shiny and attractive on the surface, but often come with high interest rates, punitive charges for late payment, hidden fees and charges and a range of other nasties.
Debt is quick and easy to get into, but slow and difficult to get out of. So be very careful. For … the rich rule over the poor. The one who borrows is a slave to the one who lends.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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