Working diligently to serve, gain experience, and develop skill to produce income to care for yourself and your family and help provide for others in need is certainly the road to take. It will help you have more provision for worthwhile priorities as opposed to the meager welfare that might be afforded by other people if you chose the sluggard’s route of not seeking to consistently work.
Many forces in the world seek to pull you away from the foundation and pathway of good stewardship by telling you some other pathway is more important or noble in our modern, civilized society, such as having access to as much personal credit (loans/debt) as you can get your hands on. Some advisors are telling people (1) debt is good and they cannot live a good life without having debt throughout their lives; (2) you will always have house loans, student loans, car loans, and revolving loans and should never seek to pay them off except on their normal 30, 20, and 5 to 10-year payment schedules; you need a good amount of debt to keep your credit score as high as possible so you can borrow more in the future to make your life more comfortable and successful.
For the unsuspecting and those ignorant of truth this sounds like savvy advice. However, you should understand the Word says not one jot or tittle of His Word will ever fail to produce the positive or negative consequence it identifies as the result of the pathway and actions you take. Therefore, every pathway, principle, and method of doing something should be carefully studied to ensure it conforms with biblical principles for good stewardship because this is the only pathway that is truly fruitful for this life and eternity. If the path, principle, or method conflicts with biblical instruction, you should refuse to use it.
What good is getting, keeping, and continuing to get more loans when the LORD said this practice will put you in financial bondage, thus thwarting your ability to give and build wealth. To the human mind, in the short haul it may seem like a benefit, however looks are deceiving. There is a way that seems right unto a man, but the end thereof is destruction & death.
When you choose a path opposite His instruction, you eventually come to a point in time when that path leads to negative consequences that are not pleasant to endure. Consider the 2007 and 2008 economic debacle that turned many people’s lives upside down via bankruptcies, foreclosures, repossessions, loss of jobs and income, etc. Much of it started via unreasonable decisions like maxing out loans for over-priced real estate, cars, and other items. Also, banks and sub-prime lenders offered unreasonable mortgage options and Wall Street packaged these mortgages as investments that ended up losing lots of money when many borrowers could not pay the underlying mortgages. In addition, many people threw investment / asset diversification out the door and engaged in day trading and market timing as though they were stock market gurus.
Individuals and our nation will be in a far better place when we choose to apply biblical principles, thus refusing to be swayed by what looks good in the short-term and to worldly people around us. We would continue to gain long-term favor, blessing, and reward that will positively cover our future short-term periods. A faithful man shall abound with blessings, but he that makes haste to be rich shall not go unpunished. Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD!
Please pray for this ministry and email me with any questions. May the LORD bless you richly as you follow His plan!
Proverbs 28:20, Ecclesiastes 11:2, Habakkuk 2:2-5, Philippians 4:13, 2Thessalonians 3:10
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