SHOULD CHRISTIANS ACCUMULATE DEBT?….. IS DEBT SIN?

[Rest Of God Ministries]

We had a season of great abundance in our lives where we thought God opened every door imaginable. We owned over 30 rental homes and 3 apartment buildings in and around Detroit. We even had a debt monster built (Brand new home) on over an acre of land in the country. We had accumulated over $5,000,000 in real estate and assets.

We were so engulfed in our business that we seemed to be slipping away spiritually. Our turning point in real estate was when we found ourselves in one of our rental properties at 1:00 a.m. in the middle of the night with 3 of our babies, one new born at the time, and a guy was beating on the door hard and loud asking if we needed help working on the house. I can remember thinking how foolish I was to have my family in this cut throat city this time of night, working on a rental property.

Shortly there after, we asked God to free us from this rental business with something that could sustain our lifestyle. God being the faithful father that he is, did just that. We slowly began to sell off our property. We went into the wholesale merchandising business and was able to match and surpass our real estate business. Some months sales would be so good that we would earn over $40,000 in sales. Yet again, we found ourselves slipping even further away from God.

The Lord revealed something to my wife(EW Ministries) and when he did, she would not let me rest. She walked past a picture of our home that was hanging on the wall. There was a brass emblem that said “The Bank’s Place, which was suppose to represent our last name. Now she had walked passed this picture hundreds of times as did I. It never really mattered much. But this particular day she said, It was almost as if God spoke to me through the picture and said this house is the Bank’s place“, meaning it belongs to Washington, Mutual, our finance company. At the time we had just completed a home office in our lower level walkout to make it more convenient for our internet business transactions and shipping. As the weeks wore on, my wife came to me with scripture after, scripture, talking about, debt, lenders, usury, slavery and more. She would always point at the Stanley Johnson video below and say “See, This is what I am talking about.”



I hated seeing that commercial and I must admit, it was a bitter taste in my mouth because I knew she was right and that meant we would have to give all of this accumulation up, if we would ever be close to the Lord again. All of this STUFF WAS SEPARATING US FROM GOD. We began to pray and ask God to free us from all of this so that we can do his will. We were living in his permissive will and wanted no parts of that.

As we prayed God began to lead us even more. We knew that we would have to move which meant buying another house. We also knew that we could not go into debt any more with a mortgage. So we said Lord, we need money to buy a house because we no longer want to be servants to a lender. The whole time we had all of this debt we couldn’t sleep nights because our work load had to carry over all day in order to maintain this lifestyle. Our children had everything we didn’t have but they got a chance to see us slipping away. Putting off prayer to ship boxes, skipping over fasting to get customers, ignoring God to market our business. This has got to stop so the Lord invoked a great study about Christians and Debt. Fast forward, we moved to Kentucky into a bigger house (4,000 square feet) that is paid for. We let go of what we thought was a God given blessing but turned out to be something he gave us out of our disobedience. Even though we were making a lot of money while living in Michigan, we were in a gut wrenching amount debt which caused us to have to work, work, work and many times ignore God. He was allowing our disobedience to suffocate us. Covetousness had crept into our heart

All these things had become our gods, and the Lord said chose ye this day whom you will serve. We decided to let it all go, who cares about wealth if it’s going to carry you to hell. I’d rather be poor, and content with food and raiment as the Apostle Paul stated. When we let go and that’s when
the doors opened for us and God gave us the money for both a bigger house and a van to accommodate our growing family. God doesn’t want his people living in debt, he wants us to be free from that burden. If we trust in him and believe that he is able, then he can make us debt free, he will. God is able.

[Evangelist Altha Fugett]

This is true, but God remains in the blessing business, our home that my husband and I purchased, and I know some of you will not understand, lol, we purchased on faith. Our ministry is eleven years old and those first years it was financed totally by God.

I was, honey how we? how we? and I remember like it was yesterday, him saying no we but thee!

When we acknowledge God in ALL our ways, HE will provide

[Child of the Kingdom]

I certainly believe and can testify to that, I am however, referring to many saints who loose everything due to debt. I have seen families separated and wives/husbands returning home to live with parents because of such loses. A good friend of our family had to go home to his parents and his wife had to go to her parents with the children after losing their home. Now it was due to job loss, but he now realizes that owning their home is better that owing on their home.

The Bank could not have taken it had they owned it. When a child of God puts their signature to something stating that they promise to repay and something awful happens, what is this called?

[Evangelist Altha Fugett]

it's called life, it happens, think on Job, by no fault of his own, but just a test. Houses come and go. Our worth is not determined by them.

Now I worked as a civil clerk for years, our people perish for lack of knowledge, he did not have to lose that home, bankruptcy!!! refinancing, they could have put it on the market and sold it.

[Child of the Kingdom]

This was not an issue of worth but debt. His family was separated because of this and refinancing is not an option when you are jobless.

Houses are not exactly flying off the market in some areas, which is why millions of Americans are losing them. They can't find buyers for homes that were over valued and over mortgaged to begin with.

The point here is, these things would not happen if we would not sign our names to debt.

[Evangelist Altha Fugett]

Well EW, again that is true, but that is also a luxury, I remember in my younger days those giving me credit, and it was blessing to a me a young women getting started, fell flat on my face, being irresponsible, got up, clean my credit up and learn foremost that paying tithes and planting seeds was a blessing.

God has been good to me! and I now can do mostly what I want. I live comfortably, not necessarily conservatively, Im not a conservative person, but I live within my means.

I do understand those young having debts, I just admonish them to be wise in business and responsible.
Take care of your debts.

The root of all evil is money, lovers of money are not people who spend money, but those who are addicted to watching bank accounts grow. They won't buy anything that is not a necessity. They won't part with their money, they love it. They will kill for it, and kill themselves if they lose it.

Well you will never hear of Evangelist Fugett jumping out a window because of being broke, been there done that, and survived called on the Name of Jesus

[Rest Of God Ministries]

What does the Torah say about debt?

[James Pierce]

Rest,

Well, Im looking in there now. It does not really say anything about deb; for example, such as, owing your insurance company. Usually, its talking about not charging your brother interest on loans, or what have you. Im still looking though. I know that every 7th year(sabbatical year), all loans are extracted.

[Child of the Kingdom]

This is true James, our tenants paid their rent and that paid our mortgages. Our question here is, should we as Christians accumulate debt? A more concise way of putting it is in regards to our homes and cars? Most of those that I see struggling are those that have house notes, car notes, credit cards and such. When things get tight they lose these things. However, if we own these things then the banks can't take them because we are not their servants.

Even with owning apartment buildings things can go wrong. When we were in the business their were always apartment buildings that had been foreclosed on. We sold the largest building to a guy in new york but it took a long time and going back and forth with terms. If we hadn't sold it when we did we would have lost it due to the debt overshadowing the income. Apartment buildings are a different puppy than rental houses. It's more like a pitbull. The Lord sent us a Ram in the Bush (not literally) he sent us a daring buyer just when we needed one.

[James Pierce]

EW,

It sounded like you had more debt than cash flow sis! But umm, I am still looking for the debt in Torah. To my knowledge, there's nothing necessarily wrong with being in debt, other than to just get out of it! Torah does not call being in debt "sin," But im just looking for scriptures dealing with debt.

[Child of the Kingdom]

On that one building we did have more debt than cash flow due to monthly repairs. We had 3 apartment buildings and the rest rental houses. The larger building didn't carry itself because of the note with the repairs. At any rate any debt whether from income property or personal debt brings about stresses that can separate us from God. You become consumed by it and loose focus on what really matters. Serving the Lord and not your debt.

Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

[Child of the Kingdom]

By the way I have a lot of scriptures dealing with debt, usury, lenders, owing & more.

[James Pierce]

EW,

send them to me.