Pay off Your Debts Faster by Activating the Spiritual Principles of Debt Forgiveness

For the person on a fixed income, living hand-to-mouth, or paycheck-to-paycheck, and struggling to pay off their debts, strategies such as eliminating frivolous spending, and debt-snowballing have very little value. If you are living hand-to-mouth, chances are you struggling to provide for yourself basic needs, and aren’t spending money on luxury items. If you are living paycheck-to-paycheck on a fixed income, chances are you have very little extra money to pay extra on your debts, to initiate a snowball of your debts. People in those kinds of positions benefit very little from financial literacy and debt repayment classes, as their budgets have very little flexibility. They can’t even find any spare change or items to pawn off to start an emergency fund. Their only hope therefore is to get relief from their debts through debt forgiveness.

Debt Forgiveness as a Winning Strategy

Debt forgiveness as a spiritual principle is the foundation strategy in my two books, “Out of Financial Hell: A Journey into Divine Abundance” and “Surviving a Global Economic Crisis: A Biblical Perspective” and sets my work apart from many of debt relief programs out there. When you activate the spiritual laws of debt relief in your life, your debts get paid off faster without you having to dig deeper into your pocket for more funds. This is completely different from programs which force debt relief through bankruptcies, and ignoring debt collectors. Although those methods may work, they destroy your credit, and leave your creditors holding the bag of unpaid bills: lose-lose. When you activate the spiritual principles of debt relief, not only do your creditors get paid, but your credit score goes up, attracting more opportunities for you to get low interest rates for debt relief. Win-win.

Debt Forgiveness as Spiritual Principle

Debt forgiveness as a spiritual principle is based upon Old Testament law, where debts were forgiven every seven years (Deuteronomy 15:1-18). How it worked was that persons in debt, who were unable to pay their debts, would enter into bonded servitude, working as bondservants for six years, then freed in the seventh year, with their debts cancelled. The lenders got free, unpaid workers, and the workers got their debts cancelled. Win-win. Scroll forward to the New Testament, and we see this principle of debt forgiveness spiritualized in The Lord’s Prayer, where sin creates a spiritual debt. In Matthew 6:12, we read, “And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors”. An old obsolete law of the Old Testament has found new life in the New Testament as a spiritual law, therefore, although we do not live under the Israelite economic system of debt forgiveness every seven years, we can activate debt forgiveness at any time as a spiritual law, under the new covenant, to deal with our mis-steps or trespasses concerning money. Win-win.

Unpaid Debt is a Trespass

While it isn’t a sin to borrow money, borrowing without any plans on how one is going to pay it back is wrong (Psalm 37:21). As long as you are paying your loans on time, there is no problem, but if you miss one or more payments then that represents a breach in the re-payment agreement, and if you don’t pay it all, then that is even worse. For most people, at one time they were able to pay, but something happened, such as job loss or prolonged illness, which decreased their ability to pay. It’s also interesting that in the Lord’s Prayer, unpaid debts are called trespasses (Matthew 6:12-14). A trespass is a type of sin in which you owe God or someone something, which you should have paid or returned back. Trespasses weren’t money you borrowed with the intent to repay, but keeping back what you owe, which is a different situation entirely (Leviticus 5:15-19; Leviticus 6:1-7) . The law of debt forgiveness however isn’t for the forgiveness of debts you owe because you do not want to pay your debts, but it’s for forgiveness of debts you intend to pay, but are having difficulty paying. This is the basic spiritual requirement for debt forgiveness as explained by Jesus in The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. You therefore activate the spiritual law of debt forgiveness by asking God to forgive you of your debts.

Forgive the Debts of Others If You Want Your Debts Forgiven

This is the most radical part of the program, but if you truly want to activate debt forgiveness for your own debts, then you have to be gracious to return the favor to those who cannot pay. They have a saying, “You cannot get blood out of stone.” Harassing a person for money who truly cannot pay, isn’t going to get your bills paid. Release the hate and animosity you have towards those who owe you, and it will open the doors for opportunities for you to have your debts forgiven. They say you should never lend more than you can give away, and this is true. When you lend money, there is a risk that you won’t be paid back. If you are asking the person to return your money, and they can’t, then let it go. I know it’s a hard thing to do, and even goes against ‘principles’ but this is what Jesus taught in The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant, found in Matthew 18:23-35, and in the Lord’s Prayer. “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Matthew 6:12).

Redemption vs Release

Now that you have asked forgiveness for your debts, and forgiven others of your debts, your debt forgiveness will come in one of two ways. Your debts will be cancelled either through redemption or release of your debts. Redemption is a spiritual principle where something you formerly owned is repurchased. Let’s say you owned a car, and you had to sell it to pay bills, but after you became financially able, you re-purchased the same car you sold. That is the basic principle of redemption, but it can get more complex than that. Let’s say you sold the car, and someone redeemed the car for you, meaning they re-purchased the car for you? Even better right? Debt forgiveness through redemption means that someone pays your debts, without you having to pay them back. Our sin-debt was paid by Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross right? Do we have to pay Him back? Absolutely, not! Then this is the same way redemption works in debt forgiveness. Some money come out of somewhere unexpectedly to pay back your debts. It could be getting more money back on your tax refund than expected, a store refund check, student loan forgiveness programs, money from a settlement, inheritance money, insurance money, monetary gifts, cost of living raise, new job offer, and so on. You never know where money will show up from, when you least expect it. God has ways to provide for His children in ways we cannot imagine, and is “able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think” (from Ephesians 3:20).

The final way to get your debts forgiven is through debt release. In debt release, your creditor decides to write off your debts, and release you from your financial obligations. As far-fetched as that sounds, some creditors are willing to write off a portion of what you owe, and take what remains as payment in full. Some may even remove late fees and charges and just have you pay what you owe. As long as you can make arrangements to pay before this gets to collections, then you are good, and it’s a win-win. You don’t want it to get to the point where you are being sued, or where your credit gets messed up. Do the right thing and come to a compromise before it gets to that stage.

“Agree with your adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him, lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.” (Matthew 5:25).

In conclusion

In conclusion, debt forgiveness is possible if you know how to tap into it’s spiritual principles by praying for forgiveness of your debts, forgiving others of their debts, and accessing debt forgiveness through redemption and/or release. It can be done! I’ve done it and have been set free.