Deuteronomy 23:20. No interest. Help to brothers and sisters in desperate times. It’s an obligation in God’s community, not a option!
So, At God’s Table has some money for this. Therefore, I want to do what God commands. Recently the blog site revealed several members of our community who need financial help. Now At God’s Table can do something about this. We (all of us who contributed) have $10,000 in the fund. Let’s loan it, no interest, to those who are desperate. When they pay back, it will be used again for the same purposes with other people. I don’t know who needs it most and I don’t know how to do all this – so I will simply trust each of you to ask if you are in real trouble and let God lead us all in serving each other.
Hey, we’re doing something really different here. This is a charity that GIVES BACK!
Do you have a critical need? Do you want our help? Ask, knock, seek. Jesus can answer the door through someone else’s hand.
Skip
Skip I agree and have tears of joy filling my heart right at this moment. You can be sure that I am sending what I can to sow into good soil expecting it to sprout.
This is awesome, so cool…
It would be nice if Discover, Citibank and others would have a 7th year debt cancellation policy. I’m sure there would be more care in what is loaned. Am I correct in assuming this is a major issue caused by a drift from God’s Torah? Even our own “Christian” schools and colleges offer an open door for young adults to get into debt. Yes, it was my choice. This doesn’t negate the fact that they fell into this behavior by the lies of their forefathers (to quote Jeremiah). No wonder tithes go more toward church salaries and buildings. Skip, thanks for this ministry. My comments here are only to show the scope of desperate times. And public health care… no, I will not go there.
This is a beautiful enactment of the 2nd greatest commandment (Lev 19:18). Indeed, radical grace is not optional and often requires radical planning collectively.
Skip – this is truly the church being the church, the way it was intended in the Torah and the way it was acted out in Acts 2. I believe that the church will rise again in the coming days as the worlds systems crash and burn and as the forces of evil have their last hurrah. We will share, we will pray and believe and the church will do just fine without government entitlements. God bless you for putting this into action.
My application for a new home with Habitat for Humanity is in process so please pray God sees fit to grant the application. This is how Habitat for Humanity works also – all the mortgage payment goes back into building other houses.
I had a millionare once tell me “watch over your pennies and the dollars will watch themselves”. We were never taught in school to consider ourselves a “bill” and when we get paid, to pay our bill right after our offering to God. If we take the lowest bill first and pay it off, then apply that payment to the next lowest bill, we would eventually be out of debt. To live debt free, takes discipiline. Buy any large large item or appliance at a place offering interest free payments for a year and payoff that item BEFORE entering into another purchase. Send in additional payments on a mortgage and you will substancially reduce the amount of interest paid.
Freely give where the LORD instructs. He is able to bless you in the areas of your finances, but know you should be losing attachment to material things. After all, we are just “passing through” this world, we are citizens of a different Kingdom.
The world of finance is upside down at this time – that is why I am participating in Habitat for Humanity – I don’t have any credit because I cannot afford to make credit card payments so I don’t have any debt/credit. I pay my utilities, cable, phone, cell phone & medical payments on time but that does not count with a bank but does count with Habitat with Humanity. You can make as much as $37,000 annually & still be considered low income – I make about $21,000.
No debt is frowned upon in the worldly system of banking/finance – yet we know as Christians we should be debt free – as usual we are set apart from the way the world operates. Habitat for Humanity is a faith based organization & they do ask about your affiliation with a “church” or as I stated my “relationship” with Christ & body of Christ/believers (which is the church).
I have lived in this current apartment for 8 years & it is falling down around me – it is time to move on.
Jan, I am so happy for you ! You did your part to get where you are, I will pray that the Lord will so honor that, and you will have a wonderful new home, just right for you. Thanks for sharing the above.– One of our three sons-in-law was on the Board for Habitat for Humanity, for a few years in a large TX City.
My husband and I, for 57 years, learned after financing our first NEW vechicle, that it was not what we planned to do again. Interest will get you into debt so much further, soon it is like a large boulder around your neck, you are sunk. We have continued to make it a way of life-one credit card that we pay off completely each month. Yes, self discipline is needed! We have never had to pay any fees for use of a credit card!
– We did have some home mortages along the way, but always ones that were within our means. we actually have paid off three home mortages, never letting them drag out to the 25 or 30 years, and really only one was more than 20 years.
WE LIVED there 26 years, and finished raising our four birth children there, and helped raise several others, too. Some stated it was the only ” home” they knew. My heart was broken when we had to sell it and move to the top of TX to care for my very elderly parents. But the memories of joy in that home are always before me, and The Heavenly Father made something beautiful out of that pain, I learned to let go of my “SECURITY IN THAT HOME AND COMMUNITY OF
26 years, and let Him become all those things to me. After six and half years of being on the back side of the desert in a town 600 miles from the City I had learned to love so much, God let us move ;after the death of my parents , to another town down state , in a more central locattion in TX, and closer to two of our children, and near an airport that flies directly to the areas where two other live.
And yes, at the time ten years ago, prices here were much cheaper than other areas, and we knew the people that owned the home we bought. It is by far the most beautiful place we have ever owned, built in 1929, and under some 600 year old Oaks, certified by TX A & M. to be that old.– We had complications at first, as the Stock Market took a tumble in 2000, and we had been paid a large sum (to us) of money one of our sons-in-law owed us for helping him earn a PhD in Chemistry. He had completed the degree and gotten a job, and they partially paid him in Hi-Tech stocks, and he in turn repaid us the money in them. Well, the stocks went down down, and we did not have the cash to complete payment on this house. It seemed to be a serious problem, we were both retired and on minimum money, but we tightened our belts, did withough even minimium heat and cooling, food, etc., and my husband got a couple of part time jobs (he still has them nine years later, and is 80 years old), and we pulled all the resources together possible from everywhere, stopped all luxury items, and even cut back on giving money, and paid our home off within three years or so. I might add we prayed over all this and asked for God to see us through it. He did!!! God is so faithful, but we must also follow his laws.
All of our loved ones like to visit us here. We have done much work on the house our selves, and more to the landscaping, and have vegetable, & herb gardens We have always worked along with our professions,( teachers) with our hands. Such great thearpy in that.
Look up, ! Thessalonians 4:11. Paul writes, ( I will use several words from different translations that I love,)
” Make it your amibition, (desire, aim) to live quiet lives, minding your own business and working with your hands, as we directed you. v. 12 So that you may behave properly toward outsiders and be dependent on no one.
I will pray for great blessings for you in this home! Perhaps you will be in my area when the information comes out. I still enjoy helping others make their homes pretty! L.B.