How to get out of debt step nr1, this weeks partner teaching

Have you ever owed someone money? We have all been in a season of our lives where we owed money to someone. Whetever it was a small amount or a significant sum of money we can all agree debt is slavery. The Bible even says in Prov 22:7; we become slaves to the one who lends us money. We already know from the book of Exodus it is not Yehovah’s will for His people to be in slavery.
So the question is, how do you get out of debt?
There are thousands of different reasons why we end up as debt slaves; sometimes, it is self-inflicted due to our sin. Other times in our lives, it could be someone else sin or circumstances beyond our control, such as an illness or a sudden loss of a job. How you ended up with debt does not matter; what matters is how you get out of it. Because we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, Yehovah does not want you to be in debt.
The way out of debt begins with confession and repentance. No matter how you ended up with debt, one thing is for sure; you have sinned one way or the other. Perhaps it was not sinning that landed you in this situation, but now that you are in debt, being in debt has made you guilty of sin.
How?
If you consider yourself to be a saved born again Christian, you know the Bible promises you there is no reason to worry about anything. The fact that you are a child of God guarantees your heavenly Fathers love and care in every area of your life. If you believe this, you would not worry about money or where your next meal will come from. You would choose to have faith and not look at your circumstances.
Having gone through a long season of debt in my own life, I know this is easier said than done. When your wages get garnished by several collection agencies, it is very tempting to give in to panic and fear. They dont care too much about your needs, all they care about is getting their money back. So there you are left with little to no money, trying desperately to make every buck count and stretch every dollar that is left in your pocket.
For my wife and me, we got ourselves into this mess, and it was our sin that led to debt and financial chaos in our life. A combination of health issues and desperately trying to fix those issues, combined with old wounds from both our childhoods, sent us spiraling out of control into a huge financial mess. We managed to take care of those health issues, but a lack of maturity for both of us made us oblivious to how our childhood wounds affected the way we handled our money. We both knew what the responsible thing to do would be, but because none of us had dealt with our old wounds, they took over and controlled how we spent our money.
This was eight years ago now, and we are slowly but surely getting back on our financial feet. During that time, Yehovah has used what happened to us to heal those wounds and to teach us both valuable lessons on how to be good stewards of money.
One of the first things we both learned was how huge the impact money had on our lives. When our wages got garnished, and we lost control over our own money, and other people decided what we could spend or not spend, we panicked. When something like money and a lack of it makes you fearful or panicking, it reveals something significant in your life. If a lack of funds makes you scared, nervous, or worried, you are guilty of worshiping money. Idol worship is a sin, a sin that can cause you to lose your salvation.
This is why the way out of debt begins with a confession of sin and repentance. No matter how you got into this mess, being in debt has at one point filled you with fear, anxiety, stress, or worry. When you get one or more of these emotions from being in debt, it reveals you are guilty of loving money and worshiping money. 1.John 1:9 says if you will confess your sin, confess worshiping money and repent of it, Yehovah will forgive you. If you know of any other sin that is the cause of your debt, it is necessary to confess it and repent of it as well.
So now you have done the confessing and repenting part, now what? Will you suddenly find yourself out of debt?
After we had confessed and repented, we both knew we were forgiven. Now we had to learn how to walk in righteousness, not giving in to the temptation to fear, get stressed out or worried every time something unexpected happened to the little sum of money we had left every month.
As the months went by, Yehovah allowed us to experience situations were we got tempted to worship money again. Suddenly weird things started happening, such as our wages not being paid out on time and we did not know why and nobody would tell us why. When we filed for chapter 11, we they told us we would probably not be approved. For everything that happened to us, we had to choose between fear or trust, a choice between the worship of money or worship of Yehovah. The more we decided to worship Yehovah, the easier it got, and we passed the tests Yehovah allowed us to experience.
Why did Yehovah allow this to happen to us? So we would learn how to choose worship of Yehovah instead of the worship of money. The more we learned, the more we matured and the easier it got.
Yehovah has to allow things like these to happen to us, so we can grow and mature as adult believers. And there were times when we stumbled and fell back into the worship of money again because the things we went through filled us with such fear at times. For each time we stumbled Yehovah helped us back up, dusted us off and we learned to say no to fear when there was no money and yes to trust in Yehovah.
After confessing and repenting, there will come a time for learning, a time when you will fall and stumble. The more you fall and stumble, the more you will learn, and the easier it will be for you to get to the next step.
The second thing my wife and I had to change was how we understood the Bible. Next week we will look at step number 2 t