Today's Devotional

 

 June 15, 2009

                                    

Subject:  Attached Strings

Romans 13:8 - "Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law."

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While we were bailing out banks, car companies and mortgaging institutions, many company executives and state officials were trying to decline taking the compensation.  Why would they resist the money?  Because like in most cases, there is no "free" money.  They were leery that it would come with strings attached and invariably at a "price" they couldn't afford or at least did not want to pay for later.  One bank, BB&T, was actually forced to take $3.1 billion and had to put in a special request to return the money.

I've seen this same thing happen on Judge Judy, where a man or woman will accept gifts and loans from a suitor expecting that they can have the gifts without any strings attached.  In the end, Judge Judy usually teaches them a lesson about how you should refuse gifts if you don't want to have anything to do with the person giving the gift and then she forces them to return the item or pay them for it.  

There is no "free lunch."  Somebody always has to pay and it comes at a cost even to the person who is receiving the "free" gift.  

Today we need to release ourselves from outstanding debt where possible because it invariably puts us in a compromising position.  The last thing we want is to owe the world.  All we want is to show them the love of God.  If we do that then all of those other strings can be cut.     

Carlen