Government Debt: 15.3 Trillion
Private Debt: 41.3 Trillion
Total Debt: 56.6 Trillion
Credit Card Debt: 793 Billion
Student Loan Debt: Will surpass 1 Trillion this year!
We borrow 48 cents of every dollar that the Government spends.
I find it very ironic that In God We Trust is found on the back of money. Is that really the case in this country? There is nothing that exemplifies who we trust in this country more than the exploding debt problem. Credit is nothing more than currency that we use in place of money.
Politicians use it to fulfill the need for power. There is power in being an elected politician. Money can buy a lot of votes which can, in turn, create a lot of power. Individuals can look towards credit and debt to instantly fulfill all types of needs. Credit is the only currency that creates immediate gratification at the moment of a swipe of a card or the writing of a signature.
What is worse, the politicians not only encourage the use of credit they also make it easy to get. Do you think that it is going to get any better? You can look at the signs all over the place. The politicians are lending out money so fast in the form of student loans that almost 10% of all outstanding student loan debt was issued only LAST YEAR. Politicians are borrowing .48 of every dollar spent. The will and desire to curb that spending is nothing more than a joke.
Those numbers above illustrate what happens when we don’t heed the warning issued in Matthew 6:24. Unfortunately, there is an ugly end game because debt cannot grow to infinity. The imbalance ultimately has to return to a balance. I look at what is happening in Greece today. They have been given a second round of bailout money with no conceivable way of living up to the restrictive conditions that go along with this bailout.
Think about the irony that God does not lead our currency. God is found on the back. On the front of every currency denomination is a President with the exception of the $10,000 bill (Salmon Chase – a politician). Then there is the nickname for money - "the almighty dollar".
Christ said it very simply in Matthew 6:24. Money is God’s chief competition. It is the one thing that will vie for top priority. Ironically, the verse of the day (as I was writing this) on www.biblegateway.com was:
“Don't run up debts, except for the huge debt of love you owe each other. When you love others, you complete what the law has been after all along. The law code—don't sleep with another person's spouse, don't take someone's life, don't take what isn't yours, don't always be wanting what you don't have, and any other "don't" you can think of—finally adds up to this: Love other people as well as you do yourself. You can't go wrong when you love others. When you add up everything in the law code, the sum total is love.”
Just imagine how different this country would be if that were the track we followed?
