Loans and Love

Deut. 23-25; Psalm 75; Proverbs 12:12-14

 

When we are dealing with money, we tend to take a hard line. One of our most frequent phrases in business dealings that go sour is, “It’s nothing personal.”

 

But God’s people are supposed to make everything personal. Even in the toughest situations, we should be obeying both the first and second greatest commandments: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength,” and, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” So what does love look like in business?

 

Here’s just one snapshot from Deuteronomy (there are many) of God’s ideals for business – in this case, loans:

 

When you make a loan of any kind to your neighbor, do not go into his house to get what he is offering as a pledge. Stay outside and let the man to whom you are making the loan bring the pledge out to you. If the man is poor, do not go to sleep with his pledge in your possession. Return his cloak to him by sunset so that he may sleep in it. Then he will thank you, and it will be regarded as a righteous act in the sight of the LORD your God. – Deut. 23:10-13

 

So what can we learn about loans and love from this snapshot?

1. Love means respecting the other person. It means allowing a person who’s asking for a loan to determine what he can offer as collateral. Stand back and give people a chance to determine whether the loan is worth the risk.
2. Love means caring more about the other person than about getting all your money back. If we loan money to someone who doesn’t have many resources, we should do it because we’re trying to help them and want their lives to be better. So we should do everything we can to make sure their basic needs are met, even if it means giving up the collateral they’ve offered us. Loans should not leave our neighbors worse off than they were before the loan.
3. God watches the way we do loans to see whether we are being righteous or not. Ultimately, business must be personal, even between relative strangers, because it impacts our personal relationships with God.

 

Father, forgive my greed. Help me to treat people that I know only through business dealings with respect, honor, love and consideration. Help me to care more about them than about money, and to do all my business with Your pleasure as my goal. Help me to remember that everything is personal, because everything affects persons – people You have made and people You care for. I want to join You in Your concern and in providing generously for those You’ve made. May I reflect that in the way I do business.