Freedom

The year of Jubilee in the Jewish culture was in fact a year of freedom. The people who had become poor and had to sell their “family land” were allowed to redeem it. There was indeed no exchange of property. It was much like a “land lease” today. The price of the “lease” was in direct proportion as to how long it was from the year of jubilee or how many years were left until the year of jubilee.

This is a cool concept but unfortunately we don’t practice it today. If I sell some family land – it’s gone and there is no year of jubilee. Check this out…

8 ‘“Count seven Sabbath years – seven times seven years – so that the seven Sabbath years amount to a period of forty-nine years. 9 Then sound the trumpet everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land. 10 Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan. 11 The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines. 12 For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only what is taken directly from the fields.

13 ‘“In this Year of Jubilee everyone is to return to their own property.

17 Do not take advantage of each other, but fear your God. I am the Lord your God. (Leviticus 25:8-13, 17 NIV)

As I read this passage I was reminded of the feeling of freedom from debt. I look back over the years at some of the stupid things I’ve done with money and how it caused me great debt. It is painful to recall. I’ve had a “year of jubilee” of sorts when I declared that I don’t want to be a slave anymore to a bank to whom I own money. I don’t want to be a slave to a plastic card. I don’t want to be a slave to a friend to whom I’m borrowing money. I came into contact with Dave Ramsey a few years back and started listening to this common sense approach to handling my money. The first thing was to quit borrowing money. I had to learn to live within my means. I will even counsel a young family buying a house to make sure they are married to each other and not their house payment. We live in a culture that mostly lives outside our income instead of within our income. There is always “too much month at the end of our paycheck”.

Freedom from debt is an incredible feeling – it’s empowering and exhilarating. I want my heart to be devoted to the Lord NOT to creditors. “I want to live like no one else so that I can live and give like no one else”. (Dave Ramsey) I needed a year of jubilee in my financials as early on I borrowed and lived above my means. I’m now trying to live differently – to give differently – to save differently. It seems to me that so many people in our culture are “trying to keep up with the Jones” – people they don’t even know or like. I want to live to serve my God and my family. I don’t want to try to impress others with what I have or own. I want to work with integrity and honesty and earn money to serve the Lord and my family instead of myself. I want to live like I’m having a Year of Jubilee every year!

Pressing On!

Dwayne