Hudson Taylor on debt

It's so unbelievably easy to buy some immediate want or apparent need with a credit card or an overdraft. But in doing this we fail to realise the opportunity of prayer laid before us, an opportunity to listen to our Father and wait for His answer. We forget that all our money is His. And we deny Him headship over our finances, even in the small purchases. Slowly but surely you creep into the oppression of debt and find yourself in a place your Father never intended.

Perhaps many of our 'needs' are really 'wants'. A little bit of discipline and self-denial is good for the soul.

From the Biography of James Hudson Taylor:

"To me it seemed that the teaching of God's Word was unmistakably clear, 'Owe no man anything'. To borrow money implied, to my mind, a contradiction of Scripture –  a confession that God had withheld some good thing, and a determination to get for ourselves what He had not given. I could not think that God was poor, that He was short of resources, or unwilling to supply any want of whatever work was really His. It seemed to me that if there were lack of funds to carry on work, then to that degree, in that special development, or at that time, it could not be the work of God."
p198

    "They who trust Him wholly
     Find Him wholly true,
but also that when we fail to trust fully He still remains unchangingly faithful. He is wholly true whether we trust or not.'If we believe not, he abideth faithful; he cannot deny himself'. But oh, how we dishonour our Lord whenever we fail to trust Him, and what peace, blessing and triumph we lose in thus sinning against the Faithful One. May we never again presume in anything to doubt Him."
p199

"Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law."
Romans 13:8

"If we are faithless, he remains faithful — for he cannot deny himself."
2 Timothy 2:13