We read in Matthew 5:42 that, “Do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you”. Sometimes we understand things better by comparing Scripture with Scripture, so we must look at a parallel passage to best understand this verse. Jesus said in Luke 6:35, “Lend expecting nothing in return.”

I remember a brother once came to me saying that he lent three thousand rupees to this other brother who said he would return it. A great deal of time had gone by and he had not yet returned it. I told this brother that he is the one who disobeyed Scripture, because Scripture says to “lend expecting to receive nothing in return.” If you lend expecting to receive what credit is that to you, even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount (Luke 6:34). But when you as a believer lend you must be different - expect nothing in return.

What Jesus meant was that you should only lend an amount of money that you can write off as a gift. So, I told this brother that he probably should not have lent this other brother three thousand rupees when he asked to borrow it. He should have said, “Sorry, I can't afford to give you three thousand rupees, but I can give you 500.” In other words, lend only as much money as you are comfortable never seeing again. Treat it as a gift, and if he doesn't return it, that’s it. But if you didn't do that, then you have disobeyed Scripture. We need to understand the spirit in these things.

What did Jesus mean when He said, “Don't turn away from him who wants to borrow from you”? When I was as a young Christian, I was earning a lot of money as a naval officer (far more than I needed) and I had plenty of money to spare. There was a poorer brother in the church who knew that and would come to me and ask to borrow money. I asked how much he wanted and he agreed to pay it back in a month. The next month came along and he came to me and said he still couldn’t return what he borrowed and he asked for more money, so I gave him more money. I had in mind this verse, “Don’t turn away from him who wants to borrow from you,” and I continued to give him money for months. I just kept quiet thinking I was obeying Scripture. I was a young, newly-baptized Christian and I was doing what Scripture said as far as I knew, but after a while this person who took this money backslid and got into drinking and other bad habits. When I heard that, then I wrote to him saying that if he used the money to buy alcohol and to finance the devil’s kingdom, then he had better return the money to me because this money was to be used for God’s kingdom. He got very angry with me and he said that even the dead denominations did not make demands like I was making.

And the Lord told me to forget it. I never wrote back to him and I never got the money back. I thought, “Lord, what did I do wrong? I obeyed Your Scripture which said, ‘Don't turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.’” And the Lord taught me something that has helped me throughout all these nearly 50 years. That is, you must compare Scripture with Scripture. The Lord showed me that I treated that money as if it was my own. One Scripture said I must lend to him who asks, but there's another Scripture that says that nothing that I have belongs to myself - everything on earth belongs to the Lord. “The earth is the Lord's and everything that it contains” (1 Corinthians 10:26). So when I receive a salary that I think is mine, I have to see that it's not mine; I should forsake it. I should give it to the Lord. Even though I collect my salary on the first of the month and it's in my bank account, I must say that it's not my money; that it's God's money.

An illustration that came to me at that time: if somebody had given me 5000 rupees to keep and then return later, and another person comes to me at that time saying that he heard I had 5000 rupees and asks for me to lend him 3000 rupees, what will I say? I’ll say “I'm sorry, brother; that that's not my money, it's somebody else's. He just asked me to hold on to it for him. Let me ask him about it and if he allows me to give it to you, then I'll give it to you.” Wouldn't that be the righteous way to handle this situation since it's not my money? If I had treated my salary as the Lord's money, then I wouldn't have given it out as easily as I did. When that brother came to borrow from me, I would have said, “Yes, that's fine; it’s right for me to lend to somebody who is in need, but let me go and ask the One to Whom the money belongs (in this case, the Lord). I would have brought it to the Lord and said, ‘Lord, do you want me to give it to this person?’” And maybe the Lord would have said yes or no. 

God speaks; He is a living God. Perhaps the first time He would say yes, and the second time He would have probably said no, but I didn't wait to listen. I went by the letter of the law and I got into bondage, but I'm very glad that I learned a lesson very early in my life on how to obey Scripture – “it is written” and “it is also written.” I need to balance Scripture with Scripture to be able to understand. I'm willing to lend to everyone who asks of me today just like it says here. But I also want to recognize that all that I have belongs to the Lord, so I cannot give that out without asking the Lord and that's what I followed subsequently when people have come to me and asked me for money. I now say, “Let me seek the Lord; if I have freedom in my spirit, I’ll give it to you.” And there are times that I have given and I have never gotten it back, and there are times when I've not given because Lord didn't give me freedom to give, but my heart was willing.

This is an example of how we need to understand the spirit in which Jesus spoke all these things. It's not that we allow people to treat us like doormats. The principle is that we do not take revenge on anyone and that we do not wish to get back at someone who hurt us.