Good
Morning All,
Romans 4:3; “What does
Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as
righteousness.” (NIV)
Our church started using a
credit card a few years ago. It was
hoped that this will make life a little easier on the treasurer as I do not
always get all the bills organized and turned in in a timely fashion. Since most of the church’s mail comes to the
church/parsonage mailbox, I get most of the mail and go through it to figure
out who gets it next. About a week after
we got the actual card in the mail and activated it, we got a statement from
the credit card company. It seems that
we activated the card with about 3 days left in the billing cycle, so we got
the statement. It showed that the church
owed $0.00; the minimum payment was $0.00 and that the average amount owed for
the billing period was $0.00. I showed
the bill to my wife and we thought we should keep it and frame it. We had never received a bill from a credit
card company that showed $0.00 owed.
Now this statement showed
$0.00 because it had not been used but what if you received a statement from
the credit card company that you used all the time and it said $0.00? We oftentimes will hold our breath a little
when statement comes in because we know there will be some big numbers on it;
sometimes we even cringe when we see it.
It would really be nice if we could open that statement one time and
read $0.00 owed someone else paid it off.
I doubt that any of us will ever have a credit card bill work like this
but we have a more important bill that does look like this; it is the bill we
owe for the sins we have committed.
When you and I sin, we owe
God. Sometimes what we owe is not money,
but we owe respect, faithfulness, loyalty, honor, and the like. We owe it to God to do his will and yet we
fail. We owe a penalty each time we miss
the mark. Each time we break one of God’s
commandments, we are putting a charge against our credit card and someday the
bill will come due.
But because Jesus paid our
debt, our faith in Jesus is credited as righteousness. So, when God opens our bill and looks at what
we owe, we owe nothing because it has already been paid. Since we believe that Jesus died to pay for
my sin; our account with God is given a credit of the righteousness that Jesus
earned. It counts as righteousness for
us. We are credited with more than
enough righteousness so that our bill will always show a balance owed of
$0.00. The debt is paid, and we are free
of the requirement. We are free to be
God’s children. We are declared to be
saints because we owe nothing. For us,
faith is the credit we need because Jesus has paid for us all.
Loving Father, you sent
Jesus to die for us so that we may receive the promised mercy of forgiveness.
Refresh us daily with your love.
Strengthen our desire to do you will.
Strengthen our desire to serve you will our whole heart. In the precious name of Jesus, we pray, amen.
God’s Peace,
Pastor Bret
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