Jesus Paid It All
Have you seen SoCal Honda’s “Random Acts of Helpfulness” campaign over the last couple of years? The guys in blue show up in random places to surprise people with things like buying gas at a gas station, paying the entrance fee to the zoo, buying tickets to a sporting event, booking a band for a wedding, paying for car washes, purchasing a couch, and paying for a full year of daycare. The responses of the recipients are amazing! They are so excited and thankful. During a recent commercial, my daughter said, “I wish they would pay my college loans. I heard they did that for someone.”
Her comment made me think about debt. So much stress comes from financial debt. How many of us wish someone would pay off our debts for us? Wouldn’t that fix so many things?!
But what about our spiritual debt? The Bible tells us that “everyone has sinned” (Romans 3:23) and the “wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). There is no way to pay this debt, and the consequence is separation from God forever. Why doesn’t this debt cause us to argue with our spouse or lose sleep at night like our financial debt does? Maybe we just don’t think about the future that much. I know I am going to die someday, but it seems so far away. My financial debt causes me stress today, while my spiritual debt isn’t always in the forefront of my mind.
The good news is that Jesus paid it all! Colossians 1:22 says,
“Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.”
Think about all past, present & future financial debt you have had or could possibly have, like your mortgage or rent, school loans, medical bills, car payments, insurance, utilities, day care, credit cards (for purchases like clothes or iced mochas), or gambling debts. If someone offered to pay them all, wouldn’t you accept that? And wouldn’t you be ecstatic? You would share it on social media and tell everyone you met about your good fortune.
The debt of our sin is greater than any financial debt we will ever acquire. And the cost to Jesus was enormous. He paid it all. We are able to stand before God as holy and blameless without a single fault. All of the stupid things I have said and done are paid for and there is no longer any debt attached to my name.
It is the reason we celebrate Easter, and the reason we should celebrate every day. We hope you can join us for Easter this year!