Debt No More!

September 21, 2018

If we pay attention to life, we can learn a lot about God. I’ve been thinking about my friend’s debt which I cancelled. When I texted him telling him that the debt was forgiven, he wrote back telling me his plan for paying it off. I wrote back, “You didn’t understand my note. You don’t owe me anything. You are free of the debt. It’s cancelled. You owe me nothing. If you give me anything, I’ll just give it back. The money is yours, not mine.”

He wrote back once more. “If there’s is anything I can help you with, let me know.” It isn’t an easy concept to grasp. A debt forgiven can’t be repaid. The debt no longer exists. We have this desire to keep the playing field even; you do good to me, and I do good to you. You hurt me, I hurt you. We spend a great deal of our lives trying to make things fair. As long as there is an indebtedness, some measure of fairness can be obtained. I’m in debt, so I pay my installments. If I get behind, I pay a penalty. When it comes to finances, we love the idea of being released from the debt as long as it is an indebtedness to an institution. But when it is another flesh and blood human being, we want to keep things even so that person has no power over us. 

So it is in the spiritual realm also. Through Jesus Christ’s death on the cross, God cancelled the debt my sin had incurred. He forgave me, cancelled the debt. He didn’t merely offer a grace period after which I must resume paying. The wages of sin is death (Romans 3:23). Jesus paid that debt. It no longer exists. No matter what I do, I can’t repay God because it is impossible to pay on a debt that is no more. 

So what can we do? We can repent, receive forgiveness, and change our lives. Repentance doesn’t earn us anything; it merely places us in a position to receive the forgiveness God has already given. We can’t pay it back. But we can pay it forward, by sharing the Good News of salvation and freedom from sin-indebtedness through faith in Jesus Christ. And we can give thanks for God’s unspeakably great Gift—Jesus Christ, his Son.