Good Wednesday morning! Whoohoo! The holiday weekend is over and the "buy me!" e-mails are back with a vengeance! Okay, so that may be the wrong thing to get happy about this morning. I had a long talk with an old friend last night and a prayer breakfast with the guys from life group yesterday morning. In both cases, I found out that things at the Big C are not as bad as rumor has painted them. Call it what you will, but I call that an answer to prayer! :-) Throw it out there, run it up the flagpole, but I think it's time that we saw some good news in the job market too! Tell the government to quit throwing money around like they own Ft. Knox and let's get America back to work. What? They do own Ft. Knox? Oh, well, the new administration doesn't have to spend it all away even if gold did hit $1,000 per ounce yesterday.
The spending ways of our elected officials reminds me of the story about ol' Sven and Ole. If you're from the north, you might remember the old Sven and Ole stories. To cut it short and to the chase, Sven and Ole stories were about two dudes who weren't, shall we say, the most wise and intelligent gentlemen of their community. The one in question is about writing a check as a opposed to actually having money in the bank. Ole got a new checkbook, learned how to write a check, and proceeded to spend checks like there was no tomorrow. Of course, the punch line goes something like; "vat do you mean, balance ze checkbook?"
Speaking of debts that we cannot pay... how long do you think it would take each of us to pay what we owe for our sins? Would we even know where to start? Some might answer, and I have seen this in books and movies, that one good deed equals one bad deed or sin. The theory is that somehow a person can balance his spiritual bankbook by making up for whatever sins lurk in his checkered past. How would we know in the first place that giving money to someone in need could possibly make up for embezzling money from an employer, for example? What if you got to the pearly gates and it turns out that you forgot the exact amount you embezzled and came up short by a few bucks? I suppose the closest biblical equivalent is the system of sacrifices God laid out in the Mosaic law. However, this system didn't particularly work as I recall. Actually, the idea of sacrifices goes back before Moses, but that isn't what we're getting at here. Dead animals could never make up for sin unless God allowed it. So even under the system of sacrifices it was God's grace that "made up for" sin rather than something we could do.
No, I think that I like the grace of God better. For one thing I know that the sacrifice of Jesus was perfect and sufficient for the debt owed. God's grace is not dependent upon how well I perform my good deeds, nor is it tied to how many good deeds I do in my lifetime. God's grace can't be taken away by the powers in this world or those in the unseen places, to paraphrase the Apostle Paul. Since we cannot possibly earn it, God has also given His grace to us as a gift. I didn't know the way to salvation, but when I turned to Jesus I found that He is the Way. I didn't know how much to pay for my sin, but in Christ I found the debt had already been paid.
Look up, rejoice, and enjoy a grateful day in Christ Jesus!
Bucky
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