Debt Canceled
Back in August of 2019, Chase Bank did something for its Canadian credit cardholders that is unprecedented; it completely and utterly wiped their debt away! Isn’t that amazing?! Especially when you consider the fact that there had to be some customers that had maxed out their card.
Can you imagine what some felt like when they got the letter from the Chase Bank? Some may have thought it was the bank coming down hard on them, only to find out that their record had been cleared!
What would that feel like? Can you imagine it? It shouldn’t be hard for us to imagine, right? For we have, by faith, received the grace of God extended to us through the Lord Jesus Christ. By His sacrifice, we are completely and utterly forgiven. Our debt to a holy God has been completely wiped clean!
If You Pay For Anything, You Pay for Everything
I have a pastor friend who received a very generous offer from a family in their church. This family was going to Disney World and they wanted to take my pastor friend and his family with them. In fact, they wanted to treat them to everything: hotel rooms, meals, tickets into the park, everything they could possibly need to enjoy this trip as much as the host family did.
The guy offering this trip told my friend that he had one condition and one condition only: If you pay for anything, you pay for everything. In other words, try to pull out your wallet to pay for anything, and you are going to owe for everything. He insisted it was to be entirely his treat or none of it would be his treat.
That had the effect of keeping my friend's wallet in his pocket! He never tried to pay for a thing!
Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins; to pay the debt we could never pay; to earn for us what we could never earn for ourselves. And the resurrection of Jesus Christ declares that Jesus’ payment was accepted by God the Father. As a result, everyone who places their complete trust in Jesus receives eternal life – and a place in heaven with God – as a gift.
So when it comes to your salvation, it is important that we all keep our wallets in our pocket; that we place our complete confidence in Jesus' finished work on the cross. We must not attempt to add anything to the finished work of Christ, lest we empty the cross of its power. If you attempt to earn your salvation to any degree, you are beholding to earn the rest. As the Apostle Paul explained, "If by grace, then it (salvation) cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace" (Romans 11:6).
In other words, if you pay for anything, you pay for everything.
"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9).
George Wilson Must Die
George Wilson was a career criminal who, in the 1830s, was indicted on six counts of obstructing and robbing the U.S. mail, including threatening a carrier with bodily harm, and violent assault (wounding a carrier). The violent assault carried a penalty of death. Rising public petition against the death penalty prompted then president, Andrew Jackson, to issue a pardon for the assault conviction.
Amazingly, Wilson declined the pardon. “And now, to-wit, this 21 October, 1830, the defendant, George Wilson, being in person before the court, was asked by the court … whether he wished in any manner to avail himself of the pardon referred to, and the said defendant answered in person that … he did not wish in any manner to avail himself, in order to avoid sentence in this particular case, of the pardon referred to.”
The district court was not sure how to handle the complexities of the case, and eventually the matter was referred to the U.S. Supreme Court which later ruled that, “A pardon is an act of grace, proceeding from the power entrusted with the execution of the laws, which exempts the individual on whom it is bestowed from the punishment the law inflicts for a crime he has committed. … A pardon is a deed to the validity of which delivery is essential, and delivery is not complete without acceptance. It may then be rejected by the person to whom it is tendered, and if it be rejected, we have discovered no power in a court to force it on him. It may be supposed that no being condemned to death would reject a pardon, but the rule must be the same in capital cases and in misdemeanors.”
Further, Chief Justice John Marshall purportedly pronounced that the value of a pardon “must be determined by the receiver … It has no value apart from that which the receiver gives it . . . therefore, George Wilson must die." He was subsequently executed for his crime.
Who in their right mind would reject an opportunity to be pardoned? We would assume, as the Supreme Court did, that no person "condemned to death would reject a pardon." Yet, the Bible tells us that "God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life' (John 3:16).
In Christ, God has offered a pardon to everyone of us. Nevertheless, a pardon "has no value apart from that which the receiver gives it."
How many in our world allow day after day to pass without receiving God's pardon? Sadly, George Wilson didn't have to be condemned and neither do you!
God has, "canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross" (Colossians 2:14, NLT).