A Tremendous Debt

Keith Wishum states that golf pro Harvey Penick’s first book, Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book, sold over a million copies.  After keeping notes in a red spiral notebook for 70 years, Penick asked author Bud Shrake to look over the notes to determine if they were worth publishing.  Shrake contacted Penick the next day saying that Simon and Schuster had agreed to an advance of $90,000 to publish his book.

Thinking about all of his medical bills, Penick responded by saying there was just no way he could come up with so much money to have his book published.  What a pleasant surprise for Penick when he learned that the publisher wanted to pay HIM, not the other way around!

Wishum invites us to imagine:  “What if someone offered to pay your bills?  Think for a moment of all the money you owe – mortgage, car loan, credit cards, college loans, etc.  Now, imagine how you would feel if someone offered to pay it all off!” *

The BAD NEWS is that we owe more than we think!  I’m not referring to finances now.  It’s a spiritual debt that we owe to God because of our sin.

Jesus told a parable (see Matthew 18:21-35) about a servant who owed the king “ten thousand talents,” which would be the equivalent of millions of dollars today.  Why would a king loan a servant millions of dollars?  How could a servant ever pay it back?  I think that’s the point: it was impossible for that servant to repay his debt just as it is impossible for US to repay our sin debt to God from our own resources.

In the parable, when the servant begged his master for more time to pay off his debt, Jesus said, “the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt” (Matthew 18:27).  Wow!  The servant owed millions of dollars and the king forgave him!  The king forgave the debt and absorbed the loss himself.  That’s forgiveness!

The GOOD NEWS is that God wants to pay off YOUR sin debt (and mine!). 
The King in Jesus’ parable represents God!  In fact, because He loves us so much, He sent His Son into the world to become one of us and then to be our perfect representative – though sinless – and pay for OUR sin debt by dying on the cross.  “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24).  He died for us so that we might have forgiveness and receive the gift of eternal life (John 3:16; Ephesians 1:7).

God will forgive those who place their faith and trust in Jesus (Acts 16:30-31), turn from sin in repentance (Acts 17:30-31), confess Him before men (Romans 10:9-10), and are baptized (immersed) into Christ for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38).  Then, He wants us to continue to follow Jesus for the rest of our lives, and that will include forgiving others as we have been forgiven.  (Read the rest of Jesus’ Parable of the Unmerciful Servant in Matthew 18:23-35).  And as we continue to walk in the light of His Word, the blood of Jesus continues to cleanse us from sin (1 John 1:7).

The BAD NEWS is that each of us owes a debt which none of us can pay.  But the GOOD NEWS is that God – even though He is the One to whom we owe the debt – desires to forgive us, release us from that debt, and give us eternal life. 

Now THAT is forgiveness!  And that is what He offers us through the Gift of Jesus, His Son...

Won’t YOU accept His offer of forgiveness and eternal life?