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Key Bible Verse: For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23). Bonus Reading: Romans 8:1–4

A series of financial setbacks forced Ed to file Chapter 13 bankruptcy. The court ordered hundreds of dollars of his salary withheld from each paycheck—month after month, year after year—for his remaining debt obligations.

One evening—after Ed committed his life to Jesus Christ about three years ago—he found a letter from the bankruptcy court in the mail. Incredibly, it announced the remainder of his bankruptcy obligation had been fulfilled: garnishing of his paycheck would cease immediately.

The bank that originally extended the loan, it turned out, had changed hands several times. Somewhere in the process, Ed's debt had been one of those written off.

Ed saw this as an example of the even better news he'd received months earlier. Before he came to know Christ, he'd confronted a debt unlike any banking obligation. The debt the Bible calls "sin"—failure to pay God the honor and obedience to which He is entitled.

Amazingly, Jesus, amid the horror of His crucifixion declared, as recorded in John 19:30, "It is finished!" Using a then common financial term, equivalent to our "paid in full," Jesus pronounced the books balanced.

—Robert Tamasy in Contact

My Response: Am I still trying to pay off debts that God is ready to write off?

Thought to Apply: Faith is … refusing to feel guilty over past confessed sins when God, the Judge, has sovereignly declared me "pardoned."
—Pamela Reeve (college prof).

Adapted from: Contract (2/94) by permission.

Prayer for the Week

Thank you, Jesus, for dying in my place, so that the Father could pardon a rebel like me.

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