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Over the Limit: Raise the Limit

By Rev. Skip Myers
EdgefieldDaily.com Columnist
web posted April 20, 2007
Skip-Ology – It was his chance to be a big-shot. When the check hit the table he scooped it up like a shortstop going for the double play. The words, “I got this” rang out across the tables filled with impressed relatives. The waiter took the piece of plastic, smiled and disappeared. A few moments later a nice looking man with a tie returned with a sheepish almost embarrassed look on his face. He handed the card to the young man and quietly announced the card was no good.  He was over his limit.

The red-hot rush of embarrassment began at his toes and with lightening speed made its way to his face. The manager asked if he would be paying with another card or did he want to pay cash. He couldn’t bring his eyes any higher than table-level. He could only imagine what the others must think. Then he heard a familiar voice say with just a hint of joy, “Don’t worry I’ll get. I really wanted to anyway.” And with that his father pulled out a wad of cash and laid it on the table. The bill had been paid in full.

You may already be reading the next paragraph before you actually read the next paragraph. You assume the spiritual application that is going to be made and you are partially correct. But let me finish. Within a week of this happening, the young man received a letter in the mail stating that his credit limit had been raised. He had made his payments on time and continued to be a valued customer so they were rewarding him with the opportunity to deepen his debt. Oh boy!

So, he kept spending and charging. The company kept raising his limit until one day the payments were too high and the interest rates kept multiplying his debt. It seemed as though he would be paying on this one card for the rest of his life. Now do you get it?

One of the great deceptions of this world is that when we get impacted by the fact that we have reached the limit of sin in our lives, the world just extends us more credit. Or it simply sends us a new card. Then we feel somewhat rewarded if we make a payment by doing something religious to soothe our guilty conscience. All the while we are building up a debt to the Lord we cannot pay until one day it becomes so deep it becomes a sea we are drowning in.

There are still a number of people who truly believe that if they are just good enough or go to church enough that they can actually pay on the sin-debt they owe to the Lord. That deception doesn’t even cover the interest charges. For a brief moment it may make us feel better because we actually did something because we noticed the debt. But the debt still remains at a level beyond our capability to pay.

Then we hear the words of our Father, “Here, let me take care of that for you.” And the cash He laid on the table to pay our debt was the life of His Son.  Our debt paid in full not to live as we want to but rather to experience life as He intended—full and abundant with His loving presence now within the lives of those who will personally accept His generous offer. You see, God doesn’t use credit—He paid our account with the most valuable thing He could offer. Take time to really read these verses.

When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh He made you alive together with Him having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of the decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

Life on credit brings embarrassment, fear, and increasing debt. Life in Christ is life paid in full. It enables us to live in an intimate relationship with the One who loves us so much that He took our debt upon Himself and canceled it out. Know freedom from true debt—know the Lord in your life.

  

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