Debt Free Living

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV)

Once Wendy and I were having dinner in a nice restaurant, enjoying the meal, enjoying one another’s company. We got ready to leave and there was no bill to pay. The waitress told us someone had paid it. “Wait a minute,” I contested, “who did that?” I wanted to thank them. Part of me wanted to try to pay them back. There was nothing I could do. The bill was paid…in full.

When I was 15 years old I attended a revival service. That night, for the first time, I realized I had a massive sin debt that only Jesus could handle. I had broken God’s law, broken Jesus’s heart, and acted a fool in my pride. As soon as the pastor finished preaching I went forward and received Jesus’s payment in full for my sins. What a sinner I was…what a Savior he is!

In 1865 Elvina Hall penned the words that say, better than I ever could, how I feel about what Jesus has done for me. Sing them as you read them:

I hear the Savior say,
Thy strength indeed is small;
Child of weakness, watch and pray,
Find in Me thine all in all.

Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.

Lord, now indeed I find
Thy power and Thine alone,
Can change the leper’s spots
and melt the heart of stone.

Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.

And when before the throne
I stand in Him complete,
Jesus died my soul to save,
my lips shall still repeat

Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow

O praise the one who paid my debt and raised this life up from the dead!