Debt repayment

What do you do when you owe someone or the bank money? Some will answer: I will repay them, of course. Others will say that it will depend on who I owe. Not the right attitude, I understand. After I lost my job I continued studying, which caused my study loan to increase. Earlier this year I started applying for work and had gone to multiple job interviews. To no avail. I have been praying and crying for God to open that door for me. I’m not a lazy person and enjoy working. Although, I enjoy working for Him more. This morning’s piece felt as if God was telling me that he wanted to use my study debt as an example to show the people that we all owe Jesus, for what He has done for us. But unlike banks and other financial institutions, God’s debt works differently.

In Jeremiah 32:42-44 (KJV), we find another promise from God stating, “For thus saith the Lord; Like as I have brought all this great evil upon this people, so will I bring upon them all the good that I have promised them. And fields shall be bought in this land, whereof ye say, It is desolate without man or beast; it is given into the hand of the Chaldeans. Men shall buy fields for money, and subscribe evidences, and seal them, and take witnesses in the land of Benjamin, and in the places about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, and in the cities of the mountains, and in the cities of the valley, and in the cities of the south: for I will cause their captivity to return, saith the Lord.” All this started when Jeremiah was imprisoned for prophesying for the Lord. The Lord told Jeremiah that his cousin Hanameel will come to ask him to buy a piece of land in Anathoth from him “for the right of redemption is thine to buy it” (verse 7). Jeremiah did as the Lord instructed him and bought the land from Hanameel in front of witnesses and “evidence of the purchase, both that which was sealed according to the law and custom, and that which was open” (verse 11). This was the foretelling of the price Jesus was going to pay for all of our sins, for it was Jesus’ ‘right of redemption,’ because we were His anyway.

In Deuteronomy 15:1-2 (NIV) it says, “At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. This is how it is to be done: Every creditor shall cancel any loan they have made to a fellow Israelite. Thy shall not require payment from anyone among their own people, because the Lord’s time for canceling debts has been Proclaimed.” And today, we can say that all my debt is paid. Yet we walk around and continue as if none of this was done for us. We turn and toil and worry about the day of tomorrow. We are to self-righteous to realize what has been done for us. Luke 7:41-43 (NIV) Jesus tells us, “‘Two people owed money to a certain money lender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?’ Simon replied, ‘I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.’ ‘You have judged correctly,’Jesus said.” Our sin debt has been forgiven, and yet we live as if it hasn’t. How do we know then that a person believes in that their sin-debt is paid in full? “For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed” (Romans 10:10-11, KJV).

God promised the payment of debt of his people from the very beginning of the bible. We read it over and over again. We read about the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But what we don’t do is believe that our sin-debt is paid in full. We continue to live in sin. Today, just like in the day of Jeremiah, we find, “they have turned unto me the back, and not the face: though I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they have not hearkened to receive instruction” (Jeremiah 32:33, KJV). What do you think God will do next?

My prayer for you today is that you will turn away from sin, and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ. And He will turn His face upon you. #GodCanDoThis