Romans 6:23
There is a payment that is attached to a life of sin, but there is no payment attached to salvation. Sin works you, exhausts you and then leaves you empty. When the “work-week” of sin is finished, your paycheck is death. Salvation never pays you; for there is no work of your own that brings salvation or keeps it. For those in the church that wish to work for all they have, Paul said that their reward is not of grace but of debt (Romans 4:4).
To believe that you work for your blessings or work for your goodness is to think that God owes you for your lifestyle. This makes the Creator of heaven and earth a debtor; to you! This cannot be, for God owes none of us anything, especially considering the price that He paid for our redemption on the cross.
The paycheck of a life of sin (notice the text says “sin”, not “sins”) is spiritual death. Physical death is not our payment for sin, for even believers die a physical death, but separation from God for eternity is the doom of sin’s end. To live a life without Christ will tax and burden you and ultimately end with your demise. This fulfills the thief’s desire to “steal, kill and to destroy” (John 10:10).
For the saint, there is a gift attached to salvation that can never be earned; the gift of eternal life. If someone gives you a gift, it is yours with no strings attached. You are not expected to get your checkbook out and pay them back for the gift, for this takes away the beauty of it being a gift. How insulting would it be for you to give someone a gift at Christmas only to have them follow you around the rest of the day begging you to let them pay you back? You would take it as a personal affront to the spirit of your gift. Imagine the heart of God upon seeing so many Christians trying to pay God back for the wonderful gift of salvation.
How do we know if we are guilty of such actions? One easy way is to look at how you view the cross of Christ. When you see Jesus suffering and dying in your mind’s eye, do you think, “Oh my, He did all of that for me, the least that I could do is live for Him”? If this is your view, then there is a hint of payback in your Christianity. If you view the cross as “God did this to Jesus so He will never do it to me!” then you understand that salvation is a gift, never to be paid back.
God’s gifts are without repentance (Romans 11:29) meaning that God never takes a gift back once He gives it. If God has gifted you in life in a particular area, that gift will not be taken back because you don’t use it properly. He wants glory for your gift, but whether He receives it or not has nothing to do with your ability to use it. His gifts are given to never be returned. Open the gift, it is yours!
Righteousness is a gift, given by God so that we are viewed as holy in spite of our imperfections (Romans 5:17-19). If righteousness is a gift of God, and God cannot take His gifts back, are you made unrighteous by an unrighteous deed? Impossible! You are the righteousness of God in Christ. Waking up to this knowledge will kill sin in your life (1 Corinthians 15:34).
Don’t look for payment for your goodness today; for that means you receive payment for the bad as well. Instead, open the gift of righteousness and eternal life, knowing that you neither earn it nor deserve it. It makes the gift even better when it is so awesome that you could never have gone out and bought it for yourself.
There is a payment that is attached to a life of sin, but there is no payment attached to salvation. Sin works you, exhausts you and then leaves you empty. When the “work-week” of sin is finished, your paycheck is death. Salvation never pays you; for there is no work of your own that brings salvation or keeps it. For those in the church that wish to work for all they have, Paul said that their reward is not of grace but of debt (Romans 4:4).
To believe that you work for your blessings or work for your goodness is to think that God owes you for your lifestyle. This makes the Creator of heaven and earth a debtor; to you! This cannot be, for God owes none of us anything, especially considering the price that He paid for our redemption on the cross.
The paycheck of a life of sin (notice the text says “sin”, not “sins”) is spiritual death. Physical death is not our payment for sin, for even believers die a physical death, but separation from God for eternity is the doom of sin’s end. To live a life without Christ will tax and burden you and ultimately end with your demise. This fulfills the thief’s desire to “steal, kill and to destroy” (John 10:10).
For the saint, there is a gift attached to salvation that can never be earned; the gift of eternal life. If someone gives you a gift, it is yours with no strings attached. You are not expected to get your checkbook out and pay them back for the gift, for this takes away the beauty of it being a gift. How insulting would it be for you to give someone a gift at Christmas only to have them follow you around the rest of the day begging you to let them pay you back? You would take it as a personal affront to the spirit of your gift. Imagine the heart of God upon seeing so many Christians trying to pay God back for the wonderful gift of salvation.
How do we know if we are guilty of such actions? One easy way is to look at how you view the cross of Christ. When you see Jesus suffering and dying in your mind’s eye, do you think, “Oh my, He did all of that for me, the least that I could do is live for Him”? If this is your view, then there is a hint of payback in your Christianity. If you view the cross as “God did this to Jesus so He will never do it to me!” then you understand that salvation is a gift, never to be paid back.
God’s gifts are without repentance (Romans 11:29) meaning that God never takes a gift back once He gives it. If God has gifted you in life in a particular area, that gift will not be taken back because you don’t use it properly. He wants glory for your gift, but whether He receives it or not has nothing to do with your ability to use it. His gifts are given to never be returned. Open the gift, it is yours!
Righteousness is a gift, given by God so that we are viewed as holy in spite of our imperfections (Romans 5:17-19). If righteousness is a gift of God, and God cannot take His gifts back, are you made unrighteous by an unrighteous deed? Impossible! You are the righteousness of God in Christ. Waking up to this knowledge will kill sin in your life (1 Corinthians 15:34).
Don’t look for payment for your goodness today; for that means you receive payment for the bad as well. Instead, open the gift of righteousness and eternal life, knowing that you neither earn it nor deserve it. It makes the gift even better when it is so awesome that you could never have gone out and bought it for yourself.
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