Imagine you’re in one of these situations:
- You have a large debt and no means to pay it.
- You’ve committed a crime, were brought before the law, and found guilty.
- You had the most important exam of your life, didn’t study, and failed miserably.
- You filled your car’s gas tank, and in the end, your credit card was declined.
Exactly this is your spiritual situation: there’s a gigantic debt you owe for all the sins you’ve accumulated since birth. You’ve committed many offenses and broken God’s laws with your thoughts, speech, and actions alongside your companions and friends. The Holy Spirit gave you an exam of holiness and integrity for which you definitely hadn’t prepared, and you obviously failed. You filled the tank of your life, pretending an apparent happiness without foundation, and in the end, you had nothing to sustain your lie.
What is God supposed to do if He claims to be so good? Perhaps you expect Him to simply reset your debt to zero—a clean slate—and forgive your sentence, granting you parole. Maybe you hope He’ll annul your final exam, grade you on a curve, and pass you without any effort on your part. Or perhaps you think He should let you leave with a full tank without paying. The problem is that this would be indulgence; He’d be spoiling you, and all your mistakes would remain without accountability and without any lesson to help you improve in the future.
God is not a permissive father. So, should He squeeze every last cent from you, throw you into jail Himself, laugh in your face for failing the exam of your life, and let you suffer the rest of your days for your irresponsibility? No. He is not a tyrant, nor does He take pleasure in your pain or guilt. He is a just God. And justice means that debts, crimes, poor grades, and errors must be paid for, and someone must take responsibility for everything you’ve done.
That’s exactly what grace is about: everything you were supposed to pay, He paid for you. It’s not the indulgence of “let’s just forget about it.” He is just, and justice requires that someone pays, and that “someone” was Himself.
But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
Romans 3:21–26 (NIV)
Grace: A Free Gift
On September 15, 2008, I went out with my girlfriend to enjoy the holiday. We went out for lunch and then visited Zoo Ave in La Garita de Alajuela. It seemed like an ordinary day, but that evening, when we went to dine at an Argentine restaurant, I “unexpectedly” pulled out an engagement ring and proposed to her right there. Six months later, we got married, and since then, I have been officially the happiest and most fortunate man in the world and beyond.
She had no idea that she would receive such a significant and important “gift” that day. Suddenly, her bare ring finger bore an engagement ring. Without expecting it and without any clue about what had happened before that moment, that night marked a before and after in her life.
That’s how it was when we met Jesus: unexpected and surprising, His love found us. Regardless of the past, His divine embrace came to stay and to change your life forever. Do you remember how your life was just before your encounter with Him? He came “like rain under the sun, like a thief in the night, like snow in summer.”
Grace: A Costly Gift
What we sometimes don’t consider is everything that happened beforehand. Meli didn’t know that several months earlier, I had been saving up. She didn’t realize that the trip to the United States I took 15 days prior wasn’t just for sightseeing and shopping. She had no idea that I spent an entire day scouring all the malls in Orlando, searching for the most valuable and special gift I had ever thought of giving. On that trip, I risked my health and temporarily damaged my ears due to a cold that worsened with the airplane’s pressure. She was only at that restaurant to receive the gift, but I had to save, plan, travel, run, search, choose, purchase, and do many other things so she could have a beautiful ring worthy of her.
Meli still doesn’t know how much that ring cost me. The same happens with Him: perhaps we’ll never fully comprehend the magnitude of the gift of His salvation. You weren’t even born when He planned, emptied Himself, was born, grew up, prepared, acted, suffered, remained silent, died, and resurrected so that today, thousands of years later, you could enjoy the free gift of your salvation—free, but infinitely costly. Only God Himself was capable of paying that price with His own life. With blood flowing from His side, with thorns piercing His head, and nails tearing His hands and feet to the unbearable. Your debt didn’t erase itself. Your crime didn’t go unpunished. He died justly on that cross so that you and I wouldn’t have to pay with our own lives. The punishment that brought us peace was on Him, and by His wounds, we are healed.
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Ephesians 2:1–10 (NIV)
Do you realize why you owe everything to Jesus? He didn’t take the record of charges against you and hide it so no one would see it; He nailed it to Himself on that cross! He did it because He is just, and His justice doesn’t allow Him to overlook sin.
Today is an excellent opportunity to surrender your life in gratitude to Him for that infinite, undeserved, and inexplicable gift of His forgiveness, mercy, salvation, and blessing. That gift of choosing you and giving you His own Spirit so you could enjoy a full life, filled with purpose.
For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.
Titus 2:11–14 (NIV)
Because we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. He did this to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.