Wages of Sin

Meditation

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

(Romans 6:23)

There are NO gray areas when it comes to sin. No matter what our society wants us to believe, which by the way, is exactly what Satan wants us to believe. There is a good choice or an evil choice we might make in every decision. There are no other choices. I hear all the time, ‘what’s true for you might not be true for me.’ That’s exactly what Satan wants you to believe. That way, he can hold you in the bondage of sin where you think your behavior isn’t all that bad. What’s true and good according to the Bible, is true and good for everyone in all circumstances. We don’t have to work very hard to earn the sentence of death as the wages for our sins. However, we can accept the free gift of salvation from Jesus and escape that death sentence.

We all have an inborn sense to know the difference between right and wrong. We can choose to ignore that nagging inner voice or we can submit to God and live in righteousness through the saving grace of his Son, Jesus Christ. Whether we’ve told a little white lie, committed a vicious murder, or everything in between, the penalty is the same, eternal separation from God. The lie we’re being told by the enemy is, we’re good enough the way we are, and we don’t need to change to go to heaven. We’re told Jesus was just a good man, not the Savior and certainly not God. Since he not the Savior, his death means nothing. They want us to believe, if God is so loving, he’ll let the good people in heaven. The truth is, there will be a lot of “good” people in hell.

The amazing thing is Jesus has already paid the penalty for our sins on the cross. We can take a path in our life that leads to repentance and the cross, or we can choose to ignore Jesus and take the path of sin and death. No matter what we’ve done, it’s not so bad that God won’t forgive us, if we repent. It’s totally up to us whether we choose right or wrong, good or evil, Jesus or hell. As long as we look to the Bible to teach us the difference, we’ll be better off. We can do nothing to earn salvation except take Jesus up on his free offer of redemption. He’s already done the work and now he stands with his arms open wide waiting for us to come to him!

Prayer Time

Heavenly Father, how do we thank you for saving us from certain destruction? How do we show you that we take seriously your will for our lives? You pulled us from the pits of despair that we create in our own lives by senselessly trying to live without you. Thank you for taking those cold, stony, hard hearts that beat in our chests and replaced them with new, warm, loving hearts. Before you saved us, our destinies were desperately bleak and completely directionless, unless we call heading to hell, a direction. Our days were spent trying to find that elusive thing called happiness. However, whenever we thought we had found it, it would soon disappear again. Thank you, Lord, for showing us what true happiness is. Thank you for filling our new hearts with a burning desire to love you more every day and to love our neighbors too. Make us to be just like Jesus, zealous for every lost soul we find. Don’t let us prejudge who will accept the loving message of the gospel and who will not. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen!