Debt Solution

What can you do if you owe more than you can pay? That’s the situation facing many today, including some cities, states and the federal government. And there’s no easy solution.

Meanwhile, another monstrous debt crisis has been largely ignored while politicians wrangle over our country’s financial woes. Sadly, every one of us is in debt over our heads. We owe much more than we can ever repay. And I’m not talking about our share of the national debt.

It’s even worse than that!

“Now hold on just a minute,” you may say. “What could be worse than every taxpayer owing more than $130,000 of the $14.5 trillion national debt?”

Good question. And here’s the answer: According to the Bible, every man, woman and child is indebted to God because of sin. It’s a debt so large we can never repay it.

The word ‘sin’ makes many think of breaking one of the Ten Commandments. But it also would include breaking the two ‘Great’ commandments Jesus gave.

Jesus said the two greatest commandments are, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.” And he said those two commandments summarize the entire Law of God.

Wow. Which one of us hasn’t failed to keep those commandments? We’re all in trouble. Especially when you consider that it’s not just the act of breaking a commandment that makes us guilty but also the attitude of rebellion against God that says, “Nobody’s telling me what to do!”

Since the Bible warns us “whoever stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it” and “the wages of sin is death,” we are in deep trouble. We’re all lawbreakers deserving death.

Many think that after we die, God will weigh our good deeds against our bad. If the good outweighs the bad then God should let us into heaven. But the Bible paints a bleaker picture.

The Bible says even our good works are filthy rags in God’s sight. No one is good enough.

Someone will say, “Well God loves us so he will just forgive our sin.” But to forgive us requires God to absorb our debt. Just like a lender that forgives a debt must absorb the loss.

For God to absorb our debt of sin, he had to pay the penalty of death himself. That’s why God became the man, Jesus, who died on the cross for our sin. But for it to be effective, Jesus had to be sinless so he could die in our place and not for his own sin. And that’s just what happened.

Do you see the amazing greatness of God’s plan? Through Christ’s death on the cross, God took on himself the payment for our debt of sin. And now he is able to offer forgiveness to all.

The Bible says, “God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.” So, in Christ, our debt of sin is cancelled.

In the original language of the Bible, ‘written code’ translates a word that means a certificate of indebtedness in the debtor’s own handwriting. That represents the Law of God under which everyone is a debtor to him. This means the IOU each of us owes God for our sin is forgiven!

But to receive the forgiveness God offers we must ask for it by faith. It’s not automatic. You must talk to God in prayer and say, “Father, please accept me. Not for the good works I have done, but because of what Jesus Christ did for me on the cross.”

According to the Bible, when you do that, you become God’s child and your debt of sin is ‘Paid in Full’—forgiven once and for all. It is God’s eternal debt solution. And it’s free to all!

Listen to the Bible; it’s great for your soul!