Welcome to another week of our Everyday Jesus link-up. Be sure to link-up below this post, comment on your neighbor’s blog and share with your friends… Because Jesus is everywhere, every day!
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Photo via Rosie Rogers @ Flickr
It’s a big moment for the Knobloch family.
After tightening our financial belts for quite sometime, we have now paid off all of our (ok, my) student loans!
Please excuse me while I do a happy dance.
Paying off our student loans was one of our God-sized dreams for 2014. For my years of education through my bachelors and masters degrees, I had taken out A LOT of dinero to pay for, well, everything.
And paying it off 5 years after I graduated with my undergrad and 2.5 years since my masters? Yeah, we are pretty stoked.
Thank. You. Jesus.
But as with most things in my life, this challenging and intense experience of pouring every “extra” penny we had towards our loans got me thinking… about Jesus.
Not only how He has blessed and empowered us to make this a reality in such a short time as a one-income household, but also the fact that He has literally paid our debt.
And no, I don’t mean that He cut us a huge check and sent it down on the Heaven Express.
But He has paid our debt of sin.
That is really why He came to earth and died for us in the first place. Because the Father loved us so and wanted us to have a one-and-done-all-expenses-paid-debt-free-no-loans-or-interest-rates-required pass to heaven.
Remember how they used to pay for sin in the Old Testament? Yep, that is right. Animal sacrifices. Lied to your neighbor? That’ll cost you one unblemished goat. Used God’s name in vain? Pay up– one oxen. Ate an entire bag of Dove chocolate in a moment of stress? That will be half a dozen real doves, please.
Ug. Just thinking about the whole process wears me out. Some days, I really don’t think there are enough goats/bulls/doves/etc to cover my sins.
And when we get right down to it… there aren’t enough.
Which is why we need Christ’s sacrifice to pay the debt we owe to God for sinning against Him over and over and over again.
This thought really struck me deep not only when we got that incredible letter from the lending agency saying we were “free” from continuing our large monthly payments, but also one Sunday at church when we were singing Jesus Culture’s song “One Thing Remains.”
The bridge of the song goes like this:
“In death, In life, I’m confident and
covered by the power of Your great love
My debt is paid, there’s nothing that can
separate my heart from Your great love…”
My debt is paid, there is nothing that can separate my heart from your great love…
How. Awesome. Is. That?!?
If we have accepted Christ’s payment for our sins, our debt has been paid. No worrying about how many animals we need to bring to the tabernacle or if we will be “caught up” on our payments the day when God calls us home.
We are completely debt free thanks to Christ’s sacrifice on that cross so very many years ago.
Just the thought overwhelms my soul… And makes me even more grateful that through this payment, Jesus is oh-so-present in my everyday.
Do you feel freedom in Christ? How might we live life differently for God knowing that our debt has been paid? I welcome your feedback… join the conversation and leave a comment.
Take some time in the upcoming days to really mediate on the fact that yes, our debt is paid… By the one who paid it all.
Free in Christ,
“But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.” ~Isaiah 53:5 NIV
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