The one “bill” you will never be able to pay … so, stop trying.
Whether you know it or not, you have a spiritual “bill” that is growing by the day and will come due, in full, one minute after you take your last breath on earth.
The Apostle Paul put it this way in Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Each sin you commit, however small in your eyes, is paid to you in the form of “wages,” (in Paul’s metaphor) into your “spiritual bank account” that has been accruing a growing balance from the day you were born.
Somebody must pay it off at your death — either by you personally (impossible, because it is you who ran up the bill in the first place), or alternatively, by Someone else who has the spiritual qualifications to do so.
The consequences of your decision (spiritual death or eternal life) are profound. That’s where the word “faith” comes in, as written in Hebrews 11:6 …
“And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for the one who comes to God must believe that He exists, and that He proves to be One who rewards those who seek Him.”
The late Bible commentator Bill MacDonald wrote, “Faith is a nonmeritorious work by which the creature acknowledges his Creator, and the sinner acknowledges his Savior.”
Your salvation hinges on where your faith is placed.
While faith is nonmeritorious, the object of your faith (where your faith is resting) makes all the difference.
For example, strong (but misplaced) faith in a coffee table to fly you to New York will always end in failure. But faith, even somewhat weak faith, in a Boeing 737 MAX will get you to New York every time.
It’s all about the object.
Similarly, your spiritual salvation (with the accompanying payment by Christ of your sin debt) hinges on where your faith is placed to secure your spiritual destiny in Heaven.
As I have written previously, “Salvation is not about doing anything. It is about reaching a settled state of belief about who Jesus Christ was and is and what he did for all of us by dying on the cross. Such a settled state of belief naturally includes a decisive, unmistakable, transfer of confidence away from oneself and to rest it permanently and irrevocably upon Jesus Christ who becomes our personal savior and the everlasting protector of our eternal welfare.”
Theologian Lewis Sperry Chafer wrote in his book Salvation:
“This one word ‘believe’ represents all a sinner can do and all a sinner must do to be saved. It is believing the record God has given of His Son. In this record, it is stated that He has entered into all the needs of our lost condition and is alive from the dead to be a living Savior to all who put their trust in Him. It is quite possible for any intelligent person to know whether he has placed such confidence in the Savior.”
Saving faith is a matter of personal consciousness: “I know whom I have believed.”
To have deposited one’s eternal welfare in the hands of another is a decision of the mind so definite that it can hardly be confused with anything else.
On the deposit of oneself into His saving grace depends one’s eternal destiny. To add or subtract anything from this sole condition of salvation is most perilous.
Why try to pay a bill that has already been settled?
In our verse before, Romans 6:23 — “For the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” — we learned that our spiritual “bill” has already been paid in full by an infinitely more qualified Savior than you or me.
Suppose you went up to your bank app and logged in to make a payment toward your massive student loan balance, and just as you attempted to make a monthly payment, you read the statement “PAID IN FULL.”
Would you go ahead and make a monthly payment anyway? Why?
That is what you are doing when you are trying to pay your own way to Heaven by your good deeds, religious devotion, etc. when Jesus has already bought your ticket to Heaven for you.
How About You?
Did you know that you can be as “righteous” as Christ? Two thousand years ago, a great exchange took place.
Read this carefully, from 2 Corinthians 5:21, “He (God) made Him (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin in our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
Did you hear that?