Do you remember who said, “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today”?
Personally, I don’t like to be in debt, so I try to pay what I owe a.s.a.p. But I’m having a hard time with this one – God paid off my debt of sin on the cross…that means I owe Him, but I’m having a bit of trouble paying Him back. Can someone give me some suggestions?
John Piper says – “The debtor’s ethic has a deadly appeal to immature Christians…. The Christian life is pictured as an effort to pay back the debt we owe to God.” Too often I find myself slipping into this immature, unbiblical belief that I can somehow pay Him back.
The “debtor ethic” idea has us owing God and needing to pay Him back, but the truth is that God is not a loanshark. He didn’t pay my debt so that I would pay Him back at some outrageous interest rate. He doesn’t have the attitude of “I paid it all, Brian, so you owe Me your all and should pay up out of a sense of duty.” And yet that is often the attitude with which I seem to serve Him. I have to learn to wrap my head around the idea that I should serve not out of a debtor’s ethic but out of gratitude and joy and love due to His grace. I should serve out of love for both past grace received and future grace to come!
Since I have zero ability to pay Him back what I owe, I should just revel in the grace that I have received and joyously serve Him as Lord. The sense shouldn’t be – “You saved my life, so now I should work my whole life to pay you back.” It should be more like “You loved me so much that you saved my life, and that has made me fall in love with You! I love you so much that all I want to do is serve you all my life!”
The Apostle John wrote: “We love because He first loved us.” His love has drawn me into a deep love for Him. And it is from that love that I now joyously serve Him. I hope you are serving Him joyously out of love instead of grudgingly out of a sense of debt.