I need to blog about this before the excitement fades...
If you know me, you know that one of the sins that I constantly battle is worrying about where money is going to come from. I go to a school that costs roughly $27,000 a year, and I live in a city in which gas costs about $3.35 a gallon. I have never made more than $7.70 an hour (except for a few under-the-table jobs, and we won't talk about those... I don't want to have to kill you). Needless to say, despite the apparent difference between the amount of money life requires of me to pay and the amount of money I bring home, everything has always been taken care of. Some might credit this to luck (I am one-sixteenth Irish, after all), while some might credit it to hard work (although no one who really knows me would ever credit me with hard work). I know for a fact, however, that the credit goes to Jehovah-Jirah, the God Who Provides.
January 10th and July 10th are days that are stamped onto the consciousness of my brain more than April 15th. January 10th and July 10th are the days that tuition is due for the Spring and Fall semesters, respectively. Fortunately, there is a 10 day grace period, which I have never failed to take advantage of. So, a few weeks before the day we pay the money, the lovely people in Student Accounts send out our bills. This year I owed an amount that is the rough equivalent to 650 No.#1 combos at In-N-Out (for those of you who are a little slow, a No.#1 combo at In-N-Out, including tax, is $5.40). I had no idea how I was gonna pay for the difference. My dad, who is an adjunct faculty member at the college, noticed that we hadn't had the small amount of tuition remission he is entitled to applied to my bill for the last three semesters, and encouraged me to ask around about it. So I talked to the folks in HR and in Student Accounts, filled out some forms, and I expected about maybe a grand to be taken care of.
Imagine my shock today when I discovered that it covered the whole amount I owed. I asked the nice red-headed lady who works in Student Accounts, "are you sure?" "Yes," she said. Absolutely dumbfounded, I asked her to check again. "I'm absolutely sure," was her semi-exasperated reply. Then she said verbatim, "you're debt has been totally paid for-- you don't owe us anything."
I was ecstatic. Completely ecstatic. I began to think, "nothing has ever happened like this to me before!" And then I realized: yes, something like this, only bigger, has happened before. It happened two thousand years ago.... or it happened before the dawn of time... or it happened in 8th grade.... or it happened at all those time. I was saved. My eternal debt, my cosmic debt, my life-debt-- it was paid for by One who hung on a tree.
Amazing how a paid monetary debt could get me stoked and I could almost overlook salvation, huh? I think we take Christ's sacrifice for granted so much that it takes mundane things like tuition to jar us back into reality-- the real reality, the one we can't see.
I hope you don't make the mistake I usually make-- I hope salvation daily slaps you in the face with it's amazingness. I hope the fact that your debt is paid brings you to the point of ecstasy. Becuase Jehovah-Jirah is not just a provider of the food we will eat, or the clothes we will wear. He's the Jehovah-Jirah of Genesis 22-- the God who provided the ram to take Isaac's place as the sacrifice. So often we forget that we were Isaac, but Christ hung on the cross instead.
Last night/earlier this eveing, I heard an awesome (and I do mean awe-inspiring, awe-causing, awe-inducing) message on the sacrificial death of Christ from one of my top-five favorite preachers, Steve Lawson. It was from Isaiah 52:13-53:12, a passage that I've actually memorized. But there was a section in it that I hadn't really paid much attention to before. It's found in ch. 53, vs. 8, which reads:
By oppression and judgment He was taken away;
and as for His generation, who considered
that He was cut off out of the land of the living
for the transgression of my people,
to whom the stroke was due?
I bolded that last second because it hit me like a mac truck tonight. The stroke was due to me. It was due to you. Yet Christ willingly took it. He could've let us been crushed by the weight of the punishment for our sins. He took it. He despised the shame and endured the Cross. And yet, Isaiah's assessment is right-- no one considered the act that He did. Two thousand years later, we still forget too much.
So how did I get from tuition bills to Christ's atonement? Simple. Our debt's been paid. We're in the black, spiritually-speaking. I pray that that amazing, mind-boggling, wonderful truth makes you want to dance and sing and cry and just be content in God. It does me.
Your debt's been paid.
5 Comments:
so maybe God is working in a big way...
Dude...
That's a great experience/small-scale example of what Christ has done for us. We should go get some #1's to celebrate/praise the Lord.
Yeah for the Dr. Boyd OT2 memorization quiz...
and you ignored my wow question.
I think I already have a hunch as to who you'll be WOW partners with, Miriam.... ;-)
God is our Jehovah Jireh -- He provides because He SEES our needs and knows exactly to provide for them, and ultimately draw everything up towards His glory.
Speaking of your woes with bills, maybe it is time you got acquainted with the dollar value menu at Wendy's and Burger King!
This is a wonderfully candid and honest posting. Keep it up, bro!
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