As I See It…

Cash, check or credit? These are the usual three financial operatives of our consumer driven society. Increasingly, the credit (card) is the driving force. Merchants count on you using credit cards, in fact some prefer it. If you shop on line it’s about the only way you can get anything done.

But the devil is in the details. How much are you willing to charge? Do you blindly close your eyes and hope for the best? Somehow, you rationalize, it’s Christmas, it doesn’t matter how much I charge, I’ll pay for it later. Or, do you treat the card(s) as cash? Namely, you only charge as much as you know you will be able to pay in full when the bill comes due?

My first launch into the credit card world happened my senior year of college. I was sent a gas credit card. Cool, I thought! (Actually I probably said something like “wow,” but I don’t want to date myself too much.) I remember the first time I used that card. I drove my little ’65 Ford Mustang up to the gas pump and said, “Fill ‘er up!” In those days attendants did the work. When he told me the amount, I whipped out my card and handed it to him with a big grin. I was in seventh heaven! It felt so good that I did it again a couple of weeks later…not a care in the world.

Then reality hit. I received my first bill in the mail. Panic! I hadn’t thought about the fact that the day would actually come that the gas company would want me to pay them! Did I have enough in my checking account to cover it? I wasn’t sure. All of the sudden that credit card, which seemed so empowering a couple of weeks before became like a knot in my stomach. It would be quite a while before I would use it again.

Getting over the sting of reality took a while. I wonder if Christians forget the debt of their sin that they have accumulated which, in turn, is impossible for them to pay. In this case though, we have a Redeemer who has covered the cost.

There is no need for a “pit of the stomach” experience to those who are in Christ. Paul expresses it this way: And when you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us and which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

There’s not enough cash in anyone’s account to cover that debt. Praise the Lord for God’s generosity through Christ!

Pastor Megilligan