A story of the Father's great love:

Imagine you had a credit card and you were spending more than you knew you had. In fact, you were incredibly worried; the idea of opening the bill scared you. But the bill never came. So you kept buying more and more stuff with it. For years, the bill never came, but you bought anything you wanted with it: new car, new TV, a trip around the world, whatever. Nothing was unavailable to you. It was great! But deep down, you knew it wasn't quite right. How could you possibly get away with this? Would it ever come back to get you?

One day, you get a phone call from your dad. He says "I got a bill from your credit card. It got sent to me. It has all of your spending for the last 20 years on it. It's pretty monumental." At this point, your heart has sunk. You know you're in for it. All that you've done has come back. Somebody has to pay for it. Because of you, a payment must be made. Your father continues, "I just wanted to let you know that I paid for it all. Every single penny of it. You don’t have to do anything for me." You're floored. A grand debt against your name has been completely relinquished. What joy! What love from the Father! You can’t believe what has happened. In fact, you are so full of gratitude, that you can’t stop telling people about how wonderful your dad is. In fact, you might write a post just like this one. You just can’t get over what has been done for you. Your dad’s generosity has changed you from one who was completely irresponsible with money to someone who lives to be as generous as your father and who forgives anyone who has owes you anything.

Your dad comes over and brings the bill. It's pages and pages long. I mean, it's everything you bought on a spending spree for 20 years. The paper to list it all alone probably cost a fortune. Your dad starts at the top and begins reading each purchase, one by one. This purchase here, that purchase there. He’s not reading it to guilt you. He’s reading to let you know what’s been done for you. Each item he reads fills you with tremendous gratitude, for it's all been paid for.

This is how it will be in the end. The Father will take an account of every sin you've committed, every time you've rebelled, and every time you failed to glorify Him. It will all be laid bare before you. For most people, this will be a time of gnashing teeth and wailing. But for those in Christ, what would have been a trial of the guilty turns into the glory of the payment. The Father paid for you. With everything He had, He covered your debts. Now every single fault against you no longer brings you guilt, but instead, thanksgiving. It's all to glorify Him! In the end, your good deeds will speak to Jesus' glory because He worked through you. In the end, your bad deeds will speak to Jesus' glory because He paid for you. All glory is His.

As far as we know it costs very little for God to give us nice things. But He gave us His everything, Jesus. God didn’t love us after we told him we were sorry. While we were sinners, Christ died for us. After such an amazing act of grace, would we continue to wildly charge our purchases on that credit card?  Hopefully not! Shall we go on sinning so that grace should increase? By no means!

Rejoice! For Jesus is worthy of all of our worship, all of our lives, and all that we are. We can live as enemies of Christ and dead in our own transgression, or we can live as sons and daughters—paid for by the beautiful blood of Jesus—fully alive in Him.