"Everything Must be Paid For.." & "It is God Who Has Paid!"
"The idea that man defiles and degrades everything he touches, although it does not reach such intensity in healthy people, nonetheless exists in everyone. It is a measure of the existential guilt which every man bears vaguely within himself, the Promethean sense of man’s curse.." From Guilt & Grace by Paul Tournier
The above quote is from the late Paul Tournier's book "Guilt or Grace".
We can see in his quote how our depravity and sin corrupts everything we interact with no matter our spiritual status before God.
We are sinners who have been redeemed but yet we sin. As Dalla's Willard once said, 'We want to do good but are always ready to do wrong."
You and I may be good people but we are not righteous, no not one. We sin and we sin against God! The God we pray to we also sin against.
Christ has interceded for his.
A chapter entitled “Everything Must Be Paid For.” Draws from his Reformed theology, in which Tournier suggests that our angst is in some sense derived from our awareness that “everything must be paid for.” We know this even though we can't articulate it we know this and we see this reality in our lives and the people and world around us.
Nothing is Free
We hear this a lot in our culture, "It's free". Well no it's not! I was in health care for 10 years and the marketing of health care usually included "it's free' when in fact the government was paying for through our taxes. Likewise when we sin someone, specifically Christ has paid the bill. But his payment was so enormous it altered the very fabric of creation.
We today are the beneficiaries of his sacrifice.
We are so weak and our minds are a mess. Our minds are haunted daily by our past faults and failures. All Humans live in the shadow of our guilt, and none of us no matter how spiritually mature are able to avoid it. We are often told to guard our hearts. That is because there is a place in every heart that is in darkness, stained with the filth and sin of this world. We often visit that corner of our hearts, where our guilt resides and the loud voice of condemnation screams at us.
The Blood of Christ
Paul Tournier goes on to say in another chapter entitled: " It Is God Who Has Paid"..
"But the wonderful announcement of God’s free grace, which effaces guilt, runs up against the intuition which every man has, that a price must be paid. The reply which comes in the supreme message of the Bible, its supreme revelation; it is God Himself who pays, God Himself has paid the price once for all, and the most costly that could be paid—His own death, in Jesus Christ on the cross. The obliteration of our guilt is free for us because God has paid the price."
God's grace is a gift that came through the blood of His Son. We really cannot comprehend the depth of this sacrifice.
Christ bore our sin, took our place and embraced our curse. Jesus died our death, and took upon him our guilt. Even as He completed His atoning sacrifice He declared, “It is finished!” (John 19:30).
Your Daily Humility
Pride lurks around every corner.
Our world is fallen and not only are sinful people seeking your demise but spiritual beings are also at work around you and in other people.
You will never survive this life due to your own mental or physical strength. Age will make you weaker than you are now. You are not as smart as you think you are. You will die.
Christ is ALWAYS the Answer
You may be trying money, power, sex, material goods as remedies to fill your heart. But the fact is only Christ can fill it.
So today reflect on your life.
Pray, confess your sins, start the daily process of repentance and then learn to abide in Christ everyday, all day.
When you die what will you say to God if you wasted your life and ignored your creator! Now is the time, don't wait!