Friday, April 10, 2009

Wages & Gifts

In my job I earn an hourly wage. Indeed this is why we work at our jobs (for how many of us would do our jobs for free?). My hourly wage is the reward for my labor. The end of my labor for two weeks is a pay check.

So also sin earns a wage. Although sin is pleasurable for a season in the end it leads to death. The end of a harvest of sin is death and destruction. Our world is saturated with evidence that sin brings destruction.

One such example is found in the story of a man who wanted to do things his way. I first encountered this man during a class at the local County Jail. He shared with me the story of sin bringing destruction in his life. This man lived in a house that cost a quarter of a million dollars, drove a Cadillac, and had everything he wanted - or so he thought. His quest for happiness in the wrong things (sin) resulted in him committing a heinous offense which ended in his being arrested, convicted, sentenced to several months in the County Jail, thereby losing his job, his house, his car, and his reputation.

Surely sin promises pleasure, and even delivers for a season, but the end result is destruction. This is only one story, of one man, in one community, in one country, in this world in which we live. For more evidence of this one only needs to glance at the national news headlines. Suffice it to say that this story of sin and destruction is currently unfolding countless times in our day as it has been throughout history.

Proverbs 14:12
There is a way that seems right to a man but in the end it leads to death.

Thanks be to God that through Christ there is more in our world than just the wages of sin. Although our sin indeed deserves its wages, Christ suffered once for sins in order to bring us to God (Php. 3:18). All that we can ever earn on earth is death and destruction. But praise be to God that Christ has earned our salvation through His work upon the cross, that divine transaction of the righteous for the unrighteous.

Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This glorious salvation, enjoying the Living God both now and for eternity, is a free gift from God for we who trust in Christ.

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