Thursday, September 4, 2014
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
WAGES
When my dad was a kid he mowed the neighbor's lawn to earn money. For mowing he got $10. If he trimmed the weeds too, he'd get $15. If he rolled the yard with a special tool that helped to even out the soil, he'd get $25.
One day he did just that. He mowed carefully, trimmed every edge, and painstakingly rolled the lawn flat. After the old lady inspected his work she went back into the house and came out with $25. It was a job well done.
But what if he threw rocks across the yard instead of mowing? What if he scattered dandelion seeds instead of trimming? What if he wetted the lawn and stomped around until it was mucky and pitted? Then he'd be the one who had to pay. He'd have to fix the lawn, or pay to have someone else fix it.
God has given us more than a yard to care for. God has given us life, and he wants us to live it his way. He wants us to worship him and love each other through the things we say and do.
But instead of doing what God wants, we ignore God and forget to worship him. We say and do things that are evil. And just like messing up your neighbor's yard, our sins have consequences.
Mowing the lawn earns money, but sinning earns death. Think about that. Each time you do something wrong, God says what you deserve is to have all good things taken from you--forever.
But God loves us and doesn't want that to happen. That's why Jesus suffered for our evils on the cross. It's like we messed up the yard and Jesus paid to fix it. But he paid with his life. That's a serious gift. Because of Jesus, we won't have to go away from God for eternity. Instead of getting what we deserve, through Christ we receive eternal life.
