Debt Free

I don't write about being debt-free before God because I get it. I'm writing about it because I don't get it. When I do, it's rare and because of His grace alone. When I don't, it's a constant battle between flesh and Spirit trying to fight for faith while knowing God's truth. I can know God's truth all day long... but if I don't live in light of God's truth there is discontinuity between what I know and what I believe. How I live is how I truly believe and what I know becomes puffed-up head knowledge. I pray that we would all learn to live in light of our true freedom in Christ and without debt before God if we have trusted Him as our Savior... (wouldn't that be a game changer!?). 


So here's a new post on the subject over at the Sojourn Women's Blog. (or below) 

Forgiveness is the renunciation or cessation of resentment, indignation or anger as a result of a perceived offense, disagreement, or mistake, or ceasing to demand punishment or restitution. The Oxford English Dictionary defines forgiveness as 'to grant free pardon and to give up all claim on account of an offense or debt'.

My husband and I have never been big credit card people. I know people who are and I’ve had lots of friends that redeem credit card points like a part time job. When I think of debt, I think of being bound. Take school debt, for instance, you get 4 years of social awesomeness or so, you get a degree (hopefully) and then you may or may not get a job in return. And yet, for most of us, the debt from school loans loom for decades to come.

I often have difficulty understanding the concept of forgiveness. It’s seriously hard for me after I have done something terrible or had even a silent offense against our perfect God that I can’t imagine how he could not hold a debt over my head. Because I find it so hard to imagine, I often don’t believe He has forgiven me. I live under the assumption that because I’m a terrible sinner I should just feel terrible. It’s a lie from both my prideful flesh and from Satan.

In Galatians 5, the apostle Paul talks about being debt-free on earth and being able to participate in community as debt-free. In fact, he so eloquently asks them why they would go back to having rules in order to receive salvation. If you go back to having to keep these specific rules, Paul writes, “Christ will be of no advantage to you.” Don’t we know we can’t keep all the rules of perfection to pay our own debt before the Eternally Perfect One?

“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (verse 1).

Prideful flesh.

Why do I insist that I must do something to add to Jesus’ death? As if a purposefully sacrificial death of a perfect human and perfect God is not enough for my sin. As if my sin is greater than Jesus’ overwhelming blood. As if, somehow, I feel a certain way for long enough it will cause the Holy Creator of all things good and holy to feel a certain way about me. “Oh, you feel bad, Bekah?... Well, in that case, if you feel bad for two more weeks, then you can be free of that debt.” 

To be free of debt.

Honestly, my first thought is (sadly), I have no idea how being debt-free could possibly feel. WHY is that my first response when I have been made a daughter of a King to share inheritance with Jesus because my debt has literally been paid? I didn’t win a get out of hell free card. My debt was literally and physically paid by a human who endured all things perfectly so that I could sit here and share my heart with you, so that I could glorify Him by worshipping him for a debt paid and so that I could know beautiful communion with Him.

But my first response is to feel laden with burden because I put the world and the things in the world often before my Lord. I don’t stop to consider that I am free of the most serious and horrendous-consequence debt known to mankind, in the history of mankind, for eternity. 

God has forgiven me, and not just because He’s perfectly loving. But because He is perfectly wrathful and perfectly just, sending Jesus to die a sinner’s death in THIS sinner’s place: me. Jesus died in my place. Literally.

I am debt free before God.

It makes me weep.

And it humbles me. I can do nothing more than what Jesus has already done for me to settle my debt with God. I can’t work enough, I can’t serve enough, and I can’t be a certain way or do certain things or feel a certain way. However, I know when I do feel guilty and bad, it’s the Holy Spirit leading me to repentance, “for godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret” (2 Corinthians 7:10a). The fact that we are able to feel guilt is God’s gift of true freedom to His followers because it’s an internal signal that something is wrong. How kind of Him to supply us with the Holy Spirit!

Because Christ died.

We are debt free and we have a freedom that can ONLY be experienced when you are debt free. How foolish I am to often live as if I am still in bondage to hell. When I choose to live that way, it’s prideful and a slap in the face to the Savior who died and already took it away. When I refuse freedom in a debt-free to God life, I am telling Jesus that His sacrifice was just not quite enough for me. It may be good enough for my neighbor, for my coworker or my children, but it’s not enough to cover my sin. How dare me.  

But He still died.

So regardless of how I feel, I can know without a shadow of a doubt that Jesus, the Great Minister, who is currently seated next to the Majesty in heaven, understands my weaknesses. And because He so rightly understood many years ago, He courageous laid down on a cross, allowed them to nail his hands and feet to pieces of wood and then was separated for the first and only time ever from his Perfect Father (as this incredibly loving father poured all of His wrath upon His only son). 

Thank you Jesus. 

Carousel of Death

There's a new post over on the Sojourn Women's page.  I'll warn you... it's a little different!  I wrote it in a moment of prayer for myself and those around me based on Psalm 116.  I've always had an affinity for Psalm 116 and I've always been intrigued when the psalmist says, "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." I'm so thankful that God loves us enough to watch us die to ourselves so that we may live in Him. Even when we have no clue what that actually means or looks like, He is still faithful to help us actually do it. It's an amazing and sometimes excruciating process to experience the work of God's Spirit and grow.

As you're reading this post, I encourage you to think about the weight each line carries.  My prayer as you read is that you will ask yourself questions such as, "Whose glory am I really longing for, mine or God's?", "What things do I give most value to and why?", "Whom or what do I give power to in my life thinking it (or them) will get me somewhere?", "In what places am I living a lie instead of living a rich life in Christ?"

Post here or below.

Carousel of Death (Based on Psalm 116)

By Rebekah Hannah

You run to the high-positioned and cling to their legs. You claw up the ladder, hoping someone will notice your “newness of life.” But yet you continue to suffocate and suck in dirt. Respect is given to those who make the spot light, to those whose gifts are paraded in front of others… Clinging to their coat tails, you ride the wave of low-level, culturally biased celebrity politics and hope for someone to notice you belong.

But this life is short-lived and death by drowning occurs. Placing God’s glory on his subjects rather than The Subject causes misplaced hope and miserable pain. When will you learn? When will it stop?

It doesn’t. So instead a new version is born. A hipster preacher, a modern day spin, a new idea, and another fake grin. The life we’ve been called to seems ridiculously mundane. I want great. I want new. I want the exception. And you do too.

But it’s not found where you are looking. You give respect to those you hear even before listening, and to whose book you read even before thinking. You ascribe value according to position instead of worshiping the One Who Decides.

Hearts are inclined to what others say God’s testimonies are, and we mimic with selfish-intent. Ripping off sparkle from worthless things, we strain life out of every plastic fruit we see, desperately trying to compartmentalize the spiritual from unspiritual. If I can just reach this level, if I can just stop doing this thing, if I can just be “faithful” in this way… If I can only be stronger.  Who’s it all for?

It never ends. The carousel keeps turning, but instead of enjoying the ride, you become a plastic horse with pastel saddles and sticky fingers are clinging to you for just one more turn. In this place, all life is an optical illusion. You’re in a dark room with blank walls, bodies moving in motion never going anywhere, and never changing the darkness.

Hope given. 

But He still comes. Not IN spite of us, but DEspite us. We plead and beg for mercy, but it was already given. He opens the door to the pitch-black room and welcomes you to a new place.

Look up! There is a place where the fruit is real and laughter rings from the carousel of life as those riding hold his dear hand.

DEspite us, He saves us from our self-absorbed polity.

He saves us from ridiculously mundane and turns it into a purposeful pain.

He gives sparkle that can’t be ripped off or found at your local pub.

He’s the one who ascribes value, not by putting a shiny crown upon our heads… but by dying an ugly death to save the already dead.

Good grief, (literally).

He. Is. Powerful.

Psalm 116:4-11, 15, 19b

Then I called on the name of the Lord:

‘O Lord, I pray, deliver my soul!’

Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; our God is merciful.

The Lord preserves the simple; when I was brought low, he saved me.

Return, o my soul, to your rest; for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling; I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.

I believed, even when I spoke, ‘I am greatly afflicted’; I said in my alarm, ‘All mankind are liars.’

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.

Praise the Lord!