Our Debt to Yeshua
Every Last Penny
(#306 from Suffer Well Devotional Series©)
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“Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.” (Matthew 6:12)
Debt is what one person owes to another, whether money, goods, or services; it is what a person is bound to pay to another, or to perform for his benefit; it is a “thing” owed, an obligation, or a liability. However, on the deepest level, debt is the obligation of a righteous life owed to Yahweh. When you fall short of righteous living you become a debtor to the Almighty.
You can be zealous for Yahweh but not understand the righteousness He requires. You can display ignorance of His righteousness by seeking to establish your own righteousness, instead of submitting to the only true righteousness. The Messiah in you is the only righteousness for everyone who believes (Romans 10:2-4). This is the scriptural pattern of “within and then without.” Anything less than righteous thinking empowered by the Messiah in you is where all debt begins.
Debt has two faces: imposition and neglect. Each of these give us exquisite insight into the metaphysical aspect of what Yahweh truly intended for us to understand about both what was transgressed and what was forgiven. They both begin as mental errors and lead to scarcity thinking, which of course ends in physical poverty.
Imposition is a burden or obligation, oft described as the trespass. It is the heavy weight you carry under the burden of self-righteousness.
Neglect is the duty violated by negligence or carelessness. It is the offspring of the mind which has complete disregard for the truths and commands of Yahweh.
Although the price of “past” debts (mental misgivings and their physical ramifications) is paid through the shed blood of Yahshua the Messiah (redemption), it does not mean that restoration (mental and physical) is not a necessary process (sanctification). Moreover, any continued imposition and neglectfulness, post confession of faith and renewal, speaks volumes to your Redeemer. Why? Because accepting His forgiveness also includes agreeing to be accountable to His standards. Unless, of course, you believe your redeemed state gives you some sort “get out of jail free grace card.” If you habitually minimalize the gravity of your choice to sin, “Where sin increased, grace increased all the more (Romans 5:20),” that’s precisely what you are doing. You are ignoring His commands and the penalty for transgressing them.
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? (Romans 6:1-2) It starts with the acknowledgment of personal responsibility for imposition and neglect of the standards of Yahweh. Only the fool looks at the torture stake of the Messiah and reckons that continuing sin has no consequence. Anyone who rejected the law of Mosheh died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of the Mighty One underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the shed blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? (Hebrews 10:28-29)
His death settled your debts, and because of His death every debt must be settled. Tread lightly loved one; how can you who have died to sin live in it any longer?