It’s the sort of stuff you wouldn’t want to have posted on your Facebook page. It’s the list that you’d just as soon had never been written . . . but you know it has. It’s fuel for the fire the “accuser of the brethren” wants to fan into flame. It’s the stuff you’d rather not think about . . . the stuff you’d just as soon forget. It’s the ways of the flesh . . . the deeds of shame . . . the acts of rebellion. It demands a reckoning . . . it requires a price to be paid . . . it results in a debt we owe. And this morning, I am moved as I am reminded that the debt has been paid in full . . . that I am debt free.

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it to the cross.    (Colossians 2:13-14 ESV)

I accumulated debt for 19 years. Though I “believed” there was probably a God, in my arrogance I reasoned that if I left Him alone, He’d leave me alone . . . and that we’d “work it out” when the time came. By the world’s standard, I was considered a “good kid.” But by the holy standard of the One who created me for for His glory, my “goodness” was like “a polluted garment” (Isa. 64:6) . . . my self-righteousness was worthless . . . and my arrogant bargaining with God was like “an open grave” (Rom. 3:13).

I didn’t know I was accumulating debt . . . dead men walking aren’t able to reason such things . . . but I was.

But then, by His grace alone, God made me alive together in His Son. Through the active agency of His Holy Spirit, God began the process of raising me from the dead . . . first catching my attention with a reminder of my mortality . . . then opening my eyes to see a God with whom I was in no position to barter and debate . . . gently softening my heart to the reality of my transgressions against the God of the universe . . . patiently imparting an understanding of the magnitude of my debt . . . and then revealing the reality of that debt having been paid in full by His Son.

He canceled the record of debt that stood against me . . . He set it aside . . . He nailed it to the cross.

When He who knew no sin was made sin for us (2Cor. 5:21) that list of stuff I’d just as soon never existed was nailed to the cross with Him. He bore the reproach . . . He suffered the consequences . . . He paid the price in full . . . so that “in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2Cor. 5:21). The debt has been canceled.

And now, in a sense, I’m on the “pre-paid plan.” Not that I presume upon the blood of Christ or the grace of God . . . not that I purpose to continue to transgress the God who so wondrously saved me, knowing that He “has it covered.” But the reality is that I still do stuff . . . think stuff . . . respond to stuff . . . in a way that I wouldn’t want written “on my wall” . . . stuff I regret . . . stuff the accuser will still try and use. But that stuff too was nailed to the cross . . . and I know that if I confess my sin He is faithful and just to forgive me my sin and cleanse me from all unrighteousness (1John 1:9) . . . the cleansing blood of Christ having been applied to all my sin — past, present, and future . . . the price paid in full such that I am no longer accumulating debt.

O’ what a wondrous salvation . . . what a wonderful Savior!

Debt free . . . by His grace alone . . . for His glory alone!