“Come now, let’s settle this,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool.” Isaiah 1:18
There’s nothing like the feeling you get when you pay off a bill or debt. It can be as small as a credit card balance or as large as a mortgage, but either way you feel a little bit lighter. A weight, big or small, has been lifted off your shoulders and it’s great! Then you get that “PAID IN FULL” receipt in the mail, and you stick it in a box or drawer with all your other receipts.
What if, after you’ve completely paid that bill off, you get a call or letter from that very same company asking you when you’re going to make your next payment? Why, you’d march right over to that drawer, pull out that receipt you’d stashed away, and email them a copy! And you’d do it with that “I don’t know why they’re calling me, I’ve been done paid that bill off” kind of attitude.
Well, that’s exactly what our Heavenly Father wants us to do when it comes to our sin. When our adversary, the devil, or even our minds want to remind us of our mistakes, failures and sins, God wants us to remind ourselves and the enemy that those debts have been settled. PAID IN FULL, right there as plain as day, is stamped on that receipt/statement and it’s been stamped in the blood of Jesus Himself.
Even as far back as the days of Isaiah, the desire of God’s heart has always been that we would experience the freedom that comes with knowing our account has been settled. God wants us to understand that we have been fully forgiven and made righteous because another, Jesus, paid the price. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, Paul wrote it this way in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.”
Today, when the enemy, or even your own doubts, try to tell you that you still owe, remind him that the blood of Jesus says it’s all been settled!