By Nick Batzig
The bill came in the mail, and I grumbled audibly as I opened it. It was our city property tax bill for the year. It wasn’t the county property tax statement—we had already paid that one. Nor was it the local school taxes, or an excise tax, or an income tax. This was another level of taxation entirely, one that I forget about every year until that blasted bill comes in the mail.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I don’t think I should be taxed. I understand that tax revenue is necessary for our concentric levels of government to provide basic goods and services, like roads and schools and IRS auditors. My beef with this particular tax, and property taxes in general, is that they never end. No matter how long my wife and I live in our home, the bills will keep coming. Long after the final mortgage payment has been made, we’ll be paying property taxes. Year after year after year. Even when we’re dead and buried, and our sons inherit what we’ve left behind, the bills will not relent. They’ll come just the same.
It sort of makes home ownership a myth, right? As long as property taxes exist, no one will ever really own their home, because if you stop paying those taxes, the government will eventually put a lien on your house. Then they’ll take it to sell it at auction and settle your tax bill. You can be thrown out into the street, even though you’ve paid for the property in full.
I bring this up because it strikes me that a lot of people view their sin this way. As if Jesus paid for our sins on the cross, but that was once, a long time ago, and the bills are still coming, requiring payment from us in the form of good works or religious behavior. But, as pervasive as our sin is, the redemption Christ purchased for us is more so. God’s grace is bigger and broader than our worst offenses.
The apostle Paul wrote, “Who can bring an accusation against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies. Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is the one who died, but even more, has been raised; he also is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us. Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?” (Romans 8:33–35). The answer is no to all of the above. No one and nothing can separate us from the love of God, because our sin has been paid for in full.
The author of Hebrews was even clearer on the subject. He wrote that the sacrificial system of ancient Israel had been “a reminder of sins year after year” (Hebrews 10:3), like a tax bill that’s never satisfied. But the sacrifice of Christ, on the other hand, is “once for all…. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (vv.10,14).
The bill has been paid, once and forever. Salvation is ours in Christ, free and clear. But the best part—our home is with Him, now and forever. Amen.
Written by John Greco
43 thoughts on "Sin and Redemption"
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Joel Van Mersbergen says:
Again, I will pray Romans 12:2. That my mind will be renewed and my way of thinking changed by Him.
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William Pierce says:
He’s chosen me! He’s chosen me to be His son and his disciple. He works through me to accomplish His goal, and works in me to make me like Him.
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God has chosen His elect whom we cannot know. The fact that He predestined those he foreknew is astonishing as it is, because that means He knew what we would do to Him. Yet, despite all of our sin, our God loves us.
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In our sin we are doomed. Without Christ our lives are dead already and deserving that very death, but we’ve been forgiven and are being sanctified by our faith in Jesus Christ alone.
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Live out my life in the hope of the gospel that I might be used to call forth His elect to salvation.
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For courage to keep fighting when persecution of any kind approaches me, and to keep repenting of my sins daily till I go home.
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Dillon Davis says:
He is Mighty to Save. He is the Author of Salvation. The book is written in His precious blood. He understands the weaknesses of humanity.
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Man is weak. Man needs Jesus. Man wants to do good but is at war with himself.
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That Jesus ended that war once and for all. He won. He humiliated sin and death and put on a display so shocking people are still talking about it thousands of years later.
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I guess I ought to be humbled by it. I’m not such hot stuff. Seriously.
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Lord I’m exhausted and out of it. Idk what to say and idk what to do. What I’d really like to do is curl
Up and die or sleep for three years but I don’t have the luxury…I really need you every day but I’m very aware of it today….I’m sorry that in my good times I’m not as quick to do the right thing…idk…I’m so tired Lord -
Robert Johns says:
God understands our battle, as He has been tempted like we are.
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Man is erratic by nature. One moment living right, the very next doing what he knows not to do.
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Accept the battle and lean on Christ and others to fight well.
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The Gospel has a certain tension to it, and that’s ok. It doesn’t free us from temptation or battle – it’s the source of forgiveness and reconciliation when we lose those battles.
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God – I am a wretched man, doing what I know I shouldn’t. Give me strength to resist temptation, and more than that give me a vision of the Christ-centered life.
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Nehemiah says:
In the darkest of days… at rock bottom, he is there. He wants to free us from ourselves and deliver us from our sinful nature.
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There is no escaping sin. We are sinners who consistently and frequently fall short. We must seek Gods forgiveness and repent fully before we become victim to our own destruction. The longer we live in sin, the easier it is to justify why we don’t make the changes in our live that we need to. Even when God tugs on our heart strings to seek him and change our ways, it’s easy to make excuses and name off all the responsibility we have. No amount of accomplishment in the worldly sense will ever compare to even a single moment spent in prayer and worship with our savior.
We can spend a lifetime living a lie and accomplishing nothing, or we can truly begin to start living by living in and Gods word.
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Work on reading daily and spending time with God daily. Work to create and follow a routine until that routine becomes as second nature.
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God is with us in all ways and through all things. No matter the sin, he is there. No matter the struggle, he has provided a clear way out.
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