Nothing gets your attention like the word free. At baseball games they give away free bobble-heads, county fairs offer you free balloons, and your dad’s company picnic encourages you to head over for free face painting and ice cream. Here’s the deal. Bobbleheads, balloons, face painting, and ice cream might be free to you, but they are not free. Someone had to pay for them, whether the baseball team’s marketing department, the people working the booth at the fair, or your dad’s company.
In the Bible, God tells you that you can come to him, through Jesus, for free. You don’t have to pay for anything. For Jesus, however, it was incredibly expensive. He had to obey every single one of God’s rules every single day of his life. (It’s hard to obey your parents for just one day, isn’t it?) Then, he let people spit on him, whip him, and hang him on a cross. He stood in front of you and told his father, “Punish me instead.”
“Realize that you weren’t set free from the worthless life handed down to you from your ancestors by a payment of silver or gold which can be destroyed. Rather, the payment that freed you was the precious blood of Christ, the lamb with no defects or imperfections” (1 Peter 1:18,19).
Dear Jesus, thank you for thinking that I was so valuable that you were willing to pay with your whole life and death so that I could go to heaven for free. You have saved me from guilt, from sin, and from an eternity of torture in hell. Thank you. Amen.
