Made Righteous By Faith Series

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own, and we will too. But we must learn to appreciate the full bag of gifts laid on us at the cross.

Ransomed! Sold out to the devil, but bought back by Jesus. You could not pay the price that was being required of you. No way! How much does it cost for you to sin against God? Here, Lord, let me offer you some money for that sin?

In Rome, such talk is commonplace. Want a soul out of purgatory a little sooner? They are there for their sins, right? Well, buy an indulgence. Give the priest an offering and he will pray officially for you in the next mass.

You say, they don’t teach it like that. No but the people hear it like that. I’ll give some money to the priest, he’ll pray, and my dear departed aunt Susie will spend a few days less in torment.

Think you can buy off God? Do you remember what happened to Simon the magician of Acts 8, when he offered money for the Holy Spirit?

Remember what happened to the Jews when they offered their dead works and rituals and sacrifices to God without heart?

How about you? Have you been offering things to God hoping that would save you, make you right with Him? There is no way you can ever be more right with God than you are by virtue of the facts of Calvary. When you accept that sacrifice as your own, you realize the price has already been paid. From that moment nothing you can do at church or at home or in your prayer closet will ever make you more righteous in His sight. He sees you through the blood of His Son.

Ransomed. Redeemed.

You know how ransoms work. One morning, in the mailbox, a parent receives a note from a kidnapper. Their child is away at college, but he has just been abducted. He will be returned only after an exorbitant price has

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been paid to the kidnappers. The parents panic and call friends and relatives and desperately try to raise money. But they can’t. It’s just too much. They try to negotiate, but the abductors are firm. This amount, or you will never see your son again. Sometimes the story ends there.

In other cases, a hero emerges. Someone with deep pockets steps forward, gives the parents the money to pay the ransom. The son is restored. Through effective investigation and with time, the kidnapper is caught and brought to justice and everyone lives happily ever after. Even the money is returned.

That’s your story. One morning you get the message somewhere deep inside of you that you just can’t keep resisting temptation. You give in. You start sinning. And you sin more and more. You aren’t happy with yourself. You want out. You receive messages from the whole round of false teachers. Rome says you can make it if you join them and are willing to spend eons in Purgatory. Other religions come along and tell you to just keep trying to be good. God is just. He knows that if you try your best, you’ve got just as much chance as anyone.

You try it all. Nothing relieves you from the original lostness, the original bondage. Then one day, you are told of a hero that already emerged many years ago and paid the price for your bondage. If you will put your hand in His and believe the Redeemer, you will find peace and freedom and deliverance. The debt has already been paid.