Disposable slaves, you and me
Death sentence on our foreheads;
Never to be free, never to live
Our case, sealed until He dropped
The check that drained His account.
The check that turned the Rich, a debtor
Was the check of my redemption
The swap that secured my freedom
Was transaction that sealed his condemnation
Humbled divinity in garbs of humanity.
Very dearly He paid, to sign that check
Very far, very low He came to deliver it
And though salvation is given, free for all
Yet, it was a very dear price He paid the day
He signed the pricey check of redemption
© 2019, The Check, G. C. Odemene
When are we ever going to learn that nothing anywhere is free? Free stuff doesn’t mean that there isn’t a price attached. If anything is offered freely to you, it means that someone else paid or is going to pay for what you are getting without paying. Whenever you ask for something you are not paying for, be aware that everything has a price. Next time you are celebrating something you are receiving for free, pause and be grateful that the payment is coming off of someone else’s check.
Celebration of every Christian festival takes me back to Easter. Each time we celebrate Christ’s birth, I am reminded of why He came, which as always lands me at His death and resurrection. Jesus, although God, didn’t come that far to show us how God looked in human form. He didn’t come to give us reasons to feast and shop throughout this season. He didn’t come to get a taste of what it feels like to be man. No one born to riches would want to taste poverty, abuses, betrayal, denial, grueling suffering and horrific death just to see what it feels like. If it felt good, believe me, Jesus wouldn’t be pleading with His Father in the garden that night, to take away this option for salvation if it were possible.
It was a tough decision to start with. He knew what would go with that assignment. As it approached, He could feel the cost of it all; crushing weight of the sins of all humanity. The unbearable burden of the rejection of a Father He has always loved and obeyed. The incredible heaviness of the physical suffering which came with the ultimate sacrifice that brought God to tears. Jesus knew way ahead what He was in for and when all that weight knocked Him to His knees that night in Gethsemane, where He sweated blood and water, He prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39, NIV) The Message version broke it down a little further: “My Father, if there is any way, get me out of this. But please, not what I want. You, what do you want?”
This is the perfect example of what it means to seek to know and to live God’s will. Why would anyone want to know something they are not going to do anyway? Let’s reverse that question: why would God bother to reveal His will to someone who doesn’t care and won’t obey? Obedience, not only when it is okay. Not only when we can. When it gets to that point where the cost is way too expensive for us to bear, when we know we can hardly live down the embarrassment of the Father’s assignment, when what is asked is too much and way beyond what we can give on our own: that beloved is living the will of God. Otherwise, why know the will of God if you won’t do it? And why refuse to do the will you know because the price is too much? If it cost us nothing, then we didn’t need God but if costs more than we can afford on our own, then we truly and desperately need God to help us do His will.
To be continued December 27, 2019.
Glory!