Focus: Pay What You Owe!

Text: Rom.8:12

"Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh."

"We are debtors…" All of us, and how right Paul was! We owe God and our fellow men. The question to ask is, what sort of debt are we owing?

*It is a spiritual debt.

Paul makes it clear that we are not owing the flesh to obey its demands. We should not let the flesh to dictate to us, to enslave us, or tell us what to do. Indebtedness is a form of enslavement. To be free of debts is real freedom. We are in no way indebted to our sinful flesh.

Our debt is to the spirit. We are bound to live in conformity with what God wants. Our spirit has a direct connection with God, and so we are designed to spiritually align ourselves with God. We are required and expected to sow to the spirit, not to the flesh. We have no debt to pay to the flesh.

*It is a moral debt.

Our Lord Jesus Christ taught us to pray, "And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors" (Mt.6:12). When God forgives our sins, it is like debt cancellation. Sin puts us in a moral debt. Our sins make us moral debtors. For every sin we commit, we are owing both God and man. The prodigal son understood this, for he said to his father, "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son" (Lk.15:21). Our sin has both vertical and horizontal effects. Our sin is mainly an affront to God. It is offensive to God. It separates us from God and alienates us from our fellow man. Sin dehumanizes us. It makes us moral debtors and spiritual slaves.

God has given us the awesome privilege of receiving pardon for our moral debts through prayer.

Jesus Christ died on the cross to free us from our moral debts. Twice Paul says, "You are bought with a price" (1Cor.6:20; 7:23). Peter tells us about those who are "denying the Lord that bought them" (2Pet.2:1). Amazingly, Christ bought us with His blood. We are God's purchased possession. Our debt, therefore, is to Him. We owe Him our whole life and all our possessions.

*It is a social debt.

Paul tells the church in Rome, "I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise" (Rom.1:14). In effect, Paul is saying, 'I owe humanity for Christ's sake.' We are, like Paul, debtors to all of humanity. Having saved us from our moral debts, God wants us to do everything we can to win the world to Christ. We are meant to function on earth as Christ's witnesses, and we are meant to live winsome lives - winning souls by our lives as well as by our lips. We win souls by living winsomely.

*It is a debt of love.

Paul writes, "Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law" (Rom.13:8). We owe all men our love. God has flooded our hearts with His love for the purpose of serving others with it. God blessed Abraham for him to be a blessing to all of humanity. The love God has given you is for someone else. You are a channel of divine love. From you the love of God flows to others.

Life itself is a loan. God wants you to use the life He has loaned to you to serve the world around you. All that we seem to own in this world, we actually owe to God. All that God has given us is enough to go round. Begin now to pay your debts, and remember that you owe nothing to the flesh, but to the spirit!

by Bishop Moses E. Peter