Obviously, Satan works hard to give us what I call “wrong-ness.” He wants us to continually feel and believe that we just don’t measure up to what we should be and that something is inherently wrong with us. God gives us “right-ness” through Jesus Christ, or as the Bible says, “we are now justified, (acquitted, made righteous, and brought into right relationship with God) by Christ’s blood” (Romans 5:9).
The fact that God sent His only beloved Son to die a painful death in our place assigns value to us and lets us know God loves us immensely. The Bible says we are bought with a price, a price that is precious-the blood of Jesus (see 1 Peter 1:19). He paid for our misdeeds, secured our justification, made our account with God balance and absolved us from all guilt (see Romans 4:25). Jesus is our substitute. He stood in our place taking what we deserved (punishment as sinners), and freely giving us what He deserves (every kind of blessing).
This is huge! We immediately are transferred from a state of being wrong to a state of being viewed by God as right through faith in Jesus and the work He did on the cross. We are transferred out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light (see 1 Peter 2:9 and Colossians 1:1). We might also say we go from death to life as far as our quality of life is concerned. The grace of God purchased our freedom and faith is the hand that reaches out and receives it.
Though nothing ever done on Earth could match or even come close to the awesome gift Jesus gave us on the cross, I once heard a story that provides a good illustration to help us begin to understand what He did for us.
One winter’s night in 1935, it is told, Fiorello LaGuardia, the irrepressible mayor of New York City, showed up at a night court in the poorest ward of the city. He dismissed the judge for the evening and took over the bench. That night a tattered old woman, charged with stealing a loaf of bread, was brought before him. She defended herself by saying, “My daughter’s husband has deserted her. She is sick, and her children are starving.” The shopkeeper refused to drop the charges, saying, “It’s a bad neighborhood, your honor, and she’s got to be punished to teach other people a lesson.”
LaGuardia sighed. He turned to the old woman and said, “I’ve got to punish you; the law makes no exceptions. Ten dollars or ten days in jail.” However, while pronouncing the sentence, LaGuardia reached into his pocket, took out a ten dollar bill, and threw it into his hat with these famous words: “Here’s the ten dollar fine, which I now remit, and furthermore, I’m going to fine everyone in the courtroom fifty cents for living in a town where a person has to steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat. Mr. Bailiff, collect the fines and give them to the defendant.” The following day, a New York newspaper reported: “Forty-seven dollars and fifty cents was turned over to a bewildered old grandmother who had stolen a loaf of bread to feed her starving grandchildren. Making forced donations were a red-faced storekeeper, seventy petty criminals, and a few New York policemen.”
Mayor LaGuardia made an important point when he said she must be punished and then paid her fine. His example reminds us that God’s justice required that our sins be paid for and Jesus paid for them. When the mayor took up money from everyone in the courtroom to help the grandmother buy food, his point was: Something is wrong with a world in which a grandmother has to steal! Something is wrong with a place where children don’t have anything to eat. He refused to allow the “wrongness” of the world to affect that grandmother. I think his message was that we all need to help those who are less fortunate than we are. He stepped in and made the situation right for her-he did not ask if she deserved it; he simply helped her.
Think about It
Do you regularly receive God’s grace and freely give it to others?
