No Wages to Pay (Lent 40, 2024)

Have you ever gotten to an interstate toll booth and the person ahead of you paid yours in addition to their own? You arrive at the booth, but no payment is due. Someone else had already done that.

In a much more profound way, Jesus paid our debt that we could never repay and that’s how He came to save the world.

“The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)

Because of Him and His payment for our sin, our names yet can be recorded—by faith—in the Book of Life. That Book of Life testifies to believers’ redemption by the blood of Christ which washed clean all their evil deeds recorded in the Book of deeds.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Judgment is still in the future though no one knows when it will be. So, please, if you have not done so…right now is the perfect moment to accept the sacrifice of Christ for mankind. It’s not too late as long as Judgment Day is still in the future and you’re alive now to make that decision to follow Christ.

On the church calendar, today is Holy Saturday, the one day in which death momentarily claimed the One who never sinned and therefore, had no debt to pay. The first death, the physical death, claimed Him. But Death’s victory was short-lived and premature.

You see, Jesus is in the grave for now, but Sunday is coming. Mortality existed even for the only One who never deserved it!! No sin. No wages of sin. No death as a penalty. Had it not been for the love of the Father, the Image of God, and the fact of Jesus’ Incarnation, God could have us pay the wages ourselves, be lost forever, and be done with it. But the whole reason He came was to seek and save the lost who bear the Image of His Father. It was love that made Him do it.

Jesus showed us how to live and taught us that we will fall short, time and again, because mankind can do no other as sinners. We can’t help but fall short and commit the very sins that made His death necessary to save all of mankind. It was His divine Love that accomplished this victory over sin and death.

“God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us,
so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.
(2 Corinthians 5:21)

Do you want to have His righteousness and your name in the Book of Life?
You can pray this prayer:

Lord Jesus, thank You for dying on the Cross for me. I ask for Your forgiveness because I sin … even when I’m trying not to sin. It’s like I can’t help it. But I want to change and I’m sorry for my sins against Your Image in me and other people. I need Your grace and mercy! Please cleanse me with Your blood so my name can be found in the Book of Life. I need You, Lord Jesus. I love You. Amen.

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This concludes the Lenten Devotional Series “Seeing His Love with New Eyes”. Thank you for joining me. It’s the joy of my heart to write these and create the photos that accompany them. Wishing you all a blessed Easter!

“Seeing His Love with New Eyes”. began on Ash Wednesday, February 14 and can be found in the archives.

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Understanding that prior years’ devotionals continue to minister, you may want to have access to a full series:

Lent 2013 looked at The Letter to the Romans: Paul’s Masterpiece to reclaim foundations of our Christian heritage and began February 13, 2013.
A very special and ever popular offering was Lent 2014’s Be Still and Know that I AM God which can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014.
Lent 2015 began on February 18, 2015 with a series entitled With Christ in the Upper Room: Final Preparations. We explored what is often called “The Upper Room Discourse” found in John chapters 13-17.
ReKindle, the Lent 2016 series, began on February 10, 2016 and encouraged us to rekindle our spiritual lives.
Light: There’s Nothing Like It was the 2017 Lent series and explored this metaphor often used to portray Christ. It is archived beginning March 1, 2017.
Lent 2018, we explored the questions of Pi and Chi (the Greek letter beginning the word Christos, which means Christ, Messiah, the Anointed One). We asked and answered the questions “Why?” from the movie Life of Pi as we discovered the uniqueness of Jesus Christ in a world of many faiths.
Lent 2019 gave us a deeper window into Easter “More to the Easter Story” since we miss so much when we rely only on a superficial understanding of the work of Christ. These devotionals are archived beginning March 6, 2019.
Our Lent 2020 devotional series offered prayer points surrounding “Be Thou My Vision” and were aimed at helping us to see God for who He is. The full set of devotionals are archived beginning February 26, 2020.
The theme for 2021 Lent Devotionals was how to live between two worlds while waiting for Christ’s return. Into the gap between the City of Man and its fixation upon sin and the City of God with its demand for holiness, two words minister peace: But God. Praise God for His intervention! They are archived beginning February 17, 2021.
Revelation in 40 devotionals for 2022 offered 40 vignettes, scenes, concepts, and thoughts to inspire us to read the Book of Revelation as it is written and to go deeper. They are archived beginning March 2, 2022.
Last year’s devotionals “Created to Display His Image” explored what it truly means to be made in God’s Image and the profound significance of that fact. They are archived beginning February 22, 2023.