This week's promise: God honors truth

So good, it has to be true!

Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of sin, whose lives are lived in complete honesty!

No, it's so good it has to be true.

I never paid the bill

When I was boy, my mother would go to Margulie's grocery store, get what she needed, and tell Mr. Margulie to put it on her bill. Every once in a while, Mama would send me to Margulie's for something and tell me to put it on our bill. As I got older, I realized that Daddy had paid the bill. By the time I charged the next piece of bologna, the first piece had already been paid for.

God says blessed is he who goes down to Mr. Margulie's store. When he gets there, his books are clean because Daddy has already paid the bill. God says that when you come before him and sincerely repent, the record of that sin is paid for in full. There's no record of your past bill.

Some of us can confess to bringing home something from a toy store without paying for it. We were probably six or seven years old, and we thought we'd pulled a fast one. But, of course, Mom and Dad always found out. They warned us that we might be doing time on the rock pile for pilfering that box of Legos, and they dragged us back to the store. As we walked up to the owner with the Legos, we thought we were doomed. In most cases, grace entered the picture. The owner didn't call the police, but he did scare us half to death with a warning never to steal again. For most of us, that fixed our wagon once and for all.

Like the storeowner, God could hold our sins against us, but he doesn't. He doesn't because Jesus has already paid for the Legos. For that, we "sing with joy to the Lord" (Psalm 33:1).

Adapted from Men of Integrity Devotional Bible with devotions from the editors of Men of Integrity, a publication of Christianity Today International (Tyndale, 2002), entry for May 12.

Content is derived from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation and other publications of Tyndale Publishing House