“I Am a Debtor . . .”

“I Am a Debtor . . .”

To whom? To everyone. What do I owe? My life, everything. 1 John 3:16-17. “For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God’s ministers attending continually to this very thing. Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law.” Rom. 13:6-8.

I can pay a bill, and I can be finished with paying taxes for a time. Righteousness compels me to do it. However, I will never be finished with the un-ending debt to which love has brought me, and which is constantly being renewed. I will never be finished with that debt nor do I wish to be finished with it, for “it is more blessed to give than to receive.” Acts 20:33-35.

I kill many birds with one stone by loving, serving, and giving: I bless the others first and at the same time become the most blessed person myself.

By and large, people are pitifully poor and down-and-out. There is not much they can afford, particularly in the spiritual realm. Therefore they are very busy demanding their rights and collecting what they think is owed to them. The misfortune of this world is that people make demands on each other. In their eyes it is the others who are indebted to them. They shall pay; they shall give; they shall serve; they must be considerate; they shall conduct themselves differently; they shall straighten out their own lives; they shall increase your wages; they ought to offer you all kinds of things; they must submit, etc., etc. All these poor wretches—they shall pay!

When the love of Christ fills my heart and remains there, I will always feel that I am in all kinds of debt to everyone. I am the man! It is only I who am indebted and who shall therefore pay. It is precisely I who shall serve and give, help and bear, forebear and suffer, be considerate and submit, etc.

Three men used to eat and drink together. Each time they drew lots as to who should pay. They were to write, “I shall pay” on a piece of paper. However, two of them agreed to cheat, so that “I shall pay” was written on all three pieces of paper. They let the third one, who was a simpleton, always be first to read what it said on the paper. So he was the one who had to pay every time. And he paid every time; he paid everything. This was deception.

However, it was not cheating that Jesus Christ came down to our earth out of love and paid dearly all that we owed.

Neither is it cheating when Jesus’ indwelling love transforms my mind and my understanding so that I always feel that I am the one who is indebted, that I am the one who shall pay and who is and will be blessed by doing it.

It is of little use to demand that a poor man shall pay. It is more fitting for the rich. Unfortunately, there are no such people in the entire world, with the exception of the few whose hearts are filled with Christ’s fervent love. They can pay, for they possess an inexhaustible fountain from which to draw, a fountain of living water in their inner man. Living water flows forth from it for time and eternity. Glory to God!

Figuratively speaking, we can say that it is always a question of who shall pay. Blessed is each one who always knows that “I shall pay!”