16 For God loved the world in this way:[a] He gave[b] his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16 CSB)
6 And for this reason you pay taxes, since the authorities are God’s servants, continually attending to these tasks.[a]7 Pay your obligations to everyone: taxes to those you owe taxes, tolls to those you owe tolls, respect to those you owe respect,and honor to those you owe honor. (Romans 13:6-7 CSB)
Today, on this Good Friday, I am going to challenge you like God challenged me this morning.
Possibly, like you, I just did my taxes and if I am honest on this Good Friday I was bitter. Coming off of some rough years having to swallow the hard pill of paying more was really not sitting well with me the last few days. Waking up this morning and wanting to look forward to the renewal of Easter weekend and celebrating our Risen Savior was being pushed aside in my mind.
Then both of these scriptures were presnted to me in my morning reading. I especially stuck upon this one part, ”Pay your obligations to everyone.”
We are no longer a society of obligations. We believe we are obliging to no one and expect everyone to be obliging to us.
I have probably quoted this from Mark Twain before, ”Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”
I change it a bit and replace his word ”living” with ”anything”.
We may not be able to agree upon many points anymore, but the one thing that I can rely upon without fail is God’s word. So I am choosing today to take the scripture I may like less with the one that saved my life.
I will pay my obligation to everyone, be that taxes, tolls, respect, or honor with my eyes fixed upon heaven. The place I am going not because God is obliged to allow me in, but because He gave his one and only son to let me in.
