Credit

It is midnight and I have just finished my bullet points for our group project. The topic: Credit. How to Build, Maintain and Repair Credit, with emphasis on the college student and FICO. There's so much to research about it, it seems impossible at first. And then, once you get the hang of it, it seems simple. Deceptively simple. And as I research, I find that it can take 7-15 years to erase bad credit off of your report. Fifteen years! That's an eternity where your finances are concerned. How many opportunities will you miss out in fifteen years, how many times will you be unable to do something because you have bad credit? You won't be able to buy that house. You won't be able to get a loan, and you may not even be able to get a job. That's pretty intense, if you ask me.

Then it got me to thinking about God. Our lives on credit where the heavenly kingdom is concerned, so to speak. I remember being little, and even though my head knew that this wasn't how God worked, the rest of me was convinced that every sin I did was part of a huge long list of things I did wrong-- bad credit-- and that there was nothing that could really get me out of that mess. Oh sure, I had Jesus, but how could even he do anything to make a dent in that huge long "naughty" list that put even Santa Clause's to shame? I had bad credit. Truthfully, I still do. If you want to keep track of my sins and apply them to my credit record, I don't think there's enough time in hundreds of years to return my credit score to something even close to acceptable. And that is the simple truth of it: I will never be able to fix my credit score on my own.

Pretty depressing thought, isn't it? My credit is in the tank, and there is nothing I can do about it. I will never be able to enter the heavenly kingdom, because not only is it something you can't charge to your account, but my credit prevents me from even considering such an outrageous deal.

But it doesn't have to be that way. In fact, it no longer is that way because my credit score no longer matters. I no longer have to cringe at the list of offenses because I am no longer living on a credit system. I have ditched that. I am now part of the grace system. The second I was willing to trust Jesus with everything I was, everything I am, and everything I will be, the second I committed my life to following Him, my bad credit ceased to matter. In His eyes (the only eyes that matter) it was wiped clean. It was perfect. You can't say that about anything else, because according to human standards, it just doesn't make any logical sense. You never hear stories about the IRS saying to someone with thirty years of fraud, "You know what, we can see your heart, we know you're contrite, don't worry about this anymore. It's all going to go away." It just would never happen. But God, in his infinite wisdom and love gave us a way to escape our bad credit, to leave it behind and to once again have fellowship with us, a relationship that could not exist with our bad credit in the way. We were made righteous in His name, through His name. I love the verse in Romans that talks about this:


"But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished--he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus."
--Romans 3:21-26


To the "law," a grace filled relationship doesn't make sense. Black and white. You sin you're out, bad credit, you're done. Come back later when you're "clean." But we have grace through Christ, we are given righteousness and are sanctified in His name.

"There is no difference, for ALL have sinned." According to the latter part of the verse, no one ever stood a chance. We were cursed with bad credit from the beginning. It was only through faith that our bad credit was justified, that we were absolved, vindicated. I think it is important that we pay close attention to the fact that Paul mentions (multiple times) that God is JUST. And, since he is just, he could not simply cancel our debts and stay true to his nature. His very nature is one of justice. So, Jesus took the fall for us, a fall that we would have had to take if He had refused. He didn't have to endure the pain, He didn't have to take all of our sins upon himself and suffer so we could be saved from the ramifications of our bad credit, but he did. I stand by my earlier blog entry: Crazy Love. Truly, it is crazy love.

And now, I am so grateful, I am so blessed that I no longer have to watch my credit score with despair, because it no longer matters. In His eyes, my score is perfect, in His eyes, I am beautiful. I am justified in faith, I am vindicated from the bad credit that would have weighed me down, that ultimately meant my death. So I am going to tear up my credit report and throw it to the wind, because I am loved by a just and powerful God, one who would give his only Son as an atonement for all the things in my past, present and future that would have affected my score. We have all sinned, we cannot escape that fact, but we are "justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ." How amazing is that? How amazing is our God?