Everyone has a price. Every last one. We have sold out our honor and integrity in the moment to something seemingly more important. "Our word is our bond" we say, but even the strongest of us break it easily for something. That something for me has predominantly been my lust (amongst many other things). I have historically broken appointments, ignored the needs of my friends and forsaken God in order to sate it. Inevitably, I find that when I do so, my life is like a trash bag with a hole in the bottom. It's not even worthy of the stinking filth it's supposed to hold. I am worthy only to be thrown away. More so, I'm deserving of judgment and in need of forgiveness by the ones I have neglected.
In no way can I call myself better than any man and, often caught red-handed, my defensive walls go up, accusations against the other begins, and I try to defend my "phantom honor." Much like a painting that has been taken off a wall after years in one place, there is the shade of something that should be there but I cannot grasp what was lost. Foolishly, I try to point out that it did, in fact, at one time, actually exist. Pathetic! I humble myself here so that no one can call me self-righteous when I tell this story:
While working at my job, a student approached me asking for two dollars: One for himself and the other for his friend. I pulled out two, crisp Washingtons for him on the condition that he repay me. He agreed. We had an unwritten contract sealed by his word. A week passed and I asked him for my money back. He balked and suggested that it was only two dollars and was not a big deal. In a sense this was true. I didn't need the money and he knew it. Still, in response, I said:
"Money is not the issue here. The issue is your word and right now you're telling me that you're willing to sell out your word for something as minor as two dollars. If you are bought off so lowly, how can I or anyone else ever trust you for anything?"The next time we talked, I brought this up and said that I would never speak of it again. I also let him know again that there could be no trust on my part for him. He payed me back a few months later. In any case, we are all deal breakers who thirst for honor that does not exist in ourselves or anyone else we know. Our desire for such an impossible standard is evidence to me that it does exist. Thus, what astonished me today was the realization that Jesus had no price EVEN THOUGH the exchange placed before Him was His life in return for a torn trash bag: Of infinitely less value than two dollars yet somehow greatly prized.
I write this to give us all hope. There is goodness and great love from God just for us. Though we cannot find it in ourselves or others we can find it in Jesus and it is so good. Rest in Jesus and stop trying to work hard to be good. Learn His grace more than your failings. If you can't forgive yourself for the past, ask Him to lift that burden from your shoulders. He already finished those works when He died and rose again for us.
