Grocery Store

Grocery Store

The other day I went grocery shopping. It is one of my most dreaded pastimes, but something I am stuck doing. Inevitably, my list gets longer and longer the more I travel through the aisles. It is a challenge some days to see if I can get all the way through the store without adding anything to my list! One thing literally leads to another. I remember that I have to have another ingredient to make the recipe that I all the sudden have a craving for. 15 ingredients later, I am set for the week (o.k. that isn't true…I will be back 3 days later)!

This particular day, with my cart loaded with 7 extra items, I swipe my credit card, grab my bags and head home. I start unloading them into my kitchen when I am struck all the sudden with the realization that I have no clue how much I spent. Most of the time I could guess, round about even, but this time I seriously had no clue! The trouble is that just because I don't know, I still will have to pay for it in 30 days. No getting out of it, I bought the stuff, stocked my shelves with it, it's mine.

So let me ask you a question. How much did your sin cost you today? Have you stockpiled it, one after another without thinking? Did one sin lead to another until your load is too heavy to carry? Are you at a place where you really don't even know how you got here?

It's so funny how quickly that can happen. Just like in a store, there is something in you that is almost on autopilot. A certain smell, and you are at the bakery buying a cake. Which triggers your memory to something your friend made and you want to try, so off to another aisle to buy more stuff. Your mind almost just takes over and you feel as if you were in the twilight zone…30 minutes later you are standing in the checkout line with no recollection of how you got there. Yep, that describes how quickly unrepentant sin will take you down.

How many times do you find yourself thinking about someone in a negative way? Assuming that you know exactly what they are thinking about you? Assuming you know their motives because you just know. That little thought left unchecked will slowly lead into you getting mad at them, which left unchecked will lead into bitterness, which will lead into chains and pits and captivity. Wow that went fast didn't it?

Or how about this scenario: your buddies want to go have a good time! (We've all heard this before) They choose a bar, which you really don't want to go to because you know the temptation, but decide you can just shoot a few games of pool and leave. No harm done, right? Well of course you get thirsty, so you justify that one beer won't take you where it did last time. You WILL stay in control. But slowly and surely, the night goes on and on, and you find yourself being helped to a cab, worse yet, that cute girl is sitting beside you, taking you "home". The morning comes, the regret sets in and once again, the chains are wrapped tighter and tighter.

We can run through a million scenarios here. Every one of us has our vices that love to squeeze us tight! And every vice offers one thing: slavery!

But Jesus Christ is standing there, with His Hand held out offering us something quite different! He is offering a payment. Whether we want to admit it or not, all those little unchecked sins that we just do without even thinking, come at a cost. And the time is coming or has come to pay them. Most of the time we don't even realize what the price of accepting each of those sins is. We don't realize how high of a tab we have run up. But imagine getting a credit card bill in the mail that makes your stomach drop. That is what is facing us now. We don't have the "money" in the bank to pay it, the price is too high! The sins have literally piled up!

You are being offered a free payment coupon! All you have to do is look at Jesus, take His Hand and spill your guts! Tell Him what you are sorry for ask for forgiveness, He already knows what you have loaded your cart with. But man, aren't you ready to get rid of it all?

Take Him up on the offer! Take back your life, but giving it to Him. Stop running, stop trying to fix last week's mistake, stop piling up more and more sin! Just Stop! You really don't want the bill that is going to demand payment. HE is the only way to pay it in full. Now it's just your choice whether or not you will let Him pay it!

"The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
   because the LORD has anointed me
   to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
   to proclaim freedom for the captives
   and release from darkness for the prisoners,^[a]

to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor
   and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn"

ISAIAH 61:1,2