Dear Woodland Hills Family,
The Greek man in this shocking photo set himself on fire because he can’t pay back his home and business loans. The suicide rate jumped 40% in severely debt-ridden Greece last year. More than one in five is unemployed and the economic distress is spawning violent protests and riots. Last week a pharmacist shot himself outside the Greek Parliament to protest the financial crisis gripping the nation.
The International Monetary Fund has issued Greece a massive $170 billion rescue plan (bailout). But this debt “forgiveness” comes with LOTS of strings attached. The Greeks had to agree to extreme austerity measures. And if they do not comply with the required economic and structural reforms on time, the funding will be cut off. There is “no room for slippages,” said the IMF Managing Director.
I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like forgiveness to me. It’s certainly not the kind of forgiveness Christ won for us at the cross. He didn’t offer us an austerity program with a payback timetable and a warning about missing payments.
Now I’m not saying that Greece should have all its loans erased so they can go on spending more than they have. My point is in the terminology. It isn’t really forgiveness if you have to pay it back. Christ offered us a clean slate because we could never pay it back. And there are no strings attached to His rescue package.
How fittingly God’s Word speaks to this subject, especially in view of these news events: “When you were dead in your transgressions… He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.” (Colossians 2:13-14)
Debt-free, forgiven, and alive,
