It’s A Heart Issue, Part 9, Matthew 5:26

(Author’s Note: This was supposed to post yesterday prior to part 10 being published. Please, forgive any confusion I may have caused)

Matthew 5:26 (NKJV): Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny.

Many may not remember a time when there was “Debtor’s Prison”.

Debtor’s Prison according to Wikipedia.com: A debtors’ prison is a prison for people who are unable to pay debt. Through the mid 19th century, debtors’ prisons (usually similar in form to locked workhouses) were a common way to deal with unpaid debt in Western Europe. 

Here we see the end of Jesus discourse in regards to being taken to court. He is saying that unless you settle with the one you owe a debt to, you will end up in “Debtor’s Prison”, until you pay every cent you owe. In some cases, there was interest added to the debt owed. This could require you to be in this prison for sometime.

He is also talking about that we owe a debt of sorts to God. This debt is caused by our sins. If you remember that the Fall of Man occurred in Genesis 3, When Adam and Eve chose to eat of The Fruit of The knowledge of Good and Evil, when, God instructed them not to.

God did give a way for man to return to His Grace, for a short period of time, through sacrifices, we can find the instructions of these sacrifices in Deuteronomy and in Leviticus. The problem? These were only short lived and had to be repeated often, which meant, they were not a permanent solution.

If we go back to Genesis 3, when we see the interaction of God with Adam, Eve, and The Serpent, He did give a permanent solution. When He addressed the serpent, He told of a time of a Redeemer;

Genesis 3:14-15 (NKJV): So the Lord God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, You are cursed more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you shall go, And you shall eat dust All the days of your life. And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”

That Redeemer is Jesus, who paid the price for us. Without Him, we would not be allowed to enter into The Family of God;

John 1:10-13 (NKJV): He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. ¹² But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Because there is nothing we can do to earn this:

Ephesians 2:1-10 (NKJV): And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

So in other words, we would be sitting in God’s “Debtor’s Prison” for eternity, without Jesus, because we could not pay every penny owed.

Have you met Jesus? Have you asked for Him to be in your Life? Now is the time if you have not or if you have walked away from Him