The High Cost of Sin
The High Cost of Sin
The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 6:23)
“Is she two?” the teenage girl at the ticket booth asked about my daughter. I quickly realized that if I said my just-turned-three-year-old was still two, she could get into the amusement park for free. “Um, yeah,” I said. I reasoned that Jillian had been three for less than a month, so it wasn’t a big deal. I handed over cash for the remaining tickets, feeling slightly guilty, but knowing I would get over it.
“Mom,” my older son, Nicholas, pulled at my arm. “You forgot that Jillian isn’t two. She had a birthday. She’s three now.” The ticket seller didn’t hear Nicholas’s comment, but I felt horrible.
“Excuse me. You do need to charge us for her ticket. She is actually three.” The teenager looked at me like I was crazy. “OK, no problem,” she said. “I’ll just ring it up again.”
After I paid what I owed, I considered what I had done and asked God to forgive me for trying to cut corners dishonestly. Even though it’s a little thing that people probably do all the time, it’s lying and stealing, and that makes it a sin.
Sin is serious—all sin. We tend to categorize sins into more and less tolerable categories. But the truth is that all sin leads to death; all sin is abominable in God’s sight. And for all our sin, even the littlest lie or the tiniest cover-up, Jesus died.
Because of the great price God paid to put our sin to death, we should live in gratitude for the debt He has paid on our behalf, even in the small things. We obey Him not out of fear or compulsion, but as a response to the astounding love, grace, and mercy He has freely given to us.