The news recently carried this story: “William Fogarty doesn’t understand the fuss. He just forgot to pay a parking ticket. When he finally realized it, the 86-year-old retiree made good and mailed in a money order, to pay a $1 ticket he got 60 years ago.
“Fogarty got the ticket in Norfolk, Va., in May 1946. Soon after, he bought a $1 money order to pay the fine but forgot to send it in. About a month ago, as he was looking through a box of collectibles from his Navy days, Fogarty discovered a wallet with the money order inside.
“So he wrote a letter to the Norfolk Police Department and included the money order.
“’At my age, when I go out of here, I don’t want to owe anyone a dime,’ he told the St. Petersburg Times.”
I think William may have been joking, but I still thought his comment was a pretty interesting commentary on our nature. There is this deep, internal knowledge that tells us we have to deal with our debts before we die, that we need to make things right before we face a Holy God.
People spend years trying to work their way out of moral debt (even subconsciously sometimes) by occasional acts of kindness and sacrifice, hoping that such things will “pay off” some of what they owe.
But how do you know when you’ve done enough? How do you know when you’ve reached zero balance? Still more, how do you know when you’ve begun to acquire enough moral capital to make God happy? You see, it’s more than just staying out of debt that makes a person righteous before God; it’s also remembering to do all the good things that should be done in the first place. That’s why trying to pay off our sinful debts before we “go out of here” is frustrating and ultimately fruitless venture that ends up casting us into despair or blinding us with a deceitful self-righteousness that will never fool God.
Praise to Jesus, the Savior who lived perfectly in our place. He never accrued any debt, because he never did wrong. On the positive side, he never missed an opportunity to do right, either. He did what we needed to do so that God could count us debt-free. Because of his death and resurrection, his life has been credited to us in a miraculous way. Those who trust in him can leave this place confident that they don’t owe God a dime, because Jesus paid the debt through his death and built up the perfect moral capital with his life. Ponder that today and live for his glory.
