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The Debt is Dead
Alex: (picking up the phone) Hello?
Zebub: (A voice like grinding stones) Alex. I’ve got the ledger open. You’re in the hole for a fortune, and your time just ran out. I’m filing the fraud warrant as we speak. You pay this massive debt now, or you can rot in a very dark prison until you pay every last cent in full, plus interest.
Alex: I don’t have it, and you know it, but you insist on constantly breathing threats against me. My father said he settled this. I believe him because he’s a man of absolute integrity.
Zebub: (A sharp, jagged laugh) Your father? That arrogant old man has a reputation of having such high standards. He knows you are a deadbeat, and I can’t see him soiling his goody-two-shoes reputation by paying off the debt of a notorious thief. He’s likely washed his hands of you just like everyone else has. I’ve already talked to your boss; he’s disgusted. I’m calling your mother next, though I suspect she already knows the scum you are. It’s hard to miss the stories in the papers and on the news, and the stories on the internet are especially juicy.
Alex: (Voice steadying) You know I don’t have the money, Zebub. But that’s irrelevant. My father paid my debt in full. I’m sitting at his desk right now, and I’m holding a notarized receipt.
Zebub: (Interrupting) I don’t care what kind of funny paper you’re looking at. That thing is trash. It’s a fairy tale for losers who can’t pay their own way. I know your balance, Alex, and don’t act like you don’t know it too. If you don’t pay by 6:00 PM, the sheriff is going to be pulling into your gravel drive. You really don’t want your kids to remember you being in handcuffs and leg irons the last time they ever saw you.
Alex: I tell you, I have nothing! I can’t pay a debt that’s already been—
Zebub: It hasn’t been anything! You’re mine, Alex. Any lawyer you call will tell you to take that receipt and light your last cigarette with it. Hang up the phone and you’re in for a long, slow death. You’re going to rot in a cell for a debt you’ll never be man enough to cover. If I had my way, your crooked father would be in the lock-up with you.
(Alex hangs up the phone. The silence in the room is thick enough to chew on. He stares at the notarized seal on the receipt and shakes his head. A small pair of footsteps scuffs across the floorboards.)
Child: Daddy? Was that that crazy hateful man again?
Alex: (Exhaling a long, weary breath) Yes, baby. Mr. Zebub calls every day with the same filthy lies and hollow threats. I have repeatedly blocked his number, but his calls keep coming through.
Child: His name is Zebub?
Alex: (Picking up a business card from his desk) B.L. Zebub, Senior Collector. But don’t worry about him. My father tells me he won’t be in business much longer.
Does your internal dialogue ever have that tone to it?
You know you’re a sinner. You know you carried a debt that had more zeros than you had years to live. But your Father, who loves you dearly, paid your debt once and for all with the shed blood of His only begotten Son. Jesus lived the perfect life you never could, and in dying, He paid the price to redeem you.
But the accuser is a con man with a silver tongue. He doesn’t just yell; he reasons. He leans in close with his horrid breath like a duplicitous politician and tries to convince you that your hope is actually just a lack of common sense. He watches you look at that receipt and sneers, “You don’t really believe that, do you? If anyone was going to cover a tab, it would be for a decent person. Not a wreck like you. Are you delusional?”
He wants you to ignore the fact that God has already canceled the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross (Colossians 2:13-14).
When that doesn’t work, he pivots. He’ll admit you were forgiven once, but then he opens a new ledger. “He gave the pig you are a bath,” he whispers, “and as soon as He dried you off, you rolled around in every kind of filth on the ground before diving headfirst into the mud. You can forget Him wasting any more effort on you. He might have played the fool once, but He won’t do it again.”
But the con man is lying about the paperwork. When you believed, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance (Ephesians 1:13-14).
Your enemy spews lies like acid and roars threats like a lion, but that’s all he’s got. He knows he’s doomed, but Satan’s delusions keep him fighting, thinking he could win this battle yet. You might not be able to avoid the sound of his voice—it’s a persistent, grinding noise—but you don’t have to listen. The notary seal given to us by our Father is the Holy Spirit. With that seal, He has us protected from every lie and accusation.
The debt is dead and buried.
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The Betrayal of the Needle
Some of the most crushing disappointments in my adult life have turned out to be great gifts from God. In those moments, I felt as if my dreams were falling apart, but looking back, I realize I was mistaken.
If someone had told me back then that missing out on a better-paying job was actually a blessing, I probably would have replied with a sarcastic, ‘Oh, thanks a lot, God. I really appreciate not being able to afford a reliable car.’
Thinking back, I have to laugh. I vividly recall my oldest son’s first vaccinations when he was just a couple of months old. As I held him, he watched the doctor with wide-eyed curiosity. Then came the needle, and he turned to me with a look of pure outrage, as if to say, ‘How could you let this happen? You’ve betrayed me.’
Despite all the debates swirling around today, we chose those shots because we wanted to shield him from dangers he couldn’t see. Looking back, I’m grateful we did—he grew up healthy and strong. In much the same way, God shields us not just from harm, but from settling for less than what He intends for us, or from stumbling into a life that serves only as a cautionary tale.
Even when we know God is always watching over us and wanting the best for us, it’s so easy to slip back into believing we know what’s best for ourselves. God wants us to discover the truth, to recognize His wisdom, goodness, and grace. And if we miss the lesson the first nine times, He’s patient enough to teach us a tenth.
The Tenth Lesson
For 21 consecutive semesters, I taught AP Macroeconomics. Each semester was a furious race from start to finish. It was the toughest subject I ever taught, but also the most rewarding. My students were generally very bright and motivated, and many were labeled ‘gifted and talented’ by the school. Their minds were sharp and analytical, yet when I introduced them to economic principles, many struggled. Economics asks us to see the world in a way that often turns childhood lessons upside down.
Many of these students were accustomed to mastering every subject, with some never seeing anything less than an A. So when their first quiz or test in my class came back with a score in the 50s or 60s, it hit them hard. Even though I warned them they’d struggle at first, many were devastated. More than one person confided that my quiz was the lowest grade they’d ever received.
But I knew that if they hung in there, the fog would lift and the concepts would click. They just needed time for these new ideas to settle in and take root.
That’s why, in those early weeks, I offered generous grade boosts—a 52 on a first quiz could become an 86 if a student came to tutorials. Convincing lifelong high achievers that I was rooting for them took patience and persistence. Not every AP teacher is willing to look past the numbers, but I couldn’t just mark a grade and move on.
The Teddy Bear
I think that compassion grew out of seeing how God protected me from myself over the years. You rarely understand it in the moment, but in hindsight, it all fits together. Eventually, one student who often came to my after-school tutorials grinned at me and said, ‘I know what you are. You’re a teddy bear.’
Of course, I would never call God the Father a teddy bear, but any love or care I offered was just a reflection of the love God has shown me. So when disappointments come—and they always do—we need to remember that we have a loving Father who wants good things for us. Even if we cannot see where He is leading, we can trust that it is for our good if we belong to Him.
I realize that some will struggle with this idea. Those who have endured heartbreaking losses, like the death of someone they love, may find it impossible to see any good in it, and that pain is deeply real. Yet we all know that death comes for everyone, and for followers of Christ, even death is not the end but the doorway to a greater good.
Perfectly Healed
My wife’s grandfather died when she was a child, and I have heard the story from the funeral many times. Some women from his church came up to my mother-in-law after the service and offered their condolences and told her that they had prayed and prayed that God would heal her father. My mother-in-law, an incredibly wise and godly woman, told the ladies, “Oh, he was perfectly healed.”
In the end, every disappointment, every loss, and every unanswered prayer for healing rests under this promise. As Paul wrote, “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” (Romans 8:18, NKJV)
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Beyond the Deepest Seas
There are many days when I wish I could go back and unsay a word, undo a deed, or erase a moment that plays again and again in my memory. Maybe you know that feeling—that sharp pang of regret when one of your wrongs surfaces out of nowhere to trouble you.
So many of us are trailed by old mistakes that seem determined to shadow us forever. Words spoken, choices made, boundaries crossed—they still smolder in our memories. Sometimes, in the quiet, we wonder if forgiveness is really possible.
We might wish we could just dig a hole and bury those wrongs forever—but deep down, we know that would never be enough. Perhaps we could bury them deep in the sea, in the vast, hidden depths where countless shipwrecks lie.
Two and a Half Miles Down
The tragic story of the Titanic has fascinated the world for more than 100 years. When oceanographer Robert Ballard revealed the ghostly images of the ship’s broken hull on the ocean floor in 1985, millions were captivated by the stark, almost otherworldly photos.
Lying 2 1/2 miles beneath the surface, the Titanic’s grave is a place almost no one has ever visited—a piece of history lost to darkness, suddenly illuminated. It’s a haunting reminder of how deeply some things can be buried, yet never quite forgotten.
But even the Titanic’s grave is not the deepest. Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench is nearly 7 miles straight down, but not nearly deep enough to hide our wrongs.
Trillions of Miles
We crave even greater distance. The Moon, 239,000 miles away, still shines in our sky. What if we could launch our guilt farther still? Proxima Centauri, the nearest star beyond our Sun, lies 25 trillion miles away—over 100 million times farther than the Moon.
East from West
With each new distance, we push the idea of “far away” to its limit. But the miracle of grace isn’t how far we could send our wrongs, but how far God has already removed them from us.
“As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” (Psalm 103:12)
God’s mercy stretches beyond any distance we can imagine. His forgiveness covers every past, every regret. Salvation is a free gift—all we have to do is trust in what Jesus has already done. There’s nothing left for us to erase or bury—he has already carried it all away.
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The Dam That Built Itself
Standing before a marvel of engineering, only a lunatic would claim it appeared by random chance. Yet, when we look at the precision of the universe, we often accept the very logic we would laugh out of the room.
Many people grow up with skewed notions of God. Perhaps the most common is the idea that He doesn’t exist.
Imagine inviting the world’s best engineers and architects to stand with me before Hoover Dam on the Colorado River. There I announce—with conviction—that I built the whole thing—dam, turbines, generators—by myself.
The Lunatic on the Wall
The reaction is instant—a cacophony of laughter ricochets down the tunnels. Some think I’m an escaped lunatic; others call me the greatest liar who’s ever lived.
As we walk inside the dam—its complexity and precision on full display—the assembled experts aren’t just stunned into disbelief—they’re backing away from me and looking for the nearest exit.
I present my many degrees, experience, and a long lifetime of effort—but their faces harden and their patience wears thin.
Finally, after an hour of arguing, I tell the truth: I didn’t build the dam. I pause, watching their reactions. And then confess, “Actually, nobody did.”
Hoover Dam—one of the greatest engineering feats in world history—was not built at all. It’s just a naturally occurring structure with mechanical gates and power generation. Random chance created Hoover Dam.
Would anyone believe it? Of course not. The dam is plainly the product of design and workmanship. To claim it arose from chaotic physical forces is even more ridiculous than saying I built it alone.
Chaos and Concrete
Yet that’s exactly what people do when they look at the world around them—at all kinds of life, at natural wonders, not to mention the stars in the sky and the nearly infinite number of solar systems in the universe.
It all works with astonishing precision, and we’re told it happened by random process. The totality of creation—things infinitely more complex than Hoover Dam—being chalked up to a statistical fluke? That’s the pinnacle of wishful thinking. But that’s what many are taught to believe. And any honest observer knows better.
Still, many hold back from admitting the obvious—because if there’s a God, suddenly we have to reckon with who we are and how we live in relation to Him.
And that’s not just a question onetime atheists have to grapple with; it’s one Christians need to reckon with every day.
The Morning Question
Each morning we must ask ourselves: Today, what does God require of us?
He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6:8