Pastor John,
Riding into Raleigh this morning, I spent my time feasting again on sister Sheila’s testimony from Saturday night, replaying it in my mind (and my heart) as I drove. Somewhere during the part where Sheila entreats us to take heed of the fact that “we will pay our debts to God before leaving this world if we are going to be saved,” God interrupted my thoughts. The injection of His thoughts over my own was overwhelming to me, and it frightened me, as the message that I heard came with a sound and a feeling that scared me. I did my best to record it as I drove, so that I could type it later. This (below) is the best that I can do to reproduce what I heard. I hope I have succeeded.
“Is God going to pay more of our debt? If we are debtors to people’s hearts, and we don’t make that right, is God going to have to make it right, and are we going to owe him for the work that he’s done again?”
If we hurt the people around us (after we are born again) and we don’t make those things right, and those people have to cry out to God with tears in prayer, and God has to come and mend those hearts because we did not, that is God paying our debt, AGAIN, after the sacrifice of his son! Will God pay our debt again!?
Is God going to pay more of our debt!?
It scared me brother John. I started pleading with God, “Please let me pay my debts. God, please show me who it is that I owe; please show me who I’m in debt to, so that I can take care of my own debt and pay what I owe before the judgment comes. God, allow me to pay my debt, so you don’t have to, once again.”
The last thought I had was of the man thrown in jail, that Jesus spoke of in Luke 12:59, “I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the very last penny.”
Good night,
Jerry