Doesn’t Make Sense (Romans 5:21-6:2)

Everyone has a credit score. Ideally, the higher the score, the better your credit. The ideal is 850 on a scale of 300-850. Very few individuals reach this lofty goal and most creditors acknowledge that a score of about 720 is considered excellent credit. However, when a financial agency inquires to verify your score when you make a large purchase that requires credit, it leads to a decrease in one’s credit score. Ironically, a system that is created to verify one’s credit history will decrease your score when a vendor uses it to verify a purchase. 

How does one improve one’s credit score? The usual suggestions are paying off credit cards, loans, and mortgage payments on time. However, one cannot get a score unless one carries some level of debt. Another irony. Incurring new debt will decrease your score. However, carrying debt but paying it off on schedule will increase one’s score. The bottom line, one needs debt to establish a score but incurring more debt will decrease the score.

At a basic level, this system doesn’t make sense. It reminds me of the inherent contradiction the Apostle Paul wrote about in his letter to the Romans. 

So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God’s wonderful grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? 

Romans 5:21 – 6:2 (NLT)

We are all born in sin, separated from God. By our efforts, we are helpless to escape our forlorn condition. Sin shows us our desperate need for a Savior, Jesus Christ. Only through His intervention can we break the bonds of sin that hold us in its tyranny. Thus, sin shows us the grace of God through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ. However, we should not continue to sin hoping that this will enable us to receive more of God’s wonderful grace. This is the difference between debt and our credit score and sin and God’s grace. We need debt to establish a credit score and we can never abolish it or our score will go down. We don’t need to increase sin in our lives, to increase God’s grace. We need to completely abolish sin because we are now a new Creation in Jesus Christ, no longer indebted to sin, but freed to live a life in gratitude to His grace!

And THAT, makes sense!

Love and trust in the Lord; seek His will in your life.