“There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else there’s ________.” So states a rather clever slogan for a well-known credit card company. The ad suggests that the credit card will help us get the things that will make our life better—things money can buy.
When one stops to think about it, there are quite a few things money can’t buy. While it can buy exotic and luxurious vacations, it can’t really make my marriage better or improve my relationship with my kids. It can pay for surgeries and medicines, but there are some illnesses that surgery and medicine can’t heal. It can make me very popular, but it can’t buy me true friendship.
Money also can’t buy a clear conscience and provide peace with God. It cannot purchase the certainty of life in heaven after I die. No, all the riches in the world can’t buy me one ounce of freedom from a guilty conscience or from the fear of dying.
For these crucial things that money can’t buy, there is Jesus. His blood was the full payment for our freedom from guilt, fear, and death. The Bible teaches: “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed…, but with the precious blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:18,19).
Imagine you are about to be executed – deservedly so – for crimes you have committed. Imagine being locked in a prison cell, waiting for the end. Your brother walks into that prison and takes your place. He dies and you go free because your sentence is carried out—on your innocent brother. He purchased (redeemed) your life with his.
Come back to reality. All people are sinners and deserved to die eternally. But Jesus, the perfect Son of God, came from heaven to take our place. He bore the punishment our sins had earned so that we could be free from the prison of eternal death. When the debt of our sin was far beyond our ability to pay, in love he paid that debt with his own blood at Calvary’s cross.
Money’s great. But there are some things money can’t buy, such as a relationship with God. This is a free gift of God’s love, paid for with the precious blood of Jesus.
