Sally grilled up some steaks for dinner.  She set a T-bone in front of her husband, but he wasn’t happy to find that a big chunk of it was missing.  “What happened to my steak?” he asked. She said, “Oh I started charging a 20% deductible.”

Don’t you just hate that word – “deductible?”   A deductible is the amount of money that we must pay towards a claim before the insurance company pays their part.

The hospital bill could be $50,000.  The insurer promises to pay $45,000 towards it but not until I kick in that first $5,000.  So, what if I wreck my car?  There’s a deductible again.  If I don’t pay it to the auto body shop when I pick up my car, then I don’t get my car back.

I wonder if heaven could be like that.  What if there is a hidden deductible? 

What if I tap on the gate of heaven one day and say, “I’m here!”   But the angelic gatekeeper says, “OK great, well let’s look at the ledger.  It says here that you gave your life to Christ in 1972 and He paid for your sins when He died for you on the cross.  So that’s all good.  But oh, there is that dreaded deductible.”  “What?” I cry.  “I don’t know anything about that!”

The angel says, “Oh sure, it’s in the fine print of your Bible.  Look up Acts 16:31 and read it for me please.”   “OK, it says, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.” – NETBible®  “And I have done that.  I am trusting Christ and His work at the cross to save me.”

“Yeah, but check out the footnote.  It says, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and tithe, and make it to church 3 out 4 Sundays a month and be nice to your dog and you will be saved.” 

“Well, I have done some of that, but not all.”  “Sorry,” says the angel.  Christ will not pay for your sins until the deductible has been met.”

What a grim day that would be if this were true – but it isn’t. 

With Jesus there is no deductible.  Peter put it this way in 1 Peter 3:18, “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.”   – NIV

“Once for all…” the apostle said.   Christ died for sins.  He did that one single time, and yet the coverage is comprehensive.  He died for all – all the sins – of all the people – for all of time.

This was how the Righteous One, brought we the unrighteous to God.

Sure, but we need to do something – don’t we?  No – not in order to earn it.  The apostle Paul wrote these words to us in Titus 3:5-7

“He saved us not by works of righteousness that we have done but on the basis of his mercy… and so, since we have been justified by his grace, we become heirs with the confident expectation of eternal life.” – NETBible ®

Salvation is a generous act of His mercy, and the things that we do or don’t do – do not enter into it.  Our efforts at being self-righteous are as filthy rags. (Isaiah 64:6) It’s all about His mercy.  And yet because of what He has done, we have the “confident expectation of eternal life.”

Don’t you love those words?  The “confident expectation of eternal life.”

There is absolutely no deductible with Christ’s plan.  Jesus paid it all.

Now I am going to be straight up with you.  I do tithe, and I make it to church more like 4 out 4 Sundays, and fortunately I do not have a dog to be nice to.

But this is not me paying my deductible.  This is me expressing my gratitude to our merciful Lord for all He has done for me.  

What about your policy?  If it requires a deductible – you need a new one.

A PRAYER: Jesus thank you dying for all the sins of all the people for all of time.  

This has been Jim Johnson and pickleheavenpress.com.

May the grace of our Lord Jesus be with you!