"Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!" 2 Corinthians 9:15 (NIV)

Forgiveness.  It is one of the most beautiful words in the English language.  It brings to mind images of freedom and release from bondage.  When you owe a debt, you are in a form of bondage.  When a debt is forgiven, you are no longer held responsible for that debt.  You are free.

Most of us can relate to the concept because we have debts that we owe.  All of us, though, owe a sin debt that we are unable to pay.  A songwriter once put it this way: I owed a debt I could not pay.  Jesus paid a debt He did not owe.

Think for a moment about the largest debt you have.  For most of us that would be the mortgage on your home.  If you are the average homeowner, the debt on your home is somewhere between three and four times what you make in a year.  Imagine what you would feel like if you checked the mail today and found a notice from your mortgage company saying they had decided to forgive the debt you owe on your home.  I don't know about you, but this Baptist would do a little dancing and shouting over that!

Someone was telling me the other day about a recent edition of the Oprah Winfrey show that originated from Macon, Georgia.  On this show, Oprah was featuring items that she felt were the perfect Christmas gifts.  All totaled the gifts amounted to about $7,000.  At some point during the show, she announced to the studio audience that each one of them would get all of the gifts delivered to their door.  Needless to say, the audience went nuts!

Why is it we can get so excited about material and physical things but not so about spiritual things? If Christ is your Lord and Savior, you have had a debt forgiven that dwarfs your home mortgage!  If you belong to Him, you have been given a gift that makes Oprah's refrigerator with a built in HDTV look like pure junk!

We have just been through the Thanksgiving season, a time where we all took stock of our blessings and thanked God for all He has given us.  There is no doubt that we all have so much to be thankful for.  But at the top of our gratitude list should be God's gift of grace - the forgiveness of sins and the free gift of eternal life.

Because of Jesus, we are forgiven!  Our sin debt was paid in full.  Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!