Gone Away

It seems to have become a trend recently in many places in the U.S.  It occurred again recently – this time in Tillman’s Corner, near Mobile, AL.  A stranger walked in the Sears Essentials retail store and asked for the manager.  He wanted to pay off some layaway bills for some families – some families that he didn’t even know!

According to Webster’s Dictionary, a layaway is a purchasing agreement by which a retailer agrees to hold merchandise secured by a deposit until the price is paid in full by the customer.  Many families use the layaway agreement to secure items that they want to buy (Christmas gifts, for example) and pay for them over time.

Sears General Manager Lauren Henderson allowed the generous stranger to go through the layaway department to determine the items for which he would like to pay.  He walked through the aisles in the layaway department, selecting anything and everything that included a children's item.

In all, layaway items for 18 different families were selected.  The total debt owed amounted to $2,600.  The anonymous stranger (who desires to remain anonymous) paid for the debt in cash and said, “Merry Christmas.”

The 18 families were contacted and told that the bill for their layaway items had been paid and the items were ready for pickup.  There was a lot of disbelief, but the disbelief was soon replaced by extreme gratitude.

Henderson stated that not much is known about the generous stranger – this “Secret Santa” as he has been called – except that he is a local businessman who wanted to teach his fifteen-year-old daughter about the meaning of the spirit of Christmas. *

The debts for these layaways have “gone away,” thanks to the generosity of the kind stranger.

You and I have incurred a tremendous debt....

We owe God our love, loyalty, and our very lives but we have failed to give Him what He deserves.  We sin and we fall short of His glory (Romans 3:23), have become indebted to Him, and none of us has the resources to pay the debt that we owe to Him.

But God loves us so much that He gave His only Son to pay for the debt of our sin.  “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24).

The blood that Jesus shed in His atoning death removes the debt of those who will: place their faith and trust in Jesus (Acts 16:30-31), turn from their sins in repentance (2 Corinthians 7:9-10), confess Jesus before men (Romans 10:9-10), and be baptized (immersed) into Christ for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38).

When we accept God’s forgiveness on His terms, we are able to sing with conviction and confidence:

“He paid a debt He did not owe
I owed a debt I could not pay
I needed someone, to wash my sins away.
And NOW I sing a brand new song, “Amazing Grace.”
Christ Jesus paid the debt that I could never pay.”

Jesus would like for the debt for YOUR sin to “go away” and it WILL – IF – you will allow Him to pay YOUR debt by accepting His offer on His terms.

Won’t YOU?

David A. Sargent, Minister