Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, LBW 499 & ELW 807
Devotion
Do you know what it's like to be a debtor? The word feels different than being "in debt." Debt is student loans, credit card bills, a mortgage. When you’re in debt, you live with worry, anxiety, stress. You want to pay back what you owe and be in the clear.
But when you’re a debtor, you are never in the clear. It’s a constant state of being. In Romans 8, Paul writes that we Christians are debtors – forever constrained to live in sin’s snare, yet inextricably bound to God by Christ’s love.
In the third verse of this hymn, we confess that we are debtors to grace. Every day we owe our lives to Jesus. If not for Christ’s death and resurrection, we wouldn’t have a chance at happiness, forgiveness, or eternity with God. And being debtors to Christ allows us to deal with the worry, anxiety and stress of whatever kind of debt we might face in this life.
Prayer
Bind me to you, O Lord, with your grace, so that I might remember that I owe everything to you. Amen.