Free With Purchase

But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:22-23

Advertisements are designed to inform and motivate us to purchase something. I received an email advertisement yesterday that caught my attention. The ad was for a free satellite radio. Now this radio is reconditioned which means that its parts were used previously somewhere else and you have 30 days to return it if some of those reconditioned parts don’t work.

The thing that interested me about this advertisement was the way it was presented. In the heading of the advertisement it said free satellite radio but when you got to the body of the ad it said in fine print at the bottom “minimum 3-month recurring subscription required.”

So if I am required to get a subscription how does that make this “free.” There is a condition to this advertisement that requires me to pay something to get the item that is supposedly “free” and to top it off, I have to get a recurring subscription that will most likely cost me postage to send them a notice after the 3 months of the recurring subscription is over to cancel the subscription that I didn’t want in the first place for the reconditioned radio that may or may not work.

The thing is we can get salvation for “FREE”. There are no hidden fees for us to pay or the need to purchase a subscription for three months or make a deposit or take the chance that the reconditioned parts won’t work. It is just what it says. “FREE.” Except there is one thing we need to remember. Someone else paid the price for us. Jesus paid it all for us to have salvation. So when someone says there is nothing in life for free remind them of the price that was paid to set us “FREE.”

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, You gave us the ultimate gift. Your Son died on a cross for our sins and we don’t deserve it. How can we not make the choice to accept this amazing gift? Thank You for the gift of salvation that was paid at a high cost by Your Son.

Scripture: Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—(For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man’s offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many. And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification. For if by one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.) Romans 5:12-17