The payment for sin is death. But God gives us the free gift of life forever in Christ Jesus our Lord. [Romans 6:23 (NCV)]
Blessed are they whose sins are forgiven, whose wrongs are pardoned. [Romans 4:7 (NCV)]
To impress their students with the importance of commas, English teachers often tell an unsubstantiated story about Maria Fyodorovna, the wife of Tsar Alexander III of Russia. Alexander, a harsh and repressive ruler, had exiled a suspected anarchist to imprisonment and death by writing these words on his warrant: “Pardon impossible, to be sent to Siberia.” Coming across the document, the Tsarina seized the opportunity to save the life of an unknown prisoner and quickly scratched out the comma. She re-inserted it so that the warrant read: “Pardon, impossible to send to Siberia.” With the comma’s transposition, the prisoner’s death warrant became his pardon.
The story gives us no reason to think the prisoner was innocent; rather than saving an innocent man, the Tsarina merely chose to act mercifully toward a guilty one. Unlike the Russian prisoner, we’re probably not anarchists or thieves but every one of us is a sinner and we all fall short of God’s standard of perfect righteousness. Whether it’s lying, envy, immorality, greed, pride, self-centeredness, anger, rebellion against God or our indifference to Him, like the Tsar’s prisoner, we are condemned because of our guilt. Because the wages of sin are death, we deserve death as much as that man probably deserved being sent to the unrelenting misery of Siberia.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, described his four years of exile in Siberia as being in a “house of the living dead,” a place of “inexpressible, unending suffering.” Rather than serve our sentence in the brutal conditions of a Russian slave labor camp, Jesus served our sentence on Calvary. By dying on the cross, He took the punishment we all deserve. With His one act, He moved the comma on our death warrants and paid the penalty for the entire world for all time. Like the Russian prisoner, we haven’t earned mercy or forgiveness and we certainly don’t deserve a pardon. Nevertheless, rather than a comma written in ink, our pardon was written in the blood of Jesus when He sacrificed Himself on the cross.
Thank you, Jesus!
It is not good for us to trust in our merits, in our virtues or our righteousness; but only in God’s free pardon, as given us through faith in Jesus Christ. [John Wycliffe]
Everyone has sinned and fallen short of God’s glorious standard, and all need to be made right with God by his grace, which is a free gift. They need to be made free from sin through Jesus Christ. God sent him to die in our place to take away our sins. We receive forgiveness through faith in the blood of Jesus’ death. [Romans 3:23-25a (NCV)]
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I started Sunday morning with Psalm 139—a beautiful reminder that God was with us at our conception, is with us now, and will be with us at our end. “Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous,” read the psalm. Those words reminded me of Joey. Chinese by birth, born without hands, and abandoned by his mother, he was adopted by an American family. In spite of his many visible and hidden challenges, Joey was a cheerful little guy until entering junior high school, encountering bullies, and asking the inevitable questions that come with adolescence. In spite of being part of a loving family, he feels he failed the birth family who discarded him like a piece of trash and, rather than feeling wonderfully made, Joey asks why God made him the way He did.
Last week, in That Was God, I wrote these words: “For those who do not believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior, death means punishment and eternal separation from God,” but reminded readers that the exclusive truths of Christianity don’t mean that we are exclusive in our love; everyone is our neighbor and a person to be loved! Finding the devotion thought provoking, a friend forwarded it to the members of his small group. One man found the message contradictory and responded this way: “In other words, if you weren’t lucky enough to be born a Christian, you’re screwed. But, we still love you, neighbor!”
Thrilled at the result of her biopsy, Mary joyfully announced, “God is good and God always answers prayers!” Indeed, He is and does but we must remember that God does not always answer prayers the way we want Him to. I recently wrote that God is not a miser and our prayers should not be puny half-hearted ones. Nevertheless, regardless of the size of our petitions, we must remember that it is God’s will, not ours, that will be done. In spite of fervent prayers, some biopsies will say “malignant,” some prodigals will never return, some marriages will fail, and some people will not recover.
When writing about the prayers of Malala Yousafzai’s mother yesterday, I don’t want there to be any misunderstanding. Although she was praying to Allah, it was the one true God—our Triune God of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit—who heard and answered her prayers. While God is not a fan of Islam, He loves all of His children, whether Muslims, Hindus, Christians or others. Just because the Yousafzais don’t believe in Him doesn’t mean He doesn’t believe in them and their efforts to make our world a place where every girl can learn and lead.
What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? Romans 8:31-32 (NLT)] 
Devotions of the Heart 