Red to Black (or White)

Okay, I confess. I keep the household checkbook on Quicken and I got behind. Way behind. Alright, a little more than a month behind making entries and three weeks behind in getting the statement balanced. I have the software setup to continue tracking certain expenditures that are made on a regular basis. Because of my neglect, when I opened Quicken to balance the checkbook last night, there was a lot of red.

Red is the color of deficiency. Red means minus. Red signals trouble. And there was a lot of red. Bills that I paid put hadn't entered into the software were all glaringly red. Balances I hadn't kept current, red. There was more red than the gospels in a KJV Bible.

I'm leaving for vacation soon, and I really needed to know what financial shape we were in. That meant tackling the red. The savings account was easy. So was the auto loan. The checking account was a whole other story. It took hours for me to get everything posted, accounted for, sorted out and balanced. Along the way I had to deal with expense categories where, since I hadn't kept them up to date, I had overspent. I had to transfer money and play with numbers, and some of what I had to do in order to get out of the red and into the right meant making some tough decisions about goals and spending habits for the next few months.

I finished the work of turning our accounts from red to black and sat back to give thanks for people who do these kinds of things for a living, and for software programmers who make it easy for the rest of us. As I sat there scanning the revised statements and reports a verse from the Old Testament came to mind. They are the words from Isaiah 1:18, "Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool."

In order to get my accounting software from red to black, I had to own up to my own negligence. I had to take into account the current condition of my records. And I had to take action, sacrificial action in some cases, to right the effects of my wrongs. You see the connection, don't you? Our sins are blaringly obvious to God, standing out against his holiness, his perfection, his glory like fresh blood on a whitewashed wall. There is no missing our sinfulness, which is ours both by nature and by choice. God knows it. We know it. Our sins are as scarlet, and they remain our sins because we have neglected to respond to God's work in Christ. "Later I'll ask for forgiveness," we think. Or, "It's just a little sin; no sense in paying much attention to it." But to God, they are scarlet, crimson, red.

We need to own up to our own spiritual negligence. We need to look our current spiritual condition right in the face and ask, "Am I trusting Christ as my Savior and living in faith and obedience?" If the record ain't right, it ain't gonna fix itself. Sin left unconfessed and unrepented of just multiplies like red ink in the ledger. The action God allows us to take, the action that cooperates with his work in Christ, is repentance: turning away from our sin and turning to Christ in faith.

It doesn't matter whether you are new to the faith or old in the faith, repentance clears the record, rights the wrong, and gets the red out. God's responds to faithful repentance with forgiveness and newness of life. He turns the red white. He makes the heart right.

I'm glad I finally got the checkbook balanced. It took a fair amount of work to turn the red to black. But I am even more grateful for the work God does through his Son to turn the crimson stain of sin on my soul to the whiteness of Christ's righteousness, a work available to everyone who believes.