list,” he insists, “You wretch, did you know you were smiling in a No Smiling Zone? You’ve got no reason to be joyful, no reason to hope! Let me see your license!” he demands. Reluctantly, you hand it to him, he swipes it through his computer, and that list of “priors” vanishes from the screen. Not one remains. Satan is surprised. He looks at the name encoded on that card and it says, “Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God.” Yes, it’s Jesus’ license. It’s a license to salvation, but it belongs to you! Jesus has given you his life and blood – your license – and that cancels out the debt of sin and frees us from the guilt Satan would heap upon us.
We are to honor this license; to celebrate the freedom we have. Realize the price! Realize how much your freedom cost. It cost your Savior dearly! But he gladly endured the cross and its shame because he loves you so dearly! Understand this truth. Daily repent of your sins and trust in your Savior. Daily drown your sinfulness in contrition and sorrow, and daily arise with fresh confidence in the One who saves you. Rejoice in the freedom Christ has won. It is yours and mine. Show it off! Think about a teenager who gets his/her license. I don’t think that license stays in the wallet very much those first couple of weeks. That license is flashed to everybody – “Look at what I’ve got!” -- Quite an accomplishment and privilege. Yes, indeed, what an accomplishment Jesus has achieved on our behalf, and what a privilege to know he did it all for us.
The knowledge of faith in Jesus Christ leads us to see that we all are “card-carrying Christians” in this sense; we all have freedom – Christ’s license to salvation – in our possession. We have a common bond that ties us together. It’s Christian love; we share the license to salvation.
2) To Satisfaction
Satan wants to make a debacle out of this as well. He wants us to give up our freedom in Christ and turn in that license for a phony I.D. As usual, this I.D. doesn’t look like the original. It doesn’t look like Christ. It resembles our sick, sinful flesh. This I.D. tags us as sinners and has the potential to burden us with guilt.
What’s worse is that we are tempted to grab on to that phony I.D. and just care about ourselves. We might selfishly call it, “the pursuit of happiness.” Now, happiness is important. Everybody wants to be happy. Why, even God wants us to be happy! Happiness is quite elusive. Unfortunately, a lifetime of pursuit will not guarantee satisfaction or happiness.
Satisfaction is hard to find because this world is far from perfect. There is something that fills our world with suffering, sickness, and sadness. Something in people makes it hard for them to find happiness.
God calls that “little something” sin. Sadly, we are tempted to think that we can find freedom and satisfaction in sin, and at the expense of forfeiting God’s grace. The phony I.D. Satan shoves into our hands might seem to bring freedom and happiness, but in the end it leads to destruction.
We’re led to think we can sin against ourselves in the pursuit of happiness and freedom. Sexual immorality, impurity, uncleanness, and debauchery: are some of the satisfaction this phony I.D. promises. “If it feels good do it. After all, nobody will get hurt. You’re free to do these things!” That’s the mentality of the sinful flesh. We are