Red in the Ledger

In college, I studied business. One of the required classes was Accounting. It wasn’t my favorite subject, but it stuck with me and has proved very useful over the years. At its core, accounting is very simple. You write down all the money coming in and all the money going out. All of this is recorded in a ledger. 

Traditionally, when you have money coming in, you write it in black ink. But when you are in the negative, you write it in red ink. The entire flow of money is then tallied together and written at the bottom of the ledger, and you hope that the bottom number is black and not red.

It’s a simple concept, but it requires a lot of work and diligence to maintain. If you are running a business, you hopefully work hard to make sure that you stay in the positive. Your goal is to make a profit. In fact, it is probably the single most important indicator of whether the business is a success. Is the business in the red or in the black?

It’s a concept that we often try to apply to ourselves in other ways. Throughout our lives, we make both good choices and bad. We will have triumphs and failures. And many of us work diligently to ensure that we have more good than bad. We believe that if our good actions outweigh the bad, then we are essentially good people. 

In the first Avengers movie, there is a scene where the bad guy, Loki, is locked up. One of the Avengers, Black Widow, comes to chat with him. She wants information to help them save one of the other Avengers. Loki slyly turns the questioning back on her. He challenges her and wants to know why she is working so hard to save her friend. Black Widow responds that she owes him a debt. He had saved her life. She says that she has red in her ledger and that she wants to wipe it out. Loki then lists off several bad things she has done and asks if she can really erase all that.

Similarly, there is a tv show called “My Name is Earl”. Earl is a career criminal, constantly doing petty crimes and misdemeanors. But after a near-death experience, he decides to change his ways. He makes a list of every bad thing he has ever done and slowly starts working through the list trying to make up for each one of his mistakes.

In my own life, I have often thought this way too. When I messed up, I would immediately look for something good I could do to balance the scales. Maybe if I pray extra hard today, it will make up for that lie I told. Maybe if I give just a little more money to the offering plate, it will wipe out how selfish I was yesterday. 

It’s very easy to fall into that line of thinking, but ultimately, it will get you nowhere. Thinking like that sets you up to fail. It is a trap.

You see, God’s word declares that all of us have sinned. And that sin marks us. It carries a weight and a price that we can never pay. No matter how many good deeds we do, it will never be enough to cover even one of our sins. There is absolutely nothing we can do to remove the red from our own ledgers.

But Jesus can.

Jesus' death on the cross paid the wages of our sin, and in doing so, He covered the red in our ledgers. And we didn’t have to earn this either. He did it freely. It was a gift.

Ephesians 2:8-9 says “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith. And this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, and not by works, so that no one can boast.”

The only thing we have to do is have faith in Him. Surrender to Him. And there is freedom in that surrender. In Romans 8:1, it says, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

We are still human and we will continue to make mistakes. But if you have given your life to Christ, then you don’t need to earn God’s grace anymore. When you do mess up, Jesus has already written in your ledger. That debt is settled once and for all. You don’t have to walk around feeling condemned any longer.

We do need to be careful though. Jesus’ sacrifice does not give us permission to sin freely. And we may still need to face the consequences of our sin. But if we are in Christ, His grace and forgiveness are freely given. It will never run out. 

If you are still struggling with this, or if you feel like you need to earn God’s love, know that there is hope for you. Your salvation is not determined by a list of all the good and bad things you have done. You don’t need to be perfect before you come to Jesus. Instead, bring your imperfections, your sin, and your shame. Lay them at His feet. Trust in Him, and find rest in His wonderful, amazing grace.