Thank God For Empty Mailboxes!

My late grandmother used to look forward to receiving mail in her mailbox, no matter if there were monthly bills in it or not. There is an elderly lady who lives on the next block from where I live, who makes her daily walk to the mailbox in hopes of receiving a kind letter from a friend or relative. There's just something about receiving daily mail that motivates people to look forward to the next mail delivery day.

However, in my case, I look forward to an empty mailbox, because over the past three years, I've been receiving and paying the remnants of my late wife's hospital, doctor and credit card bills. For the past two days, there has been absolutely no mail in my mailbox, for which I am very thankful and grateful. Thankful that God has allowed me to be able to pay my late wife's remaining debts as a memorial to her faithfulness to me over a period of 37 years.

With regard to our responsibility in the paying of taxes to various government entities, the Apostle Paul tells us to, "Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law" (Romans 13:6-7).

Beloved, whatever debt we or our spouse might incur and owe (yes, even after death), when we do what we know is right by God's standards, God will be pleased and our conscience will be clear, knowing that we've done everything in our power to satisfy any debt owed to our fellow man.

Just think about the debt that we incurred before God that we could never pay (Romans 3:10,23) and that brought an eternal penalty (Romans 6:23). But thanks be to God, that our loving Lord paid our debt in full by his death on the cross (Ephesians 1:3-7; Hebrews 9:11-14).

Thank God for empty mailboxes!

—Mike Riley, Gospel Snippets