Paid in Full

As a person who completely over-indulges in the origin of words and sayings (and chile rellenos when I make them, if I am being fully transparent), I woke up one morning about 15 years ago with the saying “Bottom of the Barrel” in my head. The answer has lived in my head all these years for such a time as now.
Wind-powered ships didn’t reach their destination as quickly as they do now and required supplies and food supplies to be carried in barrels. Most food items were pickled or stored in salt brine or oil for preservation. However, if you were reaching for the “the bottom of the barrel” you were likely to pull up smashed and damaged food items due to the weight of everything that had been placed on top. Less than stellar was the quality of the items at the bottom even though they were the same items as on top. Sailors tried to combat this oppression of food by turning the barrels over to keep the weight balanced evenly. This meant that each of the food items had at one time or more during the journey been “at the bottom of the barrel”.  This method would leave ALL the food being smashed on longer journeys that required patient endurance if something didn’t change.
Through the years, especially in my younger days, I was obsessed with the wisdom of King Solomon. I wish I could say it was due to my profound piety, but Proverbs is where I found all of my money-making wisdom as I wanted to see my face on Fortune’s list of most powerful women someday. My biggest takeaway was that God hates dishonest scales, and an accurate balancing of weights find favor with Him and so I tried to live my life like that. I quickly learned that keeping balanced scales was impossible for me.   “An eye for an eye” or just “being a good person” would never settle the scales of injustice in my life (whether I was the one lifted or the one tilting down). I kept finding myself short.  Behind every pacifist is a desperate desire for honest scales. A pacifist who can’t get the scales to balance will eventually give up on everything that means anything to them and end up with a hardened heart, or worse, a bleeding heart that will eventually bleed out. Without Jesus, my only hope was that the barrel would get turned eventually. I didn’t dare believe in karma because I was too aware of my own wretchedness. I had too much fear and concern to be agnostic. I had seen God and satan too much to be an atheist. I had too much sobriety to go with the flow. 
The Apostle Paul (appointed by God and not man) was an easy convert for Christ because he had already been studying the Law for years and had a zeal for righteousness that had not yet been quenched. Jesus allowed Paul to be blinded physically in order for him to see clearly. Isn’t it funny how when Christ poured out His grace and healed Paul of his blindness something like “scales” fell from his eyes? Trying to keep balanced scales blinded Paul from seeing Jesus and the justice He had already poured out. Paul eventually concluded that everything that could be considered weighty on his side of the scale was garbage in comparison to gaining Jesus. Paul was intent on snuffing out the Way and ended up walking the Way. 
Through Jesus, the scales are now paid in full; sin has no sting, death has lost its victory, no crushing bottom of the barrel placements, and I am now listed as a powerful woman in the Book that matters most. 
Paul’s zeal no longer left him thirsting for what he could not take hold, nor did it leave him as a murderous hypocrite but in advancing the ministry of reconciliation to God (the ministry of grace). He was desperate for his own people to take hold of the Promise that the ancestors had labored so hard for (thank you!) but God saw it best to place Paul in the ministry of grace for the gentiles. In the end, Paul testified before the gatekeepers of both. I would call any of the fruit from that a double blessing from the same “Tree”. 
Without Christ, the best thing this world can offer in the way of fairness or restitution is to turn the barrels of oppression over occasionally. You could be on top of the barrel one day and on the bottom the next. I don’t know about you, but this has never been good enough for me nor did I want someone else to be squashed at the bottom just to get my short time at the top (bitter rewards). Look around you, justice is a thirst that can’t be quenched without Jesus.  It might bring moments of gratification, but it won’t satisfy and will end in death for all if we take justice into our own hands (besides, we don’t have what it takes). How do we overcome? Through the word of our testimony. Jesus is Lord! 
God didn’t lie when He said He hates dishonest scales and that favor comes through an honest balance. Nobody can pay the cost to balance what we have been given, and nobody can pay the cost of what we have taken. Not even one of us.  God is a God of justice. He didn’t give us Life through Jesus for us to keep trying to balance the scales or to keep striving at something we will never grasp on our own or to be angry at someone when we think they’re not doing their part. He gave us Life to prosper us and to live it abundantly and eternally. He gave us Life in Christ so we could live through Him. He gave us a constant rest from striving. He gave us grace upon grace. The irony is one must lay down their own life first because pride will never allow God His vengeance. Vengeance belongs to the Lord (thank God!). When God sees those who believe, He sees His Son. And since God told His Son to sit while HE makes His enemies His footstool, we can rest our souls too. We no longer have to be out of balance with Him. It’s been Paid in Full. 
God, thank you for the awesome gift You have given us in Jesus and the ability to understand what we have received with the Holy Spirit. Bless and strengthen those who are willing to rest while the world spins. All of our hope and fountains are in Jesus. Lord, show each of us what we need to allow to rest with you. I pray you would help each of us to cast our cares on You and believe that Your shoulders are big enough to carry them.   Amen
This prayer only becomes understandable (or desirable) to someone who will cease striving in their soul in exchange for rest in Christ. Pride likes to strive. Success comes through rest. Sounds so crazy and mixed up, doesn’t it? Only in Christ can we rest while we work. What if resting our soul in Him was exactly what God’s answer is to us when we ask Him what we should be doing to fight our enemy (not flesh and blood) or the battles that we are facing? Will we listen? Do you associate rest with death or laziness? Or do you see resting your soul in Christ as a now thing for the living? Jesus is Lord!
“The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”