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For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6:23
Reflect
When my daughter was six years old, she got extremely sick. Throughout the night she became severely dehydrated and was running a very high temperature, and we were advised to take her to the emergency room.
I remember carrying her limp little frame from the house to the car and from the car into the hospital. Once inside, we had to wait in the children’s waiting room for them to get a bed for her, and it was so difficult to watch her suffering while she tried to rest across a couple of chairs. Finally, we were given a room in the ER, and we sat with her while they ran tests.
But that wasn’t the end of her troubles. This was also when we discovered that she was allergic to penicillin. After they gave her antibiotics to fight whatever infection was inside, she had an allergic reaction to the medicine. What we thought would be part of the solution had suddenly become part of a different problem.
We spent most of the night in the hospital, and fortunately, she began to improve. But along the way, we felt incredibly helpless. We were her parents. We loved her more than we could possibly explain, and yet we were powerless to take away what she was suffering. It’s amazing that, even though these things happened close to 20 years ago, I can still remember it all like it was yesterday.
There is a point where that comparison with our heavenly Father breaks down, though, and I think that is where the Gospel becomes even more remarkable. I knew what it was like to desperately want to save my child and be unable to do it myself. God looked upon humanity trapped in sin and death, and He was not powerless.
He acted.
The Father gave His Son, and through the Son He offers us the gift Paul describes in Romans: eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Jesus did not go unwillingly to the cross, nor was the Father merely a helpless spectator watching events unfold. The Father gave, and the Son willingly laid down His life so that those condemned by sin could be brought from death into life.
That is a level of love and sacrifice I can barely comprehend.
That night, all I could do was carry my daughter toward people who might be able to help her. In Christ, God has done infinitely more for us. He has carried us from death toward life, not because we earned it and not because we could rescue ourselves, but because eternal life is His gift.
Today, if you’re a parent, you may know the terrible feeling of watching your child hurt and wishing you could somehow take the pain away yourself. Remember that you have a heavenly Father who is not distant from suffering. In Christ, God entered our suffering and conquered what we never could.
And whether you are a parent or not, we can all give thanks for the Father who gave and the Son who willingly came, so that the wages of sin would not have the final word.
The gift of God is eternal life.
Reflection copyright © 2026 Doug DeBolt and Charles Fulton.
