Monday, April 9, 2012

Taxing

Procrastinators rejoice! This year you have one extra day to complete your taxes. No, your congressman is not doing you extra favors in an election year. April 15 falls on a Sunday, so tax day, for this year only, moves to April 16.

So what will you do with your extra day? Plan a family vacation? Work in the long delayed vegetable garden in the backyard? Complete the world's best novel? Unfortunately for most of us, an extra day simply provides one more day to worry about our taxes. To take the ultimately pessimistic view, this means we have one less day to pay our taxes in 2013. Ah, the joys of life.

Still the ambiguities of the tax code remind me of one essential truth: there is no ambiguity in the salvation we know in Christ. Though it was very costly, God has made our salvation profoundly simple to understand. When the Philippian jailer asked Paul and Silas what he needed to do to know the salvation they had in Christ, this was their reply:

Acts 16:31 (NIV)
They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.”

That's a message worth sharing – and with an extra day to finish your taxes, you have all that free time to share it!