When my youngest son was about two he decided to climb up onto the stove just after I had removed a kettle of soup from the burner and turned it off.  He put his hand directly on the just turned off burner.  He blistered his tiny little hand and we took him to see a doctor.  After properly bandaging it up we went back home.

The very next day, I once again removed dinner from the stove and turned just in time to see the same little boy who had just climbed onto the stove and burnt his hand the day before begin to climb onto the top of the stove again.  I rushed to grab him and he narrowly missed burning his hand again! 

It’s been about 18 years since that happened and I asked him if he remembered the incident.  He doesn’t, but says he must have been testing the laws of physics:  If it happened once, will it happen again under the same circumstances?  He says he does remember being about seven years old and deciding to cook himself something on the stove.  He turned on a burner, but didn’t know which one he had turned on so he touched each one til he found the one that was hot, consequently burning his finger.  I think he finally learned that hot burners do always burn. 

The Bible tells us in Romans 6:23 that “The payment for sin is death, but the gift that God freely gives is everlasting life found in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  The payment for sin is always death, no matter how many times we touch it, it will burn us each time.  The good news is that unlike the doctor who fixed up Colbys hand, God’s healing of our burns is free.  A gift. 

In Him we have salvation  through His blood, the forgiveness of our offenses, in accordance with the riches and the generosity of His gracious favor.  Ephesians 1:7