After playing our usual Monday morning round of golf, my friends and I went into the clubhouse and I ordered a cheeseburger. “That’ll be six-fifty” said the woman behind the counter. I handed her a ten, and she gave me three singles and three quarters as change. “You gave me too much” I said and handed her a quarter, and put a buck in the tip jar.  She smiled and returned the quarter to the cash drawer.

It happens often enough, and generally in my favor. The clerk forgets to ring up one item, or I’m given the wrong change, and I point it out and pay up. Then there was the time when the car salesman wrote up the contract incorrectly and undercharged me by seven hundred dollars for my new Chrysler. I made up that difference too.

But a bigger temptation came at me in 2001 after I had accepted a severance package from my employer. Payroll statements were generally mailed out at the end of the month, showing salary, deductions and net deposit amounts. So a month after I retired, on a Friday at the end of February, I went to the mailbox and found my final pay statement which was to include my severance pay of about fifteen month’s salary. As I opened the envelope, I said to my wife, “I hope they didn’t screw this up”.

My eyes popped as I read the gross pay amount: one point zero four million dollars! And a net deposit of six hundred fifty-four thousand dollars. Sitting there in my bank account. Right now! Ready to be spent.

An error had been made of course. The amounts were off by a factor of ten. My wife and I had an interesting conversation for a little while that afternoon.

Finally I called the payroll department. “There’s been a mistake” I said. The woman on the other end of the line said she’d check. “No” she said, “those amounts are correct.” “Those numbers are most certainly not correct” I assured her. Please talk to your supervisor, and get this straightened out. “OK” she said, and I hung up.

It wasn’t until the following Monday that someone called to tell me, (heh, heh), that they had ‘’caught the error”. Subsequently the money was withdrawn from my account, and a check was issued for the correct amount (less than one-tenth of that huge bundle that had been mine for a day). They even made me drive to Milwaukee to pick up the check because somehow, although they could take the money out of my account, they were unable to deposit the correct amount.

Now you may wonder why I didn’t abscond with that cash and flee to some beachside South American paradise; why I’m not writing this at poolside in my villa while servants keep me supplied with cool beverages. Simple honesty perhaps? Not really.

Romans 6:17-19 (ESV) But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

Because of Christ, I’m now a slave to righteousness. Whether it’s a quarter or a million bucks, I cannot take what is not mine. Yes, I still sin every day. There’s always some failure to live a grateful obedient life. But I’m no longer a slave to sin. My new default is to do what is right by the power of Christ living in me. “Thanks be to God” indeed!