What a deal!

What would you do with $850,000? Buy a new house, car, and Rolex watch? Invest it? Tithe on it? Give it away? Send your pastor on an all-expense paid trip to Hawaii? (I like the way you think!) Well, that could have been my dilemma by the end of the day, because according to an e-mail I received yesterday from a minister in the Republic of Benin, I am the recipient of an ATM credited account of $850,000. All I have to do to receive that boat load of money is send in my bank account information and a $98 processing fee and the 850,000 smackeroos will be mine! WOW! What a deal!

If my math is correct, I would stand to make a profit of $849,902 from that $98 investment. While I would love that to be true, excuse me for being a wee bit skeptical. Maybe I shouldn’t be such a cynic. I just read the story of Howard Schultz, who in 1987 decided to buy a small chain of coffee shops for four million dollars. Maybe you’ve heard of these stores, they are called Starbucks. Well, five years after that initial investment, Starbucks stocks went public and old Howard made 273 million real bucks in one day. Not a bad payout for a four million dollar investment. Still, my ninety-eight dollar investment in an ATM account doesn’t seem to be the same kind of opportunity. Just what exactly is an ATM account, anyway? And why is a minister of the gospel offering such a deal? Most of the preachers I know don’t have that kind of loot. (Present company included, I assure you!) Why does the good Reverend Maxwell Bello of Benin need my bank account information in Kansas? I’ve never been to Benin. I’ve never heard of Benin. Sniff. Sniff. I smell something rotten in Denmark (or Benin to be more geographically correct).

My guess is that these scams work because people wish and dream that they could strike it rich one day—without work and with little effort. “Somehow if I can do nothing and still get rich quick that would be really cool,” they wish upon a star. Presumably, the notion of a windfall for the low, low price of $98 is too much of a temptation. So they dutifully send in their 98 buckaroos and bank account numbers and the next day (“Surprise, surprise,” Gomer Pyle) they discover that they are not only missing their 98 dollars but everything else that was in their savings account.

The old adage is true: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

I know of only one completely and totally too good to be true story. Here it is: Jesus Christ gave up the glory and splendor and majesty of heaven for an old rugged cross for you and me. It’s unbelievable but true. While we were unlovable, God loved us. It’s unbelievable but true, that God daily pours out his love on me and you. It’s unbelievable but true, that God longs to be in relationship with people like us. John Newton called it “Amazing Grace.” The Apostle Paul put it this way: But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. It is only by God's grace that you have been saved! (Ephesians 2:4-6). And there is even more good news; we don’t even have to send in a $98 processing fee to receive it. Wow! What a deal!