Michel Horton, On Stealing

“All it takes for us to be guilty of theft is one misspent hour at work; one item we ‘forgot’ to return from the office; one personal long-distance phone call we made at the company’s expense; one overpriced item in our store. We see our sinless Lord, crucified with thieves not unlike the one hanging next to Him. Here was one person who never took what did not belong to Him, and who fulfilled all His obligations and paid debts He did not owe, and yet He hands there next to a common thief, bearing His shame and guilt before God as though He had committed the crime. The thief crucified next to our Lord may have experienced the wrath of Rome that dark Friday afternoon, but because of the crucifixion of a Man just feet from him, he would not have to endure the wrath of heaven. All thieves who trust in Christ can expect to hear those same words on their death-bed from the spotless Lamb: ‘Today you shall be with me in Paradise.” (The Law of Perfect Freedom, pgs. 222)