Let’s face it, most of us enjoy a bargain. I know I love a good sale. Thanks to information floating around the Internet, for those in the know, saving money is as easy as mastering the numbers on price tags.

Here’s some “secret” information that many claim will help you decipher sales codes by store: 

• Abercrombie & Fitch – Regular prices end in .50. Marked down items end in any other number.
• BJ’s – Regular prices end in .99. Final markdowns end in .00 or .90.
• Costco – Regular prices end in .99. Markdowns end in .97, .88, or .00. Manufacturer specials are indicated by prices ending in .89, .79, or .49.
• The Gap and Old Navy – Final markdown prices end in 7.
• Home Depot – Final markdowns have green or yellow tags or prices end in 6.
• JC Penney – Final markdown prices end in 7.
• Office Depot – Regular prices end in 0, 9, 5. Clearance prices are marked with a C.
• Sam’s Club – Markdown prices end in .01 or .91.
• Sears – Regular prices end in .99. Final markdowns end in .88. Clearance items end in .97.
• Target – Regular prices end in 9. Markdowns end in 6 or 8. Final markdowns end in 4.

While savings by the numbers are helpful in shopping for things that won’t last, there are other numbers with eternal significance—and you don’t need a code to decipher them:

• One God, eternal, holy, sovereign, and perfect.
• Two Covenants, the Old Covenant based on the Law, and the New Covenant based on God’s grace extended to us through Jesus Christ.
• Three Persons in the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
• Four Gospels that describe the birth, sinless life, sacrificial, substitutionary death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
• Five books of the Law, called the Pentateuch, showing us we fall short of God’s holiness and we need a Savior.

The apostle Paul especially understood the significance of the number one:

“There is one body and one Spirit,
just as you were called to one hope when you were called;
one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all,
who is over all and through all and in all”
(Ephesians 4:4-6).

There’s only one way to be reconciled to God, the Lord of creation. That way is through faith in His Son, Jesus. And the price tag for that reconciliation was Jesus’ death on a cross.

It’s fun to decipher store price tags to save some money. But it’s a matter of life and death for us to understand the numbers in the Bible point to our need for a Savior. And that’s no secret.