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We Throw Away: God RedeemsLyn Thompson, Pastoral Care, CTCA/Southwestern Regional Medical Center
Job 19:25 For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: Americans are generally known as a "throw-away" people. Even though we've made some headway in the recycling area, when something doesn't look new anymore or we're tired of it or it's work-worn and may be encountering some problems or getting ready to break, we go out and get a "new one" rather than spend the time, energy and money redeeming the old. We even do that with people, many times. If they've taken a wrong turn, made some poor choices or fallen on hard times, it's easier and less embarrassing to walk away, turn away, forget about them and let them become someone else's problem rather than invest ourselves in helping them pick themselves up. But God's not that way. The Bible calls Him our Redeemer. He loves to take what's broken and put the pieces back together, even when those pieces represent our lives, and even when we're the ones responsible for the breakage. That's because He made us in His image and with a purpose. We're His creation -- made for intimacy and fellowship with Him -- and He loves what He created. In Eph. 2:10, the Bible says, "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." That's why God redeems what He created. He wants us to become everything He meant us to be. He says He wants us to have "abundant life." The Bible gives us pictures of this redeeming love God has for us. It says He'll take what's been bent and bruised, and instead of crushing it, He'll straighten it and make it stand tall and strong once again. Or He'll take the smoldering wick of a candle and instead of snuffing out the light, He'll blow on what little flame is still flickering and fan it into life once again. When circumstances or bad choices eat away at our lives like locusts and caterpillars, He'll find and redeem what was lost and restore it when we're trusting Him with our life. The Bible says God created us to be beautiful and to display His glory. But when sin entered the world through Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, it began to mar that beauty and disfigure it. Now, each person born is born with a nature bent toward sin -- a nature that wants its own way, that wants to please itself rather than its Creator. Worse than that, it's a nature that enslaves us and then, with every wrong choice we make, we bind ourselves to it tighter and tighter. We are doomed to destruction, death and hell -- the permanent throw-away, the dump, so to speak, for our lives. But God didn't want that. We're his kin. He loves us too much and wants to spend eternity with us. So as our "kinsman," our family member, He sent His most precious treasure -- His Only Son -- to pay the penalty for our sin and buy us back. That way we could become free men and women once again, as He made us to be. The Bible says we were purchased -- redeemed -- not with silver and gold, which is corruptible, but with the precious blood of Christ which is perfect. When we come to the point where we know we personally need God's plan of redemption, and ask Him to apply that purchase price to our life, He does just that. And His Holy Spirit begins the process of remaking, reshaping, remolding, straightening and shining us up, so that, once again, we glow with the glory of God. |
