Look Up! Redemption is Here

March 24, 2022

Good morning Yahweh. Time clearly flies when you are having fun or sleeping. Thank you for a new day. Thank you for your grace, your faithfulness, your love. It is a beautiful thing to sit in your presence, to hear from you and to see your hands at work. Thank you for your wall of protection around this family. Thank you for loving us and for your guidance. You lead in both the big and the perceived small, but nothing is truly small in your sight. You care about the obvious and big things of this world and the small and seemingly insignificant things. 

Thank you for being God above all. When I think of what you have sacrificed for us, it amazes me and I just want to say thank you! For thinking of us, for not writing us off when we sinned. For having a plan to redeem us. You redeemed us. When everyone else would have left us to suffer what was rightfully ours, you redeemed us. 

Redeem: to deliver, by any means, ransom, rescue, to release.

To free from captivity by payment of ransom. To release from blame or debt.

You know why this is amazing? You could have just demanded this earth back and its inhabitants. With just a word or snap of your fingers, a thought, we would have been back to being yours. But you did not want forced love or obedience. I don’t think most people in their right mind want that. And you are more than, definitely in your right mind. And so you chose to pay the price so that we would have once more be able to choose to love. You didn’t even pay a price on a sure thing. You did it because you love us and desired our love to be returned freely. 

Galatians 4:4-5 – But when the time was right, God sent his son into the world. A woman gave birth to him and he came under the control of the laws given to Moses. God sent him to pay for the freedom of those who were controlled by the laws. So that we would be adopted as his children. 

The desire to not just save but to adopt us was so great and important that he had to prepare (God having to prepare?!!). He had to make sure that the time was right, that everything was in place for the coming of the redeemer. He made the most of the time. He didn’t choose quick and anyhow. He chose to prepare, to come at the best time. Ever wondered if Christ had come for the first time in today’s time – would we have believed? The Internet and technology would have you see a cow but it’s truly a bird passing by. He came at the most effective time. Travel was easier and widespread. Things could be recorded but not easily changed. It’s the easiest thing now to make up our own “facts” but it wasn’t so easy then. He wanted us to be free and he paid the price that we could not pay for ourselves.

Psalm 49:15 – But God will redeem my life from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me. 

Christ died once, but his redemption is perpetual. This is the confidence that David had. That Yahweh would pay the price – because he said he would. David recognized that whenever he moved outside of Yahweh’s will, the price that Yahweh paid would cover it. It’s not that we keep looking for ways to move outside of Yahweh to test if he would still redeem us (btw, he would once we were truly repentant). He knew without a doubt that the God who loved him will still save him, not because of who David was, but because of who Yahweh is. 

And that’s the end all. That’s why it’s so difficult for so many of us to truly accept that he always has redeemed us and adopted us, because we didn’t earn it. We didn’t work for it. It was a gift – a promise he made (literally!) against himself. With himself as a surety. Can we say that anyone else has done or is willing to do that willingly for us? Try as I might, I can’t think of anyone who would do that for us, except him. The average person would not put themselves in someone else’s place, especially if it meant that they would die but you did. He took our place so that we could live. 

Redeemed By the Blood of the Lamb by People and Songs

Of Yahweh’s Promises Playlist

The Expense of Yes.

There seems to be the desire for people to say yes and and agree with something even when their conscience is not in agreement with it. And more and more you’re seeing people being threatened, controlled, even tricked to do what they are not in agreement with. What do you do then?

When Satan tried to get Jesus to say yes to worshipping him, yes to turning the stone into bread, to jump from a building so that the angels would rescue him – what would it have cost for Jesus to say yes? Everything. This entire earth and its inhabitants would have been lost with no redemption. 

Is that an expense we were willing to pay? Is that a cost Jesus was willing to pay? We need to weigh the cost and let our yes be yes and no be no. Jesus did say yes to something. Not what Satan offered but to what his father asked: would you lay down your life and take it back again to save this earth? To that question, Jesus said yes. It also came at a cost, but one he was willing to pay. No matter what you say yes to, there’s always a cost attached and we need to consider if we are willing to pay it. If it is worth it.

Would it compromise your beliefs? Then no. Would you have to lie? Then no. Would you need to destroy someone, hurt someone? Then no. 

Would it bring glory to Yahweh? Then yes. We need to be true to who Yahweh calls us to be, even if it means that you appear to be standing alone. To humanise you may be. But the God of Angel Armies is before you, behind you and beside you. Trust him. He has never failed.