Redemption

 As the Christmas/New Year season is passing us by and I home for the holidays, I have been catching up on some much needed reading. I must admit sitting back and reading a good book and not worrying about exams or essays is quite refreshing. Although, I do feel like a bum at times, I think my mother would also have to agree with me. But, hey being a bum every once in a while ain't so bad...right?

For Christmas I received a couple of books and one seemed to grab my attention, the book is entitled Unashamed written by one of my all time favorite writers, Francine Rivers. Unashamed is about Rahab, a lady in the Bible who was a prostitute, but had faith in God. God used Rahab to protect the Israelite spies and in return for their safety the God would protect Rahab and her family once the battle of Jericho began, they simply ordered Rahab to tie a scarlet cord in her window as a sign of their protection. God commanded His people to march around the city of Jericho one time each day for six days and on the seventh day to march around the walls of the city seven times. The assembly of people did all that God had told them to do and the walls of Jericho collapsed, no lives were spared, only those of Rahab and her family. Rahab then lived with the Israelites. She married an Israelite and together they bore a son. This right here is what I find so awesome;

Rahab and Salmon had a son, Boaz.
Boaz was the father of Obed;
Obed was the father of Jesse;
Jesse was the father of King David.
And from the line of King David of the tribe of Judah
came the promised Messiah, Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

Does that not blow your mind? The Lord did not see Rahab for all that she had been, but all she could be for the Kingdom of God. God took the lowest of the low, a prostitute, and not only freed her from sin, but created her in the lineage of His only Son, who was born and lived a sinless life and died to save the world. I read this and as my thoughts try to grasp the incredible amazing God we serve, the word that comes to my mind is redemption. A perfect picture of redemption we see in this story. All of this intrigued me so that I researched the meaning of redemption in the dictionary and this is what I found;

re·demp·tion

/rɪˈdɛmpʃən/ Show Spel

–noun

1.an act of redeeming or the state of being redeemed.

2.deliverance; rescue.

3.Theology . deliverance from sin; salvation.

4.atonement for guilt.

5.repurchase, as of something sold.

6.paying off, as of a mortgage, bond, or note.

7.recovery by payment, as of something pledged.

8.conversion of paper money into specie.

  

God is a God of redemption, He delivers those He loves from the hand of the enemy. No matter the sin, how great or small, God will cleanse our hearts from all sin if we allow Him to make us His own. We are nothing but sinful, helpless creatures who have mocked and spit on the name of Jesus through our sin. Yet, in His unfailing love He doesn't let us go, but rather reaches out His hand to rescue us and give us an abundant and everlasting life with Him.

"To women who think a past of mistakes ruins any chance of a joy-filled future. Turn to Jesus and experience the wonders He has waiting for you." -Francine Rivers

A Life Bought Back

As I sit here I am motivated to share with those who will choose to read my blog a part of the deepest and most sacred thoughts, hopes, dreams, of my heart, even the icky and the lovely, in which the Almighty God is forever tweaking and perfecting. The life set before me has been given and entrusted to me, a gift in which I choose daily to be led and driven by the Spirit of my Father. I am proof that there is such a thing called freedom. When darkness and death seem to be crawling into life and which overcoming all evil seems completely impossible, I am here and alive to say it is not impossible. My God is greater. My God is healer. My God is the author of all life and He has given me a chance to live passionately alive. Because of this second chance which has been graciously given to me by my Redeemer, I want to share with all the world of what He continues to do to conform me more and more unto His image.

Although God has brought me from death unto life, the life He has given me still carries the evil fleshly desires, thoughts, and even actions of this world. I struggle daily to follow God's heart and not my own. We walk a life journey of molding into the likeness of Christ, a goal which cannot be entirely attained until we meet our Savior face to face in the home He prepares for us now. Walk this journey with me friends, may we walk the adventure of life hand in hand with our God while never losing sight of the cross...

"Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me His own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." Philippians 3:12-14