Redeemed

For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Colossians 1:13-14 (NIV)

I have been a Christian practically all my life. I gave my life to Christ as a child. I attended Sunday school and during the August holidays, I would be found at Vacation Bible School. I have fellowshipped at Pentecostal, Baptist and Charismatic churches. I attend 2 different Bible studies every week, in addition to my own personal Bible study.
I say all the above to show you how you, just like me, can be around God and His work and yet not understand Him. Isn’t this what the Pharisees and Sadducees were guilty of? They knew the Scriptures but when the Person of the Scripture stood before them, they did not recognize Him. Instead, they crucified Him.

I relate to the Pharisees very well. In spite of being around God and His work, I am still very ignorant about the foundations of the Christian faith. I realized this as I was reading the book of Exodus. God instructed the Israelites to redeem the first born male so that they may belong to Him (Exodus 13:1-16). And I was left wondering what redemption meant! Yes, I have been confessing Christ has redeemed me; if anything, Colossians 1:13-14 is one if my favourite bible verses. But, I had no idea what it meant to be redeemed! 😯

So, like any responsible person, I made Google my friend and searched for the meaning of the word redeem, and this is what I found:

Redeem: To buy back; to free from what distresses or harms; to change for the better; to offset the bad effect of 

You can imagine how gobsmacked I was! God the Father literally bought me back! I am His! He litetally owns me! And it is all because of Christ! How amazing is that???

And He further emphasizes this fact in the following verses:

For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time.
1 Tim 2:5-6 (NIV)

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price.Therefore honor God with your bodies.
1 Cor 6:19-20 (NIV)

And because He owns me, then my life is sure. The devil literally has no say in my life and how I live it because I have an Owner. This does not mean that I am immune from life’s calamities, but it means that even when I feel overwhelmed, when I cannot tell the difference between my right and my left, I have the assurance that God is right there in the thick of it with me. Why? Because I am His possession. And as the Word says, if He be for me, who can be against me? (see Romans 8:31)

What about you? Have you been redeemed? If you have, are you walking in the light of your redemption? If you have not, would you like to be redeemed? Acknowledge Jesus and His work on the cross and you too will be rescued from the authority of Satan.