Redemption Song...

God is telling an amazing story, or maybe singing an amazing song (like an old bard from those medieval stories). It's the story of the redemption of all that ever existed.

Let me start with this: I am not a "sinner saved by grace." That's statement is just false. That's not how God looks at me, so why should I look at me that way? Jesus' grace didn't just cover up my sin. It wiped away from me; it split it from me as far as the east is from the west. Now, I am a new creation in Christ. God the Father looks at me and sees in me Christ--the very image of perfection. God does not see a sinner who has been wiped clean when he sees me. He sees the greek word "hagios"--a redeemed one, a holy one, a saint. Saying "I'm a sinner, and there's nothing I can do to change that" is an admission of defeat. While it's true that there was nothing I could do to change myself from a sinful man to a redeemed saint, I am not just a sinner. I'm not just a sinner, because there IS something Christ already did. He died on the cross to forgive ALL mankind of its sin, and we have but to realize that.

We have to realize what Paul says we have already attained. We have already attained redemption, because Christ already died on the cross and rose again from death and ascended into Heaven. Christ already beat sin--we don't have to! We have but to realize this. In Rob Bell's book Velvet Elvis, he describes a scene in which someone at a restaurant picked up the tab for him and his family. Rob didn't know who did it, but he had to trust the waitress. The bill was paid already, and Rob just had to accept it. His only other choice was to pretend the bill hadn't been paid. Isn't that what we do? We don't want to accept that Christ already paid our debt. We want to earn it. We want to stop sinning on our own, or we want a crutch to lean on when we've sinned.

Here's the deal: Christ paid our debt. We are free men (and women). We but have to realize this. We can choose to live a false existence as Christians that we are still stuck in sin, but it simply isn't true. Nowhere in the bible does it say we have to continue in sin. Our old self is dead, and we must learn to live in our new self. Our old self may try and rise back up every now and then, but let's just remind ourselves that it is DEAD. It is defeated.

Let's now step outside of thinking about ourselves (and in the process ruin another falsehood we cling to). God created the world. When he was done, he said that it was good. It was good. The world is not some evil place in itself. It's what we've made the world into. See, we screwed the world up with sin. If Hell is a place where things are apart from God's desire, we have brought Hell to earth. Sin seperated man from God. Sin seperated earth from God. God is going to do something about that just like he did something about the seperation of Him and man.

We often think that we are going to "go" to Heaven. I see a different picture in Revelation. God is going to step down into the world. He is going to redeem the world. He'll basically create a new earth--just like he gave us a new self. When God steps down to earth, He will bring Heaven with Him. Think of the words from Wyatt Earp in Tombstone: "You tell 'em I'm comin', and Hell's comin' with me you hear. Hell's comin' with me." Now sort of spin it around. Imagine God saying to us and to the forces of evil in this world, "You tell 'em I'm comin', and Heaven's comin' with Me you hear. Heaven's comin' with Me." We're not going anywhere. As much as we'd like to get the heck out of Dodge, we better get comfortable. God's coming, and He plans on taking this world back. He plans on making it good once again.

God's telling a story of redemption as we speak. He has redeemed us. He will redeem this world. We're living God's redemption song.

God is calling us--the redeemed ones--to help bring Heaven to earth. The only time Christ ever told a story of instant death as a result of sin was when a man failed to be generous--when a rich man ignored the poor man at his door. He let that poor man live Hell on earth. Jesus called us to show people to Heaven. If Hell is a place where things are against God's desires, Heaven is the fulfillment of God's desires. God desires to see injustice brought to an end, and he wants us to be a part of doing that.

He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
-Micah 6:8

Jesus calls us to help those who can't help themselves--the least of these. We're to visit those in prison, feed those who are hungry, give drink to those who are thirsty, clothe those who have no clothes, tend to the sick, and show hospitality to the stranger. He says when we do these things that we have done it for Him. He says that those who ignore injustice, show no mercy, choose not to have generosity will be thrown into the fire. Unjust, merciless, selfish--those are the words of Hell. When we choose those things, we bring Hell to earth. We watch people live in their own Hell--rotting from disease and starving to death. When we show mercy and kindness and generosity--when we fight injustice--we bring Heaven to earth. We point people towards God.

Just remember this. It's rather hard to show the Bread of Life to a man who has no bread to eat. It's rather hard to explain freedom from the bondage of sin to a man being wrongly imprisoned or a woman still stuck in bondage to forced prostitution. We should share the Gospel with all people. Before we explain it to them, we should show it to them first.

We have been redeemed. When we learn to walk in this new life--this redeemed life, we are a light to all people. God is desperate to redeem this world from all the injustice that sin has caused. We, the redeemed ones, are who God is calling--begging--to show the opressed the way to Him.


"But my hand was made strong by the hand of the almighty.
We forward in this generation triumphantly.
Won’t you help to sing these songs of freedom?
’Cause all I ever have, redemption songs, redemption songs."
-Bob Marley, "Redemption Song"