Ransom

Today’s Reading: 1 Timothy 2: 6

“Where is he?”  “Have you looked in his bedroom?”   “I have looked in his bedroom, under all of the beds in the house.  I have looked in the closets.  I have looked in the basement. I cannot find him here in the house.”  “Lets check with friend A.”  “He’s not there or at Friend B or C’s house.”  At this moment, you start to fear for the worst. Your son cannot be found.  He was upstairs 30 minutes ago.  You have been in the kitchen preparing dinner and go and check on him and he is no there. You begin the fell the sense of worry and anxiety because he was just right here.  You search the neighborhood for five minutes… ten minutes… fifteen minutes. You cannot find him. Two minutes later you see him turning the corner onto the street and you are flooded with a mixture of emotions.  Your son has returned home.

This scene has happened to me and countless others in our lives.  We have lost something that is truly precious and valuable to us. This has happened several times this summer for friends and myself with our children. The blessing is that God allowed us to regain our children quickly without harm.

There are some other individuals that are not as fortunate and their loved ones have been captured and place up for ransom.  Currently this is something that still happens and the individuals affected by this are experiencing unspeakable anguish and hurt.  We lift up these and others who have been victims of these atrocities.

Every one of us have been the victim of unspeakable atrocities and our souls where place up for RANSOM by the adversary.  In the book of Genesis, our spirits were taken by trickery and malice and place up for ransom.   The adversary believed that in order to remove the Jesus from his place in heaven, he would have to sabotage God’s creation.  This assault on us created a rift between God and our spirit.  The adversary believed that if Christ would come from heaven and become flesh he would lose his power and weaken the Trinity.  There were several attempts to reconcile the people with God: Noah, Moses, and David.  Through the use of sacrifices that spilled the blood these acted as a partial payments for our sins.  The real payment would be for Christ to completely pour out his body and blood to fulfill the ransom.  But the adversary did not realize that Christ, being part of the creator and the creation, he would overcome the boundaries of the creation and fulfill the payment and reconcile himself to himself.  He paid the Ransom with his blood, so that we would be reconciled to him and be in fellowship with him.

We have all been the lost child in the neighborhood.  We have all been a person looking of that child.  When we left paradise, God was searching for us.  He could see our outside shells, but our spirits where hidden from him.  Once Christ gave his body, we have been given a new bond and relationship that will not be broken.  We have been blessed with a renewed spirit that is in continual fellowship with the Holy Spirit.  This is the joy of this Ransom.  It reconnected us with God in a manner similar to when time begin.  We have to acknowledge this connection and not allow the adversary to trick us again.

Heavenly Father,

Thank you for the ransom that you paid for us.  Thank you for renewing our relationship.  Thank you for protecting us and sheltering us in the midst of the chaos.  Thank you for being the anchor that we can cling through it all.  Amen