We, who follow Christ, are redeemed.

I asked my husband what topic I should write on this week. He suggested the word redeemed. And I really had to stop and think about that, because outside of hearing this word in church many times over the course of my life, about the only other time I’ve heard someone use it is when talking about taking a coupon to a store and using it to save money while we check out.

So what does this word really mean? I turned to Webster’s dictionary and found a long list of meanings that were all tied to this word. Among them:

To buy back or win back

To set free from the distresses of harm, such as to free a captive via a ransom or to clear a debt

To change for the better or reform

To repair or restore

To remove the obligation of something by payment

To exchange for something of value

To fulfill

What a rich, meaningful word.

When we think of people who follow Christ as being redeemed, what is involved? He bought us and brought us back to God when we were lost in our sin. He set us free from the distresses of harm. When the evil one held us in the grasp of death, He interceeded. He paid a debt we could never afford to pay. He repaired our brokenness and restored our relationship with God. He removed the obligation of any other ransom or debt to be paid. He exchanged Himself, who is of infinite worth, for us who are simply created beings who have some worth in His loving eyes. He came to fulfill the promise that God made to us, that He would send a sacrifice on our behalf.

“Wow, that’s a lot,” you may say, “all wrapped up in that one word.” Yes, indeed.

It is a lot to consider and think about under the weight and meaning of a single word. But it is one of the most important words to chew on, to be reminded of how good God has been to us through Jesus — and how recalling this should stir up such joy, awe, and the desire to sing from our hearts, from our lives.

Lyricist Fanny Crosby wrote about this via a hymn in 1882, one commonly simply known as Redeemed. (While it was always sung early on to the tune “Redeemed” by Kirkpatrick, I am rather partial to the alternate tune “Ada” by Butler, introduced in 1967.)

The words of this song point to many powerful truths. They speak of how our redeemed status in Christ and Christ alone makes way for our place as children of God, and this is a gift of infinite mercy initiated by God. They say we are no longer alone. They point to the fact that we are filled with joy and left speechless at the same time. But in the end, we just want to proclaim it. And our hearts want to sing, for His love is the theme of our song.

If you follow Jesus Christ, remember who you are and live out who you are.

Live as one redeemed.

We are finite…yet heading for infinity.

Paul wrote about this in his first letter to Corinth, when he expounded on a theology of death and resurrection. In chapter 15, verse 22, he wrote, “For in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” As I discussed in post (2) last week, we are all loved by the Creator God who made us, but only those to trust in Jesus for forgiveness of sins will be able to know God’s love more dearly and perfectly once more. So, too, looking at Paul’s words, we see clearly that due to the fall of man and sin entering the world, death ensued — both spiritually and physically. For the person who never accepts God’s grace through Jesus and repents of their sins, there remains both death at the end of this life and then ongoing spiritual death (separation from God and condemnation) in the life to come. Yet, for the person who does repent and run into the blood of Jesus, even though physical death must still be faced, we move from life to life. And for now, we live with tension in two senses. First, we have a developing awareness of out limitations in the face of God’s vastness; we wrestle with the boundaries of our finiteness even as we learn to trust His infinite goodness more. Second, we have more of a reason to keep on living and doing good prior to death — and yet we become increasingly homesick for Heaven.

In verses 50-57, Paul goes on to talk about how we will be changed. It seems like a mysterious thing to us: how, when the redeemed in Christ go to Heaven, we will be transformed and “the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.” Yes, we wrestle still with doubts and temptation and negative emotions in this life, but we look forward to seeing Jesus face to face on the “other side.”

However, too often (if we are honest), we are afraid. We might feel more happy about all of this if we more completely understood the exact way it will feel for us when we take our last breath and slip from this earthly body. We might be okay at the thought of facing death if we could somehow guarantee that the moment of our death would be the exact moment when we were ready to die and have enjoyed life, our relationships, and our pursuits enough…and the manner in which we would die — if we could each just pass without a single tinge of pain.

Earlier in the same chapter, Paul writes, “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men” (v. 19). I know the idea of death is generally sad and even scary. But I have long wondered why many believers in Christ seem to think physical death is a cause for terror and something to be avoided as long as possible. Certainly, there is nothing wrong with enjoying the blessings God has given us while we walk the earth this side of death. Yet, how much greater will be our joy and His glory when we stand with Him and see Christ face to face one day?

Preparing to write this post reminded me of the song Mystery by Sara Groves (link to lyric video below). In that song, she honestly wrestles with her finite humanity and the process of her sanctification on this side. But then she realizes how much she needs to trust. For even though the mystery of how God will transform us when we move from this journey into the realm of the infinite is like a shadow beyond our understanding, it is also like a trust fall. The greatest trust fall of all. And when we know that He is supremely trustworthy, we know He will not fail us. However it will be to experience physical death, we will be caught. We will be led home.

We can have peace in this.

We can sojourn through the finite and run fearlessly, hopefully towards the infinite.

We are loved.

It is not a love we earned or have done something to deserve. And it is not a love between equals. But we are loved. And when we live as ones loved, in and through Jesus Christ, nothing can ultimately steal our joy.

Joachim Neander lived from 1650 to 1680. He wrote many hymns, including one known today by the English title of “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty.” He wrote that beloved hymn in the final year of his relatively short life. Years later, when the hymn was translated into English, one translator chose the wording, “ponder anew: what the Almighty can do, Who with His love doth befriend,” while another translator decided on, “ponder anew: what the Almighty can do, if with His love He befriends thee.”

I am not fluent in Neander’s original language, so I cannot say which is more accurate according to that original penned line. But in consideration of the English variations, both are true.

The Almighty, for His part, does love us. It is in His nature to love, and He is love (1 John 4:16). He formed us and named us before time began (Psalm 139:13-16). Before we had any inclination of what love might be, He was already loving us. And even now, if we think we have begun to recognize His great love for us, we start to see more and more that we only see and understand Him dimly (1 Corinthians 13:12). We try to grasp His love for us — even try to emulate it. But how can we, when it is so vast and wide and pure and great? We cannot — according to any standard of perfection. And yet, He loves us still.

This love given is an unparalleled one. I asked my Chinese-speaking students once, as I was starting to learn more Mandarin, if I could use their term “ren ai” to describe the love between two people. They got kind of a strange look on their faces and said, “Oh, no. That kind of love is so high and great, like mercy and goodness shining out on the one who never deserved it. If we are honest, no person can really love like that.” Indeed.

God’s love for us and friendship with us is like the love of a well-balanced parent for an obnoxious toddler — only infinitely grander.

However, back to the second translation choice, the “if” is also reality. God loves every single person He’s ever made. But we do not all love Him, in the limited way we are able, while we live and breathe. First and foremost, we are separated from Him because of the unholy things we have done. And the only way to be made holy so that we can try to love Him and receive His love more fully again is to accept the gift of Christ’s sacrifice through faith. This is the “if”: if we hear about the good news of God’s gift to cover our unholiness, and if we embrace that gift in our own soul by believing…then, we move from ones being simply loved by the One who made us to ones who are befriended and capable of drawing near to the Him (Titus 3:3-7).

And when we see how we are loved and we taste of God’s goodness in His presence, we will often be drawn back into the wonder of what God has done, what He is doing, and what He may yet do as we are who we are, standing in the light of that love. (See Psalm 34:8, 84:4, and 86:11-15.)

Be who you are. Be loved.

Happy New Year, friends! Today, we turn down a new road of blogging devotionals with a different theme.

A couple of months ago, I was listening to a dear brother from our church, David, expound on a thought about identity. He shared about how he had heard someone use the phrase “be who you are” and was considering further what that phrase meant for those who profess to believe in and follow Jesus Christ.

That set my mind running on a track of what I know of Jesus as mentioned in the Word of God. Who is Jesus? Not just the attributes of Him that our culture now magnifies out of proportion — or says belong to Him but never really have been His according to His own life, teaching, and glorified place in the triune Godhead. But who is He, really? My head was flooded with adjectives and nouns to describe His identity, His attributes.

According to Websters dictionary online, the word identity is actually, interestingly, rather opposite and yet joined in its different meanings. Meaning one speaks of “the distinguishing character or personality of an individual” but the following meanings point to a condition of being the same with described or generic characteristics. In other words, our identity is all at once both what makes us unique as individuals — and also what characteristics we share with the one(s) with whom we are grouped or the one(s) we seek to be like.

The person who chooses to follow Jesus and live for Him wholeheartedly will bring their own personality, gifts, and vices into that relationship…the gifts to be further refined and used for good and the vices to be stripped away. But the call to follow Jesus is a call to surrender to Him and become more like Him. My individual identity must blend into the background on the canvas being painted, and His character reflected in me must rise to the foreground in the highlighted details.

Sometimes — even daily — we need a heart massage, to think on or recalibrate to His being, His characteristics, and what He has called us (to be). We need less of our negative characteristics and more of His wondrous ones.

We need to think about who we are. In Him. And we need to be who we are. In Him.

So, this year, at least once a week, I am going to post a new article here, each reflecting one aspect of who we are in Him — who He calls us to be. I invite you to return often, to read and think.

And then to go and to be.