Click Here to Redeem

The word "redeemed" always makes me think of a gift; more specifically, a gift card...probably to iTunes. Most importantly, though, it emphasizes a purchase, not made by you yourself, but one made on your behalf that you get to freely enjoy. Now, I'm not saying that grace is a gift card, but I am saying that because of God's great love, we get to freely enjoy his purchase of us, in blood, back from the hands of death.
But it is not enough to say that we are saved from death. Rather, we were saved for life! Life to the full (John 10:10); to be inhabited, to not be our own.
I was wandering through Jeremiah, praying for God to bless this new journey I am on. I believe that in Jeremiah 29:11, God is addressing plans for our souls far more than he is concerned about being a script writer; and in facing my future, I find comfort in the fact that grace means I can never screw up God's plan - He is true to his word even when I am not to mine. His grace and goodness is more than enough to accomplish his will in the times when I have Stockholm syndrome, when I fall back into the way that I behaved when I was a slave to sin, before my redemption.
Somedays I treat redemption like a gift card: something that happened once, benefitted me, and, yeah, maybe I listen to the songs I got every once in a while, but it is not something that's on the forefront of my mind. Instead, what I should do and what I desire to do is to face each tomorrow remembering the rest of the passage of in Jeremiah about God's plan for me (context! gotta love it)
"Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,' declared the LORD, 'And I will bring you back from captivity!' " Jeremiah 29:12-14a
I AM A CAPTIVE SET FREE.

This song has been on my mind in relation to this week's statement. It's called "Exodus" by Bethany Dillon. And maybe some of you know it, but I'd encourage you to listen to it. Hear the struggle, the hope, and the joy of being freed from captivity.

http://www.myspace.com/bethanydillonmusic/music/songs/exodus-faithful-5741066

Imagine literally being a hostage in a distant land where your language is not spoken. You are cut-off from hope and helpless.
But there is someone who rescues you. Sets you free. You did not initiate your own salvation; rather it is by grace you have been saved.
This is not some one-time event that you will forget. It is a single life-altering action that will inform your every decision from now on.
This is not something you just keep to yourself. You share it with everyone, that they too may find themselves joyful in redemption.
You had a near-death experience. Live everyday as a step further from those chains, only by the power of your redeemer; and as a step closer to the cross.
Saved from death to die to self so we might be saved for life in Christ, who himself is life.