Ephesians 1:7-10
How do I deal with my guilt?
“It seems that I know evil more intimately than I know goodness and that’s not a good thing either. I want to get even, to be made even, whole, my debts paid (whatever it may take!), to have no blemish, no reason to feel guilt or fear.… I’d like to stand in the sight of God. To know that I’m just and right and clean. When you’re this way, you know it. And when you’re not, you know that, too. It’s all inside of us, each of us.” (From a letter by Gary Gilmore [executed by State of Utah] to his girlfriend.)
Praise God because He redeemed us in Christ.
The process by which sinful humans are “bought back” from the bondage of sin into relationship with God through grace by the “payment” of Jesus’ death.
Redemption is the act by which people are bought back from the bondage of sin into a relationship with God.
The process by which sinful humans are “bought back” from the bondage of sin into relationship with God through grace by the “payment” of Jesus’ death.
A story which has captured and informed young imaginations for years is helpful here. In a city on the shore of a great lake lived a small boy who loved the water and sailing. So deep was his fascination that he, with the help of his father, spent months making a beautiful model boat, which he began to sail at the water’s edge. One day a sudden gust of wind caught the tiny boat and carried it far out into the lake and out of sight. Distraught, the boy returned home inconsolable. Day after day he would walk the shores in search of his treasure, but always in vain. Then one day as he was walking through town he saw his beautiful boat — in a store window! He approached the proprietor and announced his ownership, only to be told that it was not his, for the owner had paid a local fisherman good money for the boat. If the boy wanted the boat, he would have to pay the price. And so the lad set himself to work doing anything and everything until finally he returned to the store with the money. At last, holding his precious boat in his arms, he said with great joy, “You are twice mine now — because I made you, and because I bought you.”
“Great was the work of creation but greater the work of redemption. It costs more to redeem us than to make us. In the one there was but the speaking of the Word, in the other there was the shedding of blood. The creation was but the work of God’s fingers, Psalm 8:3. Redemption is the work of His arm, Luke 1:51,”
Redemption is valuable.
Forgiveness is available.
Charles Colson tells of watching Albert Speer being interviewed on “Good Morning, America.” Speer was the Hitler confidant whose technological genius kept the Nazi factories running throughout World War II. He was the only one of the twenty-four war criminals tried at Nuremburg to admit his guilt, and he had served twenty years in a Spandau prison. The interviewer referred to a passage in one of Speer’s earlier writings: “You have said the guilt can never be forgiven or shouldn’t be. Do you still feel that way?” Colson says he will never forget the look of pathos on Speer’s face as he responded, “I served a sentence of twenty years, and I could say, ‘I’m a free man, my conscience has been cleared by serving the whole time as punishment.’ But I can’t get rid of it. This new book is part of my atoning, of clearing my conscience.” The interviewer pressed the point: “You really don’t think you’ll be able to clear it totally?” Speer shook his head. “I don’t think it will be possible.” Colson says:
For thirty-five years Speer had accepted complete responsibility for his crime. His writings were filled with contrition and warnings to others to avoid his moral sin. He desperately sought expiation. All to no avail. I wanted to write Speer, to tell him about Jesus and his death on the cross, about God’s forgiveness. But there wasn’t time. The ABC interview was his last public statement; he died shortly after.3