Ransoming and redemption, Jesus and you

I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death (Hosea 13:14).

Jesus died to redeem us. ‘Redeem’ means to buy back. Picture it this way. There was a boy who spent weeks building a model ship. It was the kind that has sails and rigging, all sorts of tiny knots and little pulleys. It was a complicated model, but the boy was careful and took his time—in the end, he had a ship to be proud of.

Excited with the results, the boy took his ship to the city park. He wanted to float it in the water outside, so he could take some authentic looking pictures. But as he was lining up the camera, the wind picked up and his ship sailed away. Before he could catch up, it was lost to sight.

A few weeks later, the boy was walking by a pawnshop downtown when he saw something amazing—there was his model ship in the window! He had done a good job building her; the asking price was steep. So the boy hurried home and scraped together all the money he had. Then he returned to the pawnshop and bought back the ship that really belonged to him.

That boy loved his model ship—loved it so much that he not only built it carefully, but He paid for it a second time in order to get it back. So it is with Jesus. We are precious to Him—He designed our bodies and He filled us with life. But we sailed away; we let the winds of life blow us wherever they wanted. We ended up in Satan’s pawnshop, alone and unloved. But then Jesus came along and bought us back. He spent everything He had—He gave up His life in order to make us His. He redeemed us from the devil’s control at the cost of His own life. That’s how much He loves us.

Or think of it this way. We are God’s children, but we didn’t like His rules so we ran away from home. Satan kidnapped us and refused to let us go. So Jesus offered Himself to the devil in exchange for our freedom—and Satan used that opportunity to have Jesus arrested, insulted, beaten, ridiculed, and put to death. Jesus knew perfectly well what He was getting into, but He swapped places with us anyway—He was willing to do anything to get us out of Satan’s clutches.

Jesus paid your ransom price; how are you using the freedom that He paid so dearly to give you?