For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a Lamb without blemish or defect. 1 Peter 1:18-19
World War I saw a great deal of hard trench fighting, and few battles could compare in intensity with that of Verdun in the year 1916.
In the middle of the fight, a 20-year-old French corporal wrote home to his family: “Oh, the people who were sleeping in bed and who tomorrow, reading their newspaper, would say joyously, ‘they are holding!’ Can they imagine all the sacrifice which is behind that simple word: ‘holding’?”
In the history of the world, no battle has ever been waged with more concentration and ferocity than that of Satan against our Savior. At stake was not a small piece of French real estate, but the souls of the human race. Upon the Savior rested all our hope of heaven.
Peter says it simply: “you were redeemed … with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.”
Paraphrasing our World War I corporal, I’d like to ask, can anyone imagine what the simple words “you were redeemed” mean? It means friends didn’t understand Him. It means His church rejected Him. Even the justice of Rome turned his back on the Lord. So that we might be redeemed, Jesus shed His blood. To establish a new relationship — a new covenant between you and His Father — He shed His blood.
It is a duty He had accepted, but we never dare think His action was done without a price. So that there might be a new covenant of grace and not law, His blood was shed upon the cross of Calvary.
Those of us who have grown up in Jesus, those who have recently come to know His Name and work cannot begin to appreciate the weight of those words: I’ve been redeemed “with the precious blood of Christ, a Lamb without blemish or defect.”
No, we cannot comprehend what Jesus has done, but we can still give thanks.
THE PRAYER: Lord Jesus, no matter how hard we work, we have to take time off. That is not true of the work You did in saving us. Lead me each day to a greater appreciation of Your blood, which was offered for me. In Your Name. Amen.
Pastor Ken Klaus
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