Drawn to Redemption

Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. ~ John 8:34-36

In his book, Redemption, Mike Wilkerson discusses why we struggle with redemption.  “You may have developed various means of dealing with what's been done to you--self-protection, hypersensitivity, catastrophizing to grab others' attention, never trusting anyone or depending too much on their affirmation, getting even, withholding yourself from others, becoming the aggressor, or self-medicating with any number of substances or pleasure.  In short, you may have constructed a comprehensive manner of life for surviving apart from God (Eph 4:22),” (56).  In this life you’ve created for yourself, you’ve cocooned yourself into an imaginary safety-zone.  But that safety-zone is a lie and God doesn’t want you to stay there.  He wants to open your eyes to the more that He has for you: True Freedom through Redemption.  “In delivering us from sin, God breaks the chains of slavery and beckons us to freedom,” (Wilkerson, 57).

David Crowder, in the song “How He Loves,” says that we are “drawn to redemption by the grace in [God’s] eyes.”  And it's the grace in His eyes that causes us to battle.  If all someone has ever known is that "manner of life," then to see something so peaceful, gentle, and non-judgmental in the eyes of Christ causes one to battle within themselves.  In the battle, the enemy says, "Don't bother, it will be more of the same." And at the same time, the grace we see draws us ever forward. 

Being enslaved is not a “rare condition.”  Jesus said that everyone who sins is a slave to it, bound in chains.  And every enslaved being wants freedom.  It’s the job of those who’ve been freed to lead and guide those still in chains, through love, to the One--the only One--who can make them free forever.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. ~ Galatians 5:1