“I shall ransom them from the power of Sheol;
I shall redeem them from Death.
O Death, where are your plagues?
O Sheol, where is your sting?
Compassion is hidden from my eyes.”
– Hosea 13:14

These words of the ancient prophet Hosea find their ultimate fulfillment in the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus sacrificed His innocent life for ours. He suffered in physical and spiritual agony on the cross, died, and was buried. On the third day He rose from the dead victorious over death and sin!

To ransom someone is to pay for their release. To redeem them is to buy their freedom from bondage. Jesus ransomed and redeemed us, paying for our freedom with His shed blood and broken body. Because He paid that terrible price, all who put their faith in Him are ransomed and redeemed forever! We’re set free from the terrible power of sin in our lives, we are free from the terrible eternal penalty for our sin, and we are free from death, for we will rise in Christ!

At a time when death is more prominently visible than usual in our modern world, let us remember that for all those redeemed by the blood of Christ, death has no sting, it is merely our passage into the presence of God forever!

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” – Romans 8:18

Suffering is a reality. It will eventually touch every life to a greater or lesser extent. However, suffering is particularly visible in 2020. The Bible acknowledges the reality and the pain of suffering. The suffering you experience is real, painful, and hard. However, the Bible offers us ultimate and eternal hope in the face of suffering!

Paul knew suffering well, but he also understood that what lies ahead for followers of Jesus will be so great, so beautiful, so joyful, so delightful that it will be infinitely greater than all the suffering we experience during our brief lives!

As Christians, we will enjoy the perfect and gloriously overwhelming presence of God and Christ forever!

As Christians, God Himself will comfort us, wipe away our tears, and welcome us into an eternity that’s free from pain, sadness, suffering, and death!

As Christians, we will live forever in the renewed heaven and earth, richly enjoying creation as God made it to be!

As Christians, we will enjoy the fellowship of believers from every generation, nation, race, tribe, and tongue as we worship God right there in front of Him!

No matter how discouraged you might become from the very real suffering you‘re experiencing, hold on to the guaranteed promise of an infinitely brighter future in Christ which you will enjoy forever and ever!

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” – Romans 8:1

No condemnation for followers of Jesus. None! When we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior, ALL our sins are truly and completely forgiven. In God’s eyes, the past is truly the past, it’s OVER. There is and will be no condemnation from God for our past, no matter how terrible or shameful! We are free of all that!!!

When we’re in Christ, God sees Christ in us. We’re made new and God sees the new in us. The world may still label us, condemn us, and judge us for our past but God doesn’t and we shouldn’t! If you’re struggling today with guilt or shame, thinking about yourself in terms of your failures and weaknesses, or calling yourself the labels of the world, then stop. If you’ve embraced Christ and follow Him, you don’t need to think about yourself that way. Turn those things over to God and think about yourself as He does: as His beloved child and beautiful new creation.

When we’re in Christ, God sees His beloved son or daughter, whom He’s adopted through faith (jump ahead to Romans 8:14-17 for more about that)! If you’re in Christ, that’s who you REALLY are.

“For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.” – Romans 7:22-23

This is a familiar struggle for us! We want to do the right thing. We want to please God. We want to be good people. Yet we struggle with temptation and too often it wins! On our own, the outcome of this war is inevitable: no matter how hard we try and how disciplined we are, we inevitably fail to consistently defeat the temptations.

What are we to do? How can we be good people when we succumb to what we so often succumb to? That’s where the Good News comes in! When we put our faith in Christ, God not only forgives our sins, but He lives within us! Christ unites Himself with us and gives us the power to defeat the temptations of our bodies, minds, and hearts!

As Christians we won’t automatically defeat the sins we struggle with, but we have the power to do so! In Christ we are new creations with new natures and the power of God at our disposal to crucify those sins that continue to tempt us. However, we must choose to wage that battle, to fight back against the sins that attract us. We must wage that battle in the power of the Holy Spirit, not in our own strength and self-discipline (we know how that ends). We must draw near to God daily, deploy prayer, and walk in the Holy Spirit, letting Him defeat the temptations that continue to beckon.

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – Romans 6:23

In this life we’re offered a choice: do we want the payment we deserve or do we want a gift we don’t deserve?

In the criminal justice system, it doesn’t really matter how many good deeds someone does most of the time. If someone commits a crime, he or she will receive the punishment due for that crime regardless of their goodness in every other aspect of life.

Sin works the same way. No matter how many good things we do, because we each also sin at times (in our thoughts, words, actions, or inactions), we inevitably separate ourselves from God. He is perfect, He is holy, and He is just, therefore He cannot permit sin to go unpunished.

What we earn for ourselves is condemnation, wrath, and eternal separation from our perfect and holy God for our rebellion against His good design for life. That’s what we deserve and it’s awful to even contemplate.

The free gift God offers us instead is glorious if we’ll just accept it! If we commit our lives in faith to Jesus Christ, God gives us total forgiveness, He restores our relationship with Him, we are united with Christ at all times, and we enjoy eternal life with Him forever. Like any gift, we must accept it and unwrap it for it to have any value in our lives. Have you accepted God’s gift???