The Next R's in God's Vocabulary....

So, after the fall of mankind through the sin of disobedience by Adam and Eve, God set to work with the plan we know as REDEMPTION....A much better plan than REPAIR.

Now, I grew up in a time when the first TV in our home was a 13" Sylvania black & white...and when it worked, it was a true source of wonder. How did they get that picture inside that TV, I often wondered? But when it was on the fritz, my dad, who had taken a TV repair course, took the back off of the TV and begin looking for the culprit for our now inoperable television. Sometimes, it was quite easy to see a blackened bulb, staring us in the face (I was always beside my dad when these outages occurred). Other times, my dad would subtract a half a dozen bulbs and run out to our nearby drugstore, which had a bulb testing machine and loose bulbs for purchase to replace the burned out ones. But, as good as my dad and I were at fixing our TV; sometimes we had to call in the professional....the TV REPAIRMAN!!! Now, he would tinker around, pulling bulbs, checking the wiring and other things that a seven year old had no clue as to what was happening. And then, almost magically, he would plug it back in and the picture would appear!!!  To which he would exclaim, "THERE YOU ARE...GOOD AS NEW!" But that was never true...for in days, weeks or often some other passage of time, our screen would go black and my dad and I were back on our knees, pulling out bulbs, heading for the drugstore and their handy bulb tester.

Now, God could have repaired the broken relationship that had occurred with His creation; but sin had made that impossible. You see, for GOD, sin is a barrier that He cannot overlook or even look upon; have no association with nor in ANY WAY CONDONE! SIN IS THE GREAT DISRUPTER OF OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD. YES, GOD COULD HAVE EASILY JUST WALKED AWAY FROM HIS CREATION AND STARTED ALL OVER. OH, BUT GOD HAD A BETTER PLAN...THE PLAN OF REDEMPTION.

In God's plan, each sinner had to pay for their sin....or have someone else step into that position of punishment for sin and pay that price. You see, God is a God of judgment and justice....you should suffer the consequences of your sin and pay it's penalty...DEATH... and eternal separation from GOD. With SIN in your life that RELATIONSHIP cannot be repaired or restored to" LIKE NEW!"  However, GOD IS ALSO A GOD OF MERCY, BUT MORE THAN THAT, A GOD OF GRACE!!! So, His plan was to REDEEM His creation and restore mankind to a NEW AND RIGHT RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM....BUT HOW?

There was only ONE way for God to redeem His creation and have the SIN DEBT of mankind paid....SOMEONE ELSE WOULD HAVE TO DIE FOR THE SINS OF THE WORLD... AND GOD HAD ALREADY CHOSEN THE ONE WHO WOULD DIE FOR THE SINS OF MANKIND....Come back tomorrow as we take a closer look at the what, the how and the who in God's redemptive story and how you can be included in the grace and mercy of your Heavenly Father.  

Scripture says, " Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things have passed away. Look, all things have become new."

Not repaired....BUT REDEEMED,

WPQ