What does it mean that our Lord has redeemed creation? I read this little booklet months ago and have been stuck on a stretch of non-writing. I’ve had these quotes sitting here ready to be published, but haven’t gotten around to adding my two cents. I think I’ll pass on doing so this time in the interest of trying to kickstart this little project again. I have still included some devotional reflections at the end. So, without further ado, here are quotes from Thy Great Redemption.

Everything that has been touched by sin and the devil has been redeemed; we are to live in the world immovably banked in that faith. Unless we have faith in the Redemption, all our activities are fussy impertinences which tell God He is doing nothing. We destroy our souls serving Jesus Christ, instead of abiding in Him. Jesus Christ is not working out the Redemption, it is complete; we are working it out, and beginning to realize it by obedience. Our practical life is to be moulded by our belief in the Redemption, and our declared message will be in accordance with our belief. If we say we believe “It is finished” we must not blaspheme God by unbelief in any domain of our practical life.

Redemption is not dependent on our experience of it. The human race is redeemed; we have to be so faithful to God that through us may come the awakening of those who have not yet realized that they are redeemed.

If you read no other quotations in this post, I encourage you to click through to read this chapter on the Christian’s greatest trust.

Eternal life in the Christian is based on redemptive certainty; he is not working to redeem men; he is a fellow worker with God among men because they are redeemed.

Experiences are always on the threshold of life, they are never the real center. Beware of not seeing that the experiences are nothing other than gateways home.

The abiding reality is God, and He makes known His order in the fleeting moments. Redemption partakes of God’s character, therefore it is not fleeting; but we have the power and the privilege of exhibiting the Redemption in the fleeting moments of our actual life. This is the real meaning of being born from above. Civilization is based on principles which imply that the passing moment is permanent. The only permanent thing is God, and if I put anything else as permanent, I become atheistic. I must build only on God (John xiv. 6) ‘Because God spoke to me once, I stick to that.’ You are a fool if you do. Stick to the God Who spoke to you. He is speaking the word all the time; it is only as we are trained by obedience that we can understand Him (John vi. 63).

The world embraces things material and things evil, things suffering and sinning. Think how narrow and bigoted the love of God is made when it is tied up in less than His own words; we make God out to be exactly the opposite of all Jesus Christ said He was. The breadth of the love of God, the agony of that love, is expressed in one word, ‘so.’ If you can estimate the ‘so,’ you have fathomed the nature of God. Our love is defective because we will not get down low enough. We must get down lower than hell if we would touch the love of God; we will persist in living in the sixteenth storey when the love of God is at the basement. We speculate on God’s love, and discourse on the magnificence of the Redemption, while all the time it has never been made effective in us.

The love of God is broader than the measures of man’s mind.

God recognizes Man’s rights. God has bestowed them and never ignores them. Man is not driftwood on the shores of Time. Man has a right to himself. And no man has any right to deprive his fellows of their rights. But our Lord has a right to ask us to give up our ‘right to ourselves’ to Him. And every true Disciple will come to say, ‘My Lord, my God.’

Reflect On Ephesians 1:7
Praise God for His redeeming work through the blood of Jesus.
Offer Thanks that God has enlisted you as a redeeming agent.
Confess the times when you’ve failed to live in the redemptive reality.
Ask God that you might fully trust in the riches of His grace.
Comment: What does it look like to live in the Redemption?

 

Other posts in this #MissionText series:
#MissionText • The Graciousness of Uncertainty • The Making of a Christian • Now Is It Possible— • The Discipline of Divine Guidance • The Fighting Chance • The Message of Invincible Consolation • The Discipline of Loneliness • #MissionText: Considering Copyright • Talks on the Soul of a Christian • The Highest Good • Our Brilliant Heritage