The True Meaning of Redemption

The Church has a tendency to throw around a lot of churchy phrases that have meaning for those who have spent a number of years in the church, participating in Bible studies and so on. When the words get thrown around, it is easy to lose the meaning, or at least to simplify it. One such word is "redemption." When someone says or sings in a song the word redemption, I tend to translate the word to forgiveness, but forgiveness does not seem to encompass what redemption really means. It's not that I don't appreciate being forgiven, but for those of us who screw things up often, it always seems like forgiveness is just a bandaid for a constantly bleeding wound. I can say I am sorry to someone when I have done something wrong but I know in my gut that I am going to screw up again. So while I have been made right with that person, I am still not right with myself because I still feel the disease of sin in my life. Redemption goes beyond forgiveness and delves into the region of total restoration. A redeemer changes the state of the redeemed from one thing to another. Also synonymous with redemption is the word "avenge." An example would be a child soldier. When children are kidnapped and made into soldiers, they are often times forced to commit horrible atrocities like killing their parents. They live with this guilt every day and ad to it with each life they take. To forgive a child soldier would mean not killing them back when they attack you. This is kind gesture to be sure, but to redeem a child soldier is to change his life and to restore it to what it should have been. If you were to redeem the child soldier, you would take him back, remove the rifle from his hands. Place him in the home of loving parents who would care for him and protect him. The redeemer would find the men responsible for kidnapping him and making him a prisoner and see that they were brought to justice. The redeemer would make him what he should have been, a beloved son, not a killer. This is God's offer to us. Not just the forgiveness of our sins, but total restoration of what we were meant to be. He takes us from slaves and traitors, to beloved sons and daughters of the King of the universe. He changes the way we experience life, he takes the weapons from our hands, cleans us off and stands us on our feet again, there at his right hand. He heals our scars and teaches us all the things that we should have learned and loves us the way we were meant to be loved. This is so much more than the bandaid of forgiveness. This is the offer of life as it was meant to be and honor that we don't deserve. We are redeemed. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VzGAYNKDyIU - Christopher Ingersoll