What For?

 If God’s purpose for redeeming me wasn’t to remove me from the shackles that bound me, and if His purpose for redeeming me wasn’t to take me out of the prison I was in, then why go through all the trouble? It would be a cruel thing indeed to take someone from their dungeon of despair, bring them to the front door, let them see the bright sun and the chirping birds, let them breathe the fresh air of freedom, then return them to the dungeon.

It’s worse than your big sister teasing you with the last piece of chocolate. Worse even than the Nigerian prince you thought would sweep you off your feet and take you to his palace far away, turning out to be a pimple-faced kid in an internet café. In those instances, you were not bound, waiting for an inevitable end until someone showed up with the key and a receipt making you free. Whether you’d gotten the piece of chocolate or the Nigerian prince turned out to be real would not have affected your eternity; whether someone paid the price to redeem your soul from destruction does.

Make it make sense! To those who insist that you can continue to pursue all the things that had you bound before meeting Christ after you’ve met Him, make it make sense. To be redeemed is to be purchased. It is to belong to a new Master, as opposed to the master you belonged to up until then. How can we continue to flirt with the enemy of our souls, refuse to follow after the One who redeemed us, and still sing it is well, it is well?

I’m sure the devil loves to have it so, and all he had to do was move you to another wing of the prison. A painted dungeon is still a dungeon, and sparkly shackles are still shackles. That men would delude themselves into believing they are free simply because they acknowledged the existence of a redeemer but did not avail themselves of redemption is disheartening.

Men choose bondage over freedom. They choose to be a slave over being a servant. That’s the reality of it, and it’s heart-wrenching. Freedom is yours if you will have it, cries the Son of God. Men hear the words; they acknowledge His voice, then proceed to convince themselves that bondage isn’t that bad and that the weight of their sin is not crushing them into the dirt.

1 Peter 1:17-19, “And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear; knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver and gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.”

But I don’t like that passage. Quote another one. Maybe something about prosperity or the wealth of the wicked being stored up for the righteous. What’s this talk about fear and conducting ourselves in such a manner throughout the time of our stay here?

Certain words automatically trigger people. I hate using the word trigger, I do, but in this case, I’ll make an exception. Anytime you broach the subject of having the fear of the Lord or quote a passage such as the one I just did, usually, with some finger wagging and head shaking, I am told that perfect love casts out fear, and I don’t know what I’m talking about.

As with everything else, there are nuances when the word fear is used in the Bible. There is the fear that many associate with the term, also known as terror, horror, or dread, then there is the fear Peter is referring to, which is something else altogether.

You know not to touch a live wire not because you are terrified of it but because you have a healthy respect for what it can do and avoid it knowing this. Peter is highlighting two undeniable truths. First, you were redeemed by something far more precious than gold or silver, and second, you were redeemed from something.

Another held the marker on your soul. You were ensnared, imprisoned, a slave, and Jesus set you free. Remember what you were freed from and be on constant guard for anyone or anything that would attempt to return you to that place of hopelessness and emptiness.

You know that the devil will try. Sooner or later, he will attempt to entice you with the thing that had you shackled because it is your weakness, and he knows it. Be wary, be vigilant, be on guard, and resist the enemy at every turn. The devil isn’t trying to seduce you out of the goodness of his heart, nor is he trying to tempt you because he feels empathy for the fact that you’ve been doing without whatever it is that was keeping you in bondage. The devil is trying to beguile you because his singular desire is to separate you from freedom and return you to the cage you formerly occupied.

If you have no desire to return to the shackles, if you have no desire to return to the dungeon, if you have no desire to return to the bondage, then conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear, knowing that you were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.