Saturday Night Devotional
So much of life is never finished- dishes, laundry, garage cleaning, tasks at work- on it goes and we wonder sometime why we bother. It will just need doing again later. At times, it’s more serious than that- we can feel that same about parenting our kids, working on our marriage, or even our faith- prayer, reading the Bible- sometimes we wonder what it will accomplish.
Luke 1:68- there’s something wrong with this verse. It reads, “Praise the Lord, the God of Israel,
because he has visited and redeemed his people.”
The tense is wrong, isn’t it? We would expect it should read “and he WILL redeem His people.”
But instead it says, “redeemed”- past tense. Over and done.The NAS makes it stronger still- “accomplished redemption”- a finished work. In the Greek, it’s the aorist tense- which means a SINGLE action referred to typically in the past.
But Jesus is just a baby. In fact, Jesus is still in the womb of Mary at this point! How has redemption been accomplished?
The coming of the Messiah set in motion a whole new era of God’s Kingdom, and the final outcome of this plan is guaranteed. The old has gone, the new has come! The coming of Jesus represented more than the birth of a single person, but the in-breaking of all God’s promises that would forever change history. It was the beginning of the New Covenant that prophets had pointed to for a thousand years. Zechariah realized that when his son had been born, the whole plan had been set in motion. And because God was behind it, the new covenant era was unstoppable. God was going to finish what He had started.
We are living in that time! It is now! So what is our mindset? Do we still live in the attitude of “one day, he WILL redeem”. Is it just a future hope? NO- he has come and he HAS already redeemed. It’s certain. Live in this certainty! Live in simple trust that in EVERY area of your life, REDEMPTION has been accomplished. It’s done. Because Jesus has come.
Peace, and goodwill towards all, as you journey on...Nick
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