This week we finished our four week series called “A Vision of Redemption”. During the course of the month we have attempted to enlarge our vision of redemption so that we would move beyond being only consumers of redemption into being partners with God for the redemption of the community around us. The series culminates with I Corinthians 5:12-21. Paul writes that he is compelled by the love of Christ, that we are called to live for the pleasure of Christ and that our lives are to be lived as ambassadors of Christ, as though God were pleading through us “Be reconciled to God”!
Our vision of redemption must be one in which we live for the pleasure of God and His pleading for the world around us. If this becomes our vision and our reality then we will see all things through the cross, the place where God’s mercy triumphed over judgment and His love for mankind triumphed over His hatred of sin. When we see the cross as it truly is, when we see Jesus in all of His glory, His beauty, His power and His love, we will forsake all and become those that don’t merely receive redemption but who live to see the redemption of Christ in the lives of all who cross our paths. I pray today that we will yield to the beauty of redemption and that we will ask God to plead through us, no matter how He chooses or what it costs, “Plead through me! Call the lost and the broken to your side through my life. Plead through me!”