I was intrigued by the word ‘giving’ in the Bible for a long time. Take a close look at the word. It occurs everywhere in all the chapters from Genesis to Revelation. All the key players were associated with giving at one time or another. Why is giving so important? The answer is easy if we study God’s character. Giving is the single most crucial constituent in His attitude. If we look at it closely, His whole plan for redemption was one of giving and receiving. See how God reacted to the rebellion in Heaven. God lost His most important angel in Lucifer. As if that was not enough, God had to lose again a third of the other angels when they sided with Lucifer. Again there was another setback for God when His priceless creation Adam and Eve chose to obey Satan. God lost everything on Earth He had so lovingly created. God was not responsible for this situation. Still He took it upon Himself to set things right. Why did He do it? Because the concerned offenders were all His own creation. When in the Garden of Eden the serpent had seduced Eve and caused the doom of all mankind, what did He do? He promised to the devil “There is one who is coming that will put his heel on your head" (Genesis 3:15). After that God began his work for regaining what He had lost. He chose the Father of all nations in ‘Abraham’ through whom He would send one day (Jesus) to take back the authority that was forfeited to Satan. Let us pause for a moment to judge how God went about the task of redemption. God could have done so many things. But He did something not expected. He chose to give! He set into motion a law that He too respected and not violate. Giving became the most important instrument for everyone to use. What could God give to receive back? He had His remaining angels with Him and of course His son Jesus. He did not choose to shield Jesus. He gave Jesus and not His other angels. The funny thing was that even if God had lost these angels He could have created more of them. But He did nothing of that. God chose to give His best – His son Jesus. He had to give something that would have costed everything. This only proves that … [Read more...]
We were redeemed from the curse of poverty!
Today our pastor was in his elements, more so than he does on other days. He began his service with a command “Ladies and gentlemen, lift up your Bibles and say...This is my Bible...I am what it says I am...I can have what it says I can have.” I soon knew what he was going to say next. As he got thick into his sermon, he said “Did you hear what President Obama said in his Radio address yesterday? He warned us how the economy was in terrible shape and how more people have lost their jobs with their health insurance gone.” Pastor went on to add “Brethren, what happens to the economy should not apply to us all. We were never afraid of poverty nor will we ever need to be. Why? Because we were already redeemed from the curse of poverty!” This is the topic for my post today: that we were redeemed from the curse of poverty. What does ‘redeemed’ mean? It means ‘delivered or set free.’ The ransom had already been paid for, to be free of a thing. To put this in perspective and context, let us go to one of the main scriptures in the entire Bible – Galatians 3:13. It says “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.” The word curse can evoke a strong response. It gives the feeling of something most unpleasant. If we take a look at the word curse in the dictionary, we get the meaning ‘an empowerment to fail.’ A man buys a new car. The car has an accident the next day. He then uses his friend’s car. His friend’s car also has an accident. And so on. Whatever the poor man touches gets ruined. The man had a ‘curse.’ In contrast, what is a blessing? It can be said to be ‘an empowerment to succeed. Whatever the man with a blessing touches, it prospers as a result. What then does Paul mean in Galatians 3:13 when he says “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law?” To get a hold of the meaning of the phrase ‘curse of the law’ we will have to go back to the first five chapters in the Bible – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. People all through the times in the Old Testament were given a set of laws by God. This was … [Read more...]
