redemption

*Stolen and reposted from this guy. Shameless plagiarism at its best here, folks!

What do you do when you fail spiritually? What do you do when you give-in to that temptation? What do you do when you've screwed up big time? Our naturally tendency is to run and hide from God. But if you are going to recover from this failure, if you are going to get up when you fall, then you need to accept God’s undeserved love.

There is nothing that you can do to deserve His love. In the midst of your sin and failures God extends His love to you. This isn’t God turning a blind eye, or simply winking at sin. This is a radical, crazy love. God’s love for you is just flat out undeserved.

Isn’t that different from human love? We love each other - if; we love each other - because; we love each other - when. The world loves conditionally, and if our standards for love are not met, then our love grows cold. It's not that way with God; He loves us regardless, and He demonstrated this by paying the ultimate price to offer us the opportunity of a relationship with Him. When we fail it's important to remember that we were bought with a price.

Jesus would come and live and die and buy us back – redeem us from slavery to sin and death. It’s a picture of God’s love for us.

We've all fallen, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” Romans 3:23 He’s saying that all of us have missed God’s mark in our lives. We become slaves of sin and the things of sin in our lives, the Bible describes this as bondage to sin.

If you read the next verse in Romans it reads, “and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” Rom. 3:24 God presented Jesus as a sacrifice for us. We were in a position of sin and death, then Jesus came as the one who would redeem. He came as one who gave His life and literally paid the price for our redemption to buy us back.

God is a just God. Sin had to be punished. He couldn’t just forget all the things that had happened. God was willing to put the punishment for sin on the shoulders of Jesus so that the mercy and free grace could be delivered to us.

Do you know what you do with God’s love? You receive it. You don’t earn it. You can’t achieve it. You can’t accomplish it. You don’t keep score. You receive it. You begin to live as one who has been bought by a price. It means you hold your head up a little higher. You can even kick your shoulders back a little bit. Why? Because you were bought with a price. It means you stop telling yourself that you are worthless and you’re meaningless and you’re awful and God hates you - because He doesn’t. Because you were bought with a price.

God loves you undeservedly, so much so that He paid the ultimate price to have a relationship with you. When you fall, be sure to return to the One who redeemed you.