What God has done for us through Jesus' life, death, resurrection and return to the Father, is to ransom us! To ransom us out of every prison of the mind and spirit so we can all love and serve and call God our Father too! The new angelic songs St John heard and wrote down for us in Revelation 5:9-13 are some of the most sacred and faith-imparting words in the whole Bible. That whole chapter brings together earth and heaven, God and man, joy and tears, passion and purpose, victory and poignancy. Contemplating its visions, all my thinking stops.
This morning I found it next to impossible to still my heart in God in more than a momentary way. My wife and I had been put through an awful experience four days ago, and despite every tender and affirming word since from my Lord, the memories of the ordeal crowd my mind and my heart speeds up as if for a physical battle. But do we imagine it was any different for Jesus, through the ordeal of those ghastly inquisitions and show-trial and physical assault? Do we think He was emotionless and impervious, so no sword could "pierce his soul" (Luke 2:35)? Jesus bore the limitless love of God for us, and the sufferings of such love spurned were commensurately limitless.
I know my faithful God does not expect me to 'keep it together' under severe trial. He will carry me, "as a father carries his son" (Deuteronomy 1:31). He knows how I am formed, and how all my physical systems work - memory, adrenaline, emotion. No matter what is happening and how I am reacting in the thick of it, no accusation from man or Satan will stick because I have been ransomed. And this God has said to me this morning: "Your accusers are ransomed too."
We have been ransomed from the power of an enemy, from the forces of evil, from Satan, and from the law of sin and death which he prosecutes. Never for a moment think of your heavenly Father, the God of all mercies, as your enemy - past, present or future.
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