How many Christians do you know who look like they’ve been baptized in lemon juice? How many Christians do you know who are mad about the cost of their belief? They remain under the curse. They don’t live in or experience freedom and, as a result, have no witness.

Too many of us do not have a revelation of Christ’s redemption. Too many of us remain in bondage, under the law. Sadly, we live beneath our privileges.

We need a clear revelation of redemption!

To be redeemed is to be free of what distresses or harms you. It’s to be free from captivity, free of the consequences of sin. We are freed by the payment of a ransom; the precious blood of Jesus.

Redemption is joy. Once we get it and the penny drops and we begin to understand what it is that Jesus did for us on that cross, it changes everything. We begin to live in blessing and to understand that we have nothing to fear. We begin to realize that we serve a God of signs and wonders, a God who does the extraordinary for ordinary people.

In The Message translation, Galatians 3:13 reads:

Christ redeemed us from that self-defeating, cursed life by absorbing it completely into himself. Do you remember the Scripture that says, Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree? That is what happened when Jesus was nailed to the cross: He became a curse, and at the same time dissolved the curse. And now, because of that, the air is cleared and we can see that Abraham’s blessing is present and available for non-Jews, too. We are all able to receive God’s life, his Spirit, in and with us by believing – just the way Abraham received it.

Isn’t that beautiful?

Because of redemption and our Savior’s unimaginable sacrifice for us, we get to walk in all the fullness of the blessing of our Father.

In order to understand the full meaning of redemption, we need to remember that to redeem is to exchange one thing for something better. We were once slaves to sin, destined for death, but now that we have been redeemed, we are Spirit-lead instead. We have exchanged defeat for victory and because of our redemption and the Father’s unconditional love for us, we are lead from the inside out by the Holy Spirit.

I do not want to miss it by continuing to live under the curse and so living in less than what my Father has set for me to inherit. No. I want to have my eyes wide open, focused on the blessing He has purchased for me, spurred on by the knowledge that He is blessing me to be a blessing.