“Regardless of whatever problems, struggles, challenges, pains, and wounds you’ve experienced, regardless of what lies you’ve believed, and regardless of how you happen to feel about yourself at the moment, you are worth the blood of Christ.”- Chip Ingram
“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us.”- Ephesians 1:7-8 (NIV)
In Chapter 4 (“You Are Valuable”) of Discover Your True Self, Chip Ingram underscores that God made an extraordinary sacrifice for our redemption. As a result, God choosing and adopting us only signals the start of our relationship with Him. Because He also redeemed us.
Above all, Chip states, redemption has nothing to do with your performance. Nor does it rely on the approval of others. Rather, only our heavenly Father’s opinion matters.
Certainly, Pastor Ingram notes, most of us crave approval. And it usually feels good. But as you grow more secure in your Father’s love, you view approval as a nice addition. Instead of something you need. For compliments and praise don’t define you.
However, if you lived in first-century Ephesus, Paul’s words about redemption brought to mind the agora, the central marketplace. Every agora contained a small platform where people bought and sold slaves.
Thus, Paul used the vocabulary in Ephesians 1 to portray our redemption as a purchase. The price God paid for redeeming us from enslavement to sin and death. Jesus set us free.
Therefore, Pastor Ingram counsels:
“Our freedom came at an enormous cost because of our immense value to God. We dare not reject it or waste it. As Paul puts it in another letter, ‘It is for freedom that Christ has set us free’ (Galatians 5:1). God purchased us at the slave market of sin at the cost of Jesus’ human life, and He made us His infinitely precious and treasured possession, because He loves us.”
Today’s question: What Bible verses reinforce the truth that you’re worth the blood of Christ? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “Radical transformations”
