the knowledge of salvation by

Read an article on ESPN about a potential NFL draft pick (the article isn't important), and the article framed the story as the draft being this athlete's possibility for redemption after some run-ins with the law. Which got me thinking of the word "redemption". I think it's a powerful word, with a significance we often lose sight of.

When we think of redemption stories or moments of redemption, we think of people who have gone from the worst situations to the top of the mountain. In the ESPN article's case, from having a troubled past with little hope to a future with the potential to make millions. In this view of the word redemption, we think of the term as a reversal of fortune. Redemption in this light is no more than a U-turn of fate. Often, this U-turn is a direct result of the specific person's will or strength of character or persistence. The moment of redemption comes as a person has picked himself up by his bootstraps and done something to counter past actions.

When thinking of your redemption through Christ, do not use this definition of redemption.

The eternal redemption you have in Christ is far more glorious. Redemption in this case is salvation by the hands of another. Those bootstraps you're pulling snap in your hands, friend, but in the hands of God, they raised you from Hell to eternity. Redemption through Christ is like the redemption of a pawned object. Typically, folks hock their personal items for cash amounts well below the value of the actual item. Redemption of that item usually requires payment of far more than what it was initially hocked for.

That soul of yours? So precious. Sold to the devil and unending darkness for the price of a few sins. Just one would do it, in fact. And the cost of redemption? Raised to the payment of a life. Christ paid that amount for you. Christ redeemed your soul for you. It cost you nothing, Him everything. In this case, the meaning of redemption takes on its full beauty and meaning. Don't undersell the word by diluting it to comparisons to recovered addicts, athletes on the straight and narrow, or cowards now turned brave. Glad for their 180s, but my redemption is something far greater than that.