If we’ve been restored spiritually, shouldn’t our lives look different from how they did before? Meditate on that thought today.

Jesus did more than just slap a fresh coat of paint over us to cover up the blemishes; he restored us from the inside-out!

When I was a teenager, my dad and I talked about restoring an old car together. It was going to be a circa mid-1960s Ford Mustang, and I was going to paint it powder blue with metallic flecks. For one reason or another, we never got around to doing the project, but I’ve always thought it would have been cool. I used to change my own oil, and I can replace a flat tire in record time, so restoring a car sounded like a fun challenge. (Besides, I had a tomboyish stubborn streak and wanted to prove to my guy friends that a girl is quite capable of doing such things, thankyouverymuch.)

Restoration is not a simple undertaking. A project like that would take specialized tools and numerous trips to the parts store and junk yard. It would take initiative to begin and commitment to see the project through to completion. It would involve time, effort, sweat, money, broken fingernails and lots of grease. In short, it isn’t a casual, weekend fixer-upper kind of project … and neither is restoration of a different sort.

When we think about the changes that have taken place (and still need to take place, if we’re honest) in our lives after getting to know Jesus, I don’t think “overhaul” is too radical of a term to use. Christ has wrenched out the rusty, broken, irreparable parts of our sin-riddled hearts and restored us anew. He has transformed us from feeling like junkyard scrap to knowing that we are his prized treasures.

In his closing remarks to the church in Corinth, Paul advises the Christians there to “aim for restoration” in their dealings with one another (2 Corinthians 13:11a, ESV). Another translation says to “keep things in good repair” (MSG). As we do life together as a church family, we would do well to remember to keep our relationships in good repair and strive to restore them when they need fixing. It is through this deliberate act of unity that we will positively impact the world around us (John 13:35, 17:23).

If we waste money, we might be able to earn it back somehow. If we waste our words, we cannot retrieve them. Guard your tongue today.

Next time you use a coupon or swipe a membership discount card, think of the word “redeem” and take a moment to thank God for ransoming you.

As the saying goes, “Actions speak louder than words,” but that doesn’t mean our words are powerless. Use your words to bless others today.

To pay a ransom requires sacrifice. In the movies, it’s about money and endangered lives. In real life, it’s about Christ’s payment for us.

Nehemiah 1:10 says that God used strength and might to redeem his people. Redemption doesn’t come easy. Thank God for ransoming you, anyway.

Our culture is obsessed with good deals. (TV shows about storage units and pawn shops, really?) Here’s the best deal: God redeemed you!

One of the kids was flipping through the wall calendar, looking at each month’s scenic photo. The one for December is blanketed in snow, and he and his brothers oohed and ahhed over it. Someone remarked, “Wow, we’ll never have a white Christmas like that!” I replied that never is a big word, and just because it isn’t likely that we’ll have several inches of snow at Christmas doesn’t mean that it has never or will never happen.

That sparked a conversation about other big words. We talked about always as being the opposite of never. We also talked about promise-words like will and yes (as in, “Yes, Mom, I will do my chore.”). Our words carry weight, and they shouldn’t be thrown around willy-nilly without any thought for what they mean.

Come to think of it, the Bible is chockfull of big words – some are little words with big meaning like the ones the kids and I discussed, and others are “Christianese” words that we may tend to skim past because they aren’t terms we use often, like sanctify, righteous or redeem. To redeem something means to pay it off or swap something in exchange for it (ex.: redeeming a coupon at the store for a discount).

Psalm 49 compares the word redeem to the word ransom; the psalmist sings about the extraordinary cost to ransom someone’s life. In Nehemiah 1:10, we learn that God redeemed the exiled Israelites by his strength and might against their enemies. Our lives aren’t simply point-of-sale transactions to be redeemed like coupons … there are high stakes involved. God pulled out all the stops to see that we were ransomed, and it took a lot more than just money to do it.

I Peter 1 says, “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect” (v. 18-19, NIV). As we look toward Easter in the coming weeks, reflect on the drastic measures that God took to ransom your life, so that he could redeem you as his own.