LifeLink Devotions

Wednesday, December 21, 2022

Luke 1:68 “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people…”

Titus 2:14 “[Jesus] gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.”

Job 19:25  “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth.”

Bought back and set free – that’s what it means to be redeemed. It is the theme of Zechariah’s praise when his son John is born. Of all the things he could have said after nine months of muteness, he burst forth in a song of redemption. God has visited the earth with one purpose in mind – to buy back his people who had been sold into slavery to sin and to set them free.

A.J. Gordon was the great Baptist pastor of the Clarendon Church in Boston, Massachusetts. One day he met a young boy in front of the sanctuary carrying a rusty cage in which several birds fluttered nervously.

Gordon inquired, “Son, where did you get those birds?”

The boy replied, “I trapped them out in the field.”

“What are you going to do with them?”

“I’m going to play with them, and then I guess I’ll just feed them to an old cat we have at home.”

When Gordon offered to buy them, the lad exclaimed, “Mister, you don’t want them, they’re just little old wild birds and can’t sing very well.”

Gordon replied, “I’ll give you $2 for the cage and the birds.”

“Okay, it’s a deal, but you’re making a bad bargain.”

The exchange was made, and the boy went away whistling, happy with his shiny coins. Gordon walked around to the back of the church property, opened the door of the small wire coop, and let the struggling creatures soar into the blue.

The next Sunday he took the empty cage into the pulpit and used it to illustrate his sermon about Christ’s coming to seek and to save the lost — paying for them with His own precious blood. “That boy told me the birds were not songsters,” said Gordon, “but when I released them and they winged their way heavenward, it seemed to me they were singing, ‘Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed!'”

This is Christmas. And the message of these times is the song of those wild birds.

It’s the meaning behind every gift given under the tree: Redeemed!

It’s the Word the shepherds heard: Redeemed!

It’s the assurance Mary received: Redeemed!

It’s the star the Wisemen followed: Redeemed!

You and I have been trapped by sin, but Christ has purchased our pardon with His death on the cross. He has guaranteed our freedom by His resurrection from the dead. The cage has been opened. You are free indeed!

We have been redeemed!

May our lips never cease to praise the One who redeemed us.

Pastor John