As soon as you get $50 together, you can go back to the pawnshop, give him the ticket and the money, and you can get your possession back. You have "redeemed" it.
It's the same way with coupons. When you take a dollar coupon for cereal to the grocery store, you can redeem it toward the box of cereal. What you're actually doing is using it as a substitute for a dollar toward the purchase of the cereal.
Jesus redeemed us by paying the price we couldn't pay. He is our Redeemer. Look at the rest of Ephesians 1:7, "In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace."
In other words, "the riches of His grace" means that He has the ability to do through you the thing that you can't do. He is so rich in grace that He can provide enough grace for every single person to do the thing that they cannot do for themselves.
There is no earthly person who can pay the price for salvation. It does not matter how hard a person may work at it. People can do good deeds. They can tithe and have so many Sunday school pins hanging off the left side of their lapel that they walk crooked, but that will not get them saved. No one can be saved by works. Nothing, absolutely nothing you can do can save you.
Romans 3:23 says, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." There is nothing you can do to change that by yourself. Without the blood of Jesus you will die short of the glory of God.
However, if we look at Ephesians 1:7-8, it explains that, "we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence."
Wow, isn't that great? His grace abounds toward us. We are blessed because God favors us. God favors us because of grace. He gives us favor when we don't deserve it.
Excerpt permission granted by Larry Ollison Ministries
Dr. Larry Ollison is founder and Senior Pastor of Walk on the Water Faith Church and founder of Larry Ollison Ministries. With over forty years in the ministry, he is a very popular speaker nationally and internationally and ministers the Word of Faith through radio, television, Internet, and daily e-mail devotionals. As the author of eight books (including The Power of Grace, The Practical Handbook for Christian Living, Breaking the Cycle of Offense, Life is in the Blood, and recently released The Paradise of God), he is in frequent demand for radio/TV interviews, book signings, and magazine publications.
