Giving Thanks: Redemption

I think I could go on forever and ever with this mini series of thanks. But then it wouldn't be so mini as I'd have to expand it to include the provision of food and shelter, health, the fella, etc and so forth. All of which I am greatly thankful, yet if I'd continued on it'd most certainly end up being an extra stretch limo of a series. And some things just have to come to an end. I'm ending out the week of thanks with this:

Redemption

It's so easy and normal and consistent for a Christian to put Jesus on their list of thanks. But what we often fail to do in simply stating "Jesus" is to acknowledge why Jesus is a reason for gratitude. At the heart of Jesus' mission in coming to earth is our redemption. We were apart from God in our sin. It is by God's grace and His overwhelming love for us that He would send His son to take the wrath that our sin deserved, so that we wouldn't have to experience it, though we most definitely deserve it. We have been redeemed from a life of sin and death and are a new creation in Christ, if we believe. That picture has never been painted more beautifully in my life than it has over the past couple of weeks. For that I am thankful as He draws me to Himself, reveals more of Himself, and tunes my heart to praise. 

This is redemption - passing from old to new. We couldn't do it on our own. And were in desperate need of Christ. As the old hymn goes, "I've been redeemed by the blood of the lamb..."

Ephesians 2: 1-10

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience- among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ- by grace you have been saved- and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasureable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

And 1 John 2: 1-2

And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins...