Faith in the Redeemer


Prayer: Dear Lord God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You are the Creator and Protector, Savior, and Counselor. I praise You Holy God and thank You for making me a part of Your Kingdom. Please expand my love for you, grow my faith, and instruct my heart as together we look at Your Word and have some conversation. May this time bring You joy and me inspiration. In the name of Jesus I pray. Amen.

Read: Job 19:25-27
http://www.esvbible.org/Job 19:25-27

Think about It: One of the amusing things about living in a family comes under the heading “who gets to punch you”. If I’m your sibling, it’s okay if I strike you. But if someone else should take a shot – look out, because I will defend my own family with my last breathe!  That’s because family has a responsibility to family.

In this very familiar Easter passage, we see Job declaring his faith in his ‘Redeemer’. That is a loaded word in the Old Testament. The specific word used here in Job is that of “kinsmen redeemer”. In the Hebrew culture, a kinsmen redeemer was the one with the authority, the power, and the responsibility to get you out of trouble or, if they were unable to protect your life, to demand justice on your behalf. The kinsmen redeemer was responsible to provide off-spring for a deceased brother, avenge a death, or to buy a relative back from slavery. Even though Job feels that God is the One responsible for all of his pain (for he suffered the loss of his considerable wealth, all of his children, and ultimately his own physical well-being), he now calls God his “Redeemer.” Job even goes so far as to ask that, should he die, (for he considered himself almost to that point) he wanted God to grant justice for him. While it is unlikely that Job fully understood the prophetic   nature of what he was saying, that his very flesh would be restored to the point of being able to see God with his own eyes, he speaks the words and the rest of Scripture prove him right!

We have that same Kinsmen Redeemer. All believers are considered to be family members of the King! As His children, we too can call upon the name of Christ, the Redeemer, asking Him to use His power, authority, and yes, even responsibility, to bring us back to Himself. Jesus paid the necessary price to buy us back from the slavery that is sin in order that we might be restored to the family once again.

Prayer: “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!” These are powerful Words, Father. Please help me to speak them with conviction and faith. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

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