The Claim of Redemption
Tithes and offerings for God are an acknowledgment of His claim
on us by creation, and they are also an acknowledgment of His claim
by redemption. Because all our power is derived from Christ, these
offerings are to flow from us to God. They are to keep ever before us
the claim of redemption, the greatest of all claims, and the one that
involves every other. The realization of the sacrifice made in our behalf
is ever to be fresh in our minds and is ever to exert an influence on our
thoughts and plans. Christ is to be indeed as one crucified among us.
“Know ye not that ... ye are not your own? For ye are bought
with a price.”
1 Corinthians 6:19, 20
. What a price has been paid for
us! Behold the cross, and the Victim uplifted upon it. Look at those
hands, pierced with the cruel nails. Look at His feet, fastened with
spikes to the tree. Christ bore our sins in His own body. That suffering,
that agony, is the price of your redemption. The word of command
was given: “Deliver them from going down to perish eternally. I have
found a ransom.”
Know you not that He loved us, and gave Himself for us, that we
in return should give ourselves to Him? Why should not love to Christ
be expressed by all who receive Him by faith as verily as His love has
been expressed to us for whom He died?
Christ is represented as hunting, searching, for the sheep that was
lost. It is His love that encircles us, bringing us back to the fold. His
love gives us the privilege of sitting together with Him in heavenly
places. When the blessed light of the Sun of Righteousness shines into
our hearts, and we rest in peace and joy in the Lord, then let us praise
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the Lord; praise Him who is the health of our countenance and our
God. Let us praise Him, not in words only, but by the consecration to
Him of all that we are and all that we have.
“How much owest thou unto my Lord?” Compute this you cannot.
Since all that you have is His, will you with hold from Him that which
He claims? When He calls for it, will you selfishly grasp it as your
own? Will you keep it back and apply it to some other purpose than
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