The Full Effect of RedemptionSample

Take a moment to think about the closest, most loving relationship you have, or have experienced. The love and closeness you feel came at a cost. It costs you time, a sacrifice of your presence, ego, and consideration for someone else besides yourself, and giving yourself. The ability to love well can be inconvenient and uncomfortable. Jesus Christ felt all of these things and much more, and still paid the ultimate price for you and me on the cross.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:12-13, ESV

This type of love frees you from being a captive to sin, from bondage to a fallen world, to becoming friends of the Savior who willingly offered His life as a ransom so that you and I could experience love that leads to the “full effect of redemption.”

“Ideas, emotions, attitudes which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these people are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them.” Carl Jung

In this quote, Carl Jung, the renowned Swiss psychiatrist, is talking about alcoholics and addicts who have undergone a vital spiritual experience that has changed their lives completely. You do not need to be an alcoholic or addict to experience this type of change in your life. What Jung is explaining is the redeeming power of God. When you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, an amazing and supernatural process begins to happen in your mind, body, and spirit. If you let the power of redemption take its full effect, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace". Christ rescued believers from darkness into His kingdom, granting forgiveness.” Ephesians 1:7

When you allow Jesus to be the author and perfecter of your life and faith, the “riches of his grace” are yours:

*Freedom from the power and grip of sin.

*No longer condemned but bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus.

*Removed from the domain of darkness to the Kingdom of Light.

*Reception of a new identity and made a new creation in Jesus Christ.

The significance of the redeeming work of Jesus cannot be overstated. When the apostle Paul says, “the old has passed away; behold, the new has come in” 2 Corinthians 5:17 this equates to the “vital spiritual experience” Jung speaks of.

When the “completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate you,” evidence starts to show up. The evidence of God’s hand nudging you to a deeply personal journey that may look foolish to the world but is exactly what produces a new set of conceptions and motives that lead to deep transformation and redemption, taking its “full effect.”

This seven-day devotional explores what that evidence looks like when the full effect of God’s redemption takes root, moving us from the old life to the completely new creation we are in Christ.

Day 1: What Once Was

Key Message: Redemption is a definitive break from the past; the "old has passed away."

Devotion: Jung speaks of "Ideas, emotions, attitudes which were once the guiding forces... are suddenly cast to one side." Before Christ, our ideas about purpose, our emotions that drove our choices (fear, anxiety, lust), and our attitudes (cynicism, self-reliance, judgment) guided us. Redemption is the moment those guides are cast to one side by Christ’s completed work on the cross. We are not just improved; we are renewed. We must look honestly at the old (not to dwell, but to recognize the distance traveled) and declare, with Paul, that it has passed away.

Action: Write down one specific "guiding force" (attitude, emotion, or idea) that dominated your life before redemption. Thank God that, in Christ, it no longer defines you.