Spend time in prayer and silence with God asking him to meet you and speak to you.
Bible Reading
If a stranger or sojourner with you becomes rich, and your brother beside him becomes poor and sells himself to the stranger or sojourner with you or to a member of the stranger’s clan, then after he is sold he may be redeemed. One of his brothers may redeem him, or his uncle or his cousin may redeem him, or a close relative from his clan may redeem him. Or if he grows rich he may redeem himself. He shall calculate with his buyer from the year when he sold himself to him until the year of jubilee, and the price of his sale shall vary with the number of years. The time he was with his owner shall be rated as the time of a hired worker. If there are still many years left, he shall pay proportionately for his redemption some of his sale price. If there remain but a few years until the year of jubilee, he shall calculate and pay for his redemption in proportion to his years of service. He shall treat him as a worker hired year by year. He shall not rule ruthlessly over him in your sight. And if he is not redeemed by these means, then he and his children with him shall be released in the year of jubilee. For it is to me that the people of Israel are servants. They are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
– Leviticus 25:47-55
He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
– Colossians 1:13-14 ESV
Devotion
Undesirable circumstances impact us in this fallen world. God’s law provided stipulations for how to properly set someone free who had to sell him/herself into slavery due to poverty. One individual could be redeemed by another (or by himself) through calculating the price of the slavery that was agreed upon until the year of Jubilee, and then paying the debt. The one enslaved was not to be treated ruthlessly, but as a hired servant who would earn pay towards redemption in proportion to his service. If the servant was not redeemed, he would eventually be released during the year of Jubilee which occurred every fifty years.
But what would happen if the debt was so high that it could never be paid? What if the year of Jubilee did not exist? This type of debt is what we would face if we were to try to pay for our own sins. According to scripture, we cannot earn our own salvation from sin. Thankfully we have someone who has paid our debts and redeemed us from a debt that we could not pay. Jesus has paid our debts by dying on the cross, and has brought us from slavery to freedom, transferred us from darkness to light, declared us forgiven from unforgiven, and changed us from a stranger to son or daughter, inviting us into his Kingdom forever!
The Big Question
Do we daily celebrate the insurmountable price that was paid for OUR redemption, or is our life characterized by unthankfulness and bitterness in our current situations?
Conclude in prayer and silence reflecting on what you’ve learned.