Respond to Your Redemption

Fear not.

Return to God.

How is it possible for someone to live without fear?  Even more, how can one return to God?

In so far as my standing place, identity, worth depend on me, I will fear.  As long as I believe that I my performance, holiness, and knowledge are what entitle me to God, I will not return to him.

Only when the One who created me, the world, and everything in it redeems me, I have nothing to fear.  He has called me by name.  I am His.  Nothing can even touch what is His!

"But now thus says the Lord,
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
'Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.'"
-Isaiah 43:1

Only when the Holy One, the One without blame or sin, blots out my transgressions and cancels my sins can I return to Him.  Like a cloud blown by the wind, my transgressions are gone.  Like a mist that disappears, my sins are erased.  I can come back to Him!

"I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud
and your sins like mist;
return to me, for I have redeemed you."
-Isaiah 44:22

Christian: Respond to your redemption.  Fear not.  Return to Him.  (For) He has redeemed you.

How can I give you up? How can I hand you over?

How can I give you up, O Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, O Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
How can I treat you like Zeboiim?
My heart recoils within me;
my compassion grows warm and tender.
I will not execute my burning anger;
I will not again destroy Ephraim;
for I am God and not a man,
the Holy One in your midst,
and I will not come in wrath.
(Hosea 11:8-9 ESV)

He is persistent. Return to Him.

[6] “I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities,

and lack of bread in all your places,

yet you did not return to me,”

declares the LORD.

[7] “I also withheld the rain from you

when there were yet three months to the harvest;

I would send rain on one city,

and send no rain on another city;

one field would have rain,

and the field on which it did not rain would wither;

[8] so two or three cities would wander to another city

to drink water, and would not be satisfied;

yet you did not return to me,”

declares the LORD.

[9] “I struck you with blight and mildew;

your many gardens and your vineyards,

your fig trees and your olive trees the locust devoured;

yet you did not return to me,”

declares the LORD.

[10] “I sent among you a pestilence after the manner of Egypt;

I killed your young men with the sword,

and carried away your horses,

and I made the stench of your camp go up into your nostrils;

yet you did not return to me,”

declares the LORD.

[11] “I overthrew some of you,

as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,

and you were as a brand plucked out of the burning;

yet you did not return to me,”

declares the LORD.

(Amos 4:6-11 ESV)

He is Your Praise. He is Your God.

“And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD, which I am commanding you today for your good? Behold, to the LORD your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. Yet the LORD set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn. For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. You shall fear the LORD your God. You shall serve him and hold fast to him, and by his name you shall swear. He is your praise. He is your God, who has done for you these great and terrifying things that your eyes have seen. Your fathers went down to Egypt seventy persons, and now the LORD your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven.

(Deuteronomy 10:12-22 ESV)