In Over Your Head

“For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God.” 1 Peter 1:18-19

Have you ever found yourself in over your head? You became so deeply involved with something or in a situation until you were beyond the point of being in control or even able to cope any longer. You needed a savior, someone to rescue you. This is a good description of the empty life that Peter writes about. It’s a life of sin that we have inherited. By nature, the human heart is corrupted and inclined toward evil. We are rebellious against God. Our sin separates us from God and puts us in debt to God that we can never repay. We are in over our heads and we need to be rescued.

In the book of Genesis, we find that Cain murdered his brother, Abel. (Gen.4) But Cain’s sin did not escape the watchful eye of God. The blood of Abel cried out to God from the ground, but Hebrews 12:24 says that the blood of Jesus speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Although Abel’s innocent blood cried out for justice against sin, Jesus’s innocent blood cried out for mercy for sinners.

God loves us too much to allow us to drown in our debt of sin, so He sent a Savior. And since God’s justice requires that a ransom be paid for the punishment of sin, Jesus stepped out of heaven. He paid the full price for our redemption, not with gold or silver, but with something far more valuable: His own precious blood.