After the war (WWI) the most energetic thinking will have to be done by Christians; we must think as we have never thought before, otherwise we will be outstripped by those who think on lines which ignore Jesus Christ and endeavor to prove that the Redemption is not necessary.
The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers, Discovery House Pub, 2000, pg 105
Consider, dear reader, for a moment your own life. Regardless of your standing in faith, consider it. Consider the sins committed, the sins actively being fought, the sins that might come to pass...whenever I for a time think of my sin-list, I shudder. Indeed, a redemption is needed. And yes, today is a time in which everyone shouts redemption is not needed, God is not needed.
Beyond the peace that comes from such a redemption---not because we are granted a forgiven state, but because we come into a state of being in which He can be near us. Remember childhood, and the guilt that happened when a parent asked of one what had happened to the lamp? Or the sight of a slinking dog who knows his guilt in digging a hole (I had a dog that was always slinking in from the hay field when I got home from college when she had dug hole. You'd have thought I beat her daily). Even if we were in His presence without that redemption., we would NOT be in His presence. We would not be able to stand it, due to the guilt of blackest sins.
Sins abound all about us, self-god-hood is praised inordinately. Yet are any of us happy as self-gods? Are we less depressed, less anxious, less angry, less tear-stained? I certainly am not! The times I am closer to my self-god state, the more depressed, anxious, angry, and tear-stained I become! We were never meant to be gods---had we been made to be gods, I would suspect we had more "powers" than we do.
The most valuable thing of the redemption of God, to me, is the peace available. The thought of that redemption being not available is unbelievable...but I do see it around me in non believers or those lost. I have lived a life of fear, and while the fear I had was not for my very life, it was a fear real enough to have me shrinking from people in terror of being spoken to or touched. With the knowledge of God, my parents and the "crutch" of medication, I was blessed to fight out of the hole I fell into. As I had learned earlier in my pre-teen years, peace is among the greatest of gifts.
With God we have the peace to know that He has covered our sins to allow us in His presence, that His love is all about us. The peace available to those who ask while going through difficult times. The peace available that the world attempts to obtain through drugs, sex---the false, short-acting "peace"---is the saddest of replicas of peace available.
The peace we have in the Lord is the deepest of peace, the truest of love poured out upon us. Let us never be dissuaded into belief that redemption is not needed.
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