Stake Your Claim!

We don’t have a safety deposit box although I can think some important papers that could be kept there.  On second thought, they’re pretty safely tucked away in the house … even from me.

Charles Spurgeon refers to Christ as “our Brother in the blest tie of kindred blood.”  He writes of the relationship between Christ and the Believer.  Old Testament Law made provision for the poor man who was forced to sell part of his property or himself into slavery; his nearest kin could “buy back” what the relative was forced to sell (Leviticus 25:48). That kinsman became a redeemer, one who freed the debtor by paying the ransom price.  See the beautiful picture of our Kinsman Redeemer, “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh.” (Romans 8:8)  We all have kinfolk: some we love to claim and others we claim to love J.  How glorious is the kinship between Jesus Christ and His children, and we delight in declaring it!  We must not live as poverty-stricken.  No!  We are rich in God through Jesus Christ; He made every provision for us to overcome the difficulties and struggles of this life.  We suffer nothing which Jesus Christ has not already suffered and conquered. We are made more than conquerors in, by, and through Him.  We have a Goel (Hebrew), a “kinsman redeemer,” Who has redeemed us – bought us back.  We must not lock away this marvelous inheritance as we would some possession in a safety deposit box.  Spurgeon writes we wear Him “like a necklace of diamonds, around the neck of thy memory; put it, as a golden ring, on the finger of recollection, and use it as the King’s own seal … “  Will you claim to love Him or love to claim Him?  Stake your claim!