Redeemed for a Reason

By Amy Garner

Every life has a meaning. Every life has purpose. Our churches are full of the redeemed, but are they fulfilling their purpose? Do they recognize the reason for their redemption?

Take a journey with God and discover his reason for your redemption. Dont worry about packing your bags; God has already taken care of your luggage. Set off with him while he shows you all the wonderful experiences and gifts he has packed inside of you for this journey through life. Fulfillment and joy are waiting for you, a place of honor has been set for you, and the King wishes to become your traveling companion.

Join Amy as she takes you through her journey to understanding the reason for redemption, marvel at the goodness of our Lord, and discover his perfect plan for your life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: May 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9781512734997

Amy Garner

As a former children’s minister, Amy Garner has been privileged to share her passion for Christ with God’s littlest ones. For the last twelve years, God has led her on a journey to understanding why He pursues the lost, transforms the believer, and restores the faithful. Each one of us has a divine destiny that will fulfill our lives if we are willing to embrace it. It has become her passion to share her remarkable story as well as what God has taught her along the way with all of God’s children. Amy is an author, speaker, mother, and wife residing in Texas with her family.

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 Amy Garner.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission. NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® and NIV® are registered trademarks of Biblica, Inc. Use of either trademark for the offering of goods or services requires the prior written consent of Biblica US, Inc.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5127-3500-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-3501-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-3499-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016904409

WestBow Press rev. date: 4/28/2016

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

I. Reconciliation

1    Are You A Sinner Or Savant?

2    The Holy Hand Of Discipline

3    Charting A New Course

II. Transformation

4    The Last Veil

5    Miracles Are His Signature

6    The Ministry Of The Holy Spirit

7    Focusing On Your Foundation

8    Seeking Spiritual Maturity

9    Spiritually Gifted And Talented

III. Restoration

10    Restored And Repurposed

11    God’s Design For His Church

12    Bobbing On The Sidelines

13    Riding The Rapids

Epilogue

Dear Reader

Notes

Bibliography

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Lord has blessed me with wonderful role models and guides through my journey. Thank you to everyone who has exercised their God-given gifts to encourage and instruct me along the way.

To my husband and the spiritual leader of our home, thank you for supporting and encouraging me to seek God and honor his call on our lives.

To my children, whose love for Jesus reminds me every day just how big our God really is.

To my parents, thank you for always loving me unconditionally.

I. RECONCILIATION

1

ARE YOU A SINNER OR SAVANT?

WE ARE BROKEN PEOPLE in a broken world. Many of us may not even recognize our brokenness until it becomes impossible to ignore. Life chipped away at me little by little until I no longer recognized the person I had become. Then I broke. Like a glass that slips from your grasp and shatters on the hard stone floor, I broke so completely that I thought I was beyond all hope of repair. It happened on one sunny spring day …

The room was too large. It was much too large. It was too clean and not at all what I expected. It’s the mundane things that catch in your mind when you are sitting in a room you never thought to be in, in a situation you never planned to be in. But here I was, sitting in a waiting room filled with typical office furniture in complementary shades of burgundy. The floral-patterned benches were scattered among the slightly worn burgundy chairs, arranged in small groups – as if any conversation would happen in a place like this. Waiting rooms are always quiet places where the sounds of the television mask the whispers of patients. This waiting room was silent. No whispers. No conversation.

I walked to the sign-in desk and looked for the clipboard to write my name. The woman behind the desk smiled and asked, What’s your name, dear? in a Southern lilt. I whispered my name, wishing she had not made me say it aloud. After the perfunctory details of registration were completed, I turned to find a seat. I scanned the waiting room, looking for the grouping of furniture least occupied. I settled on a set of chairs lining the back wall and glanced out the window.

It was an unseasonably warm day in early spring. The sun was bouncing off the cars driving quickly down the street. It all seemed lost to me. No amount of warmth could remove the chill I felt inside.

I turned back to the waiting room. Looking around, I saw few people looking back. Most kept their heads down, avoiding eye contact. Over the next half hour, the room filled with people from all walks of life. Some were old. Some were way too young. Some came as couples, and others, like me, with a friend. No one spoke. No pleasantries were exchanged. No eye contact was made.

Finally, a nurse came out and began to call names. She brought us back in small groups. She explained to us where to change our clothes, where to put our things, and where to go next. I quickly changed and went through the door she had pointed to earlier.

I opened the door to see a sonogram machine. I immediately recoiled. A large woman turned and issued instructions in a no-nonsense manner, as if she had been doing it for far too long. I lay down, but I refused to look at the monitor in front of me. I looked at the wall, not wanting to see the full impact of my sin before me. This was wrong. It was so wrong. It was a sin against God. It was a sin against nature. It was wrong … and I knew it.

After a quick scan, she cheerfully said, Wow, you caught it fast! as if this were something for me to be happy about. As if I should be relieved on some level. As if it made any part of this remotely acceptable.

I looked at her, trembling, with tears silently falling down my face. Nothing would ever be acceptable about this. I would carry this one to my grave. I vowed then never to ask for forgiveness because I didn’t deserve it. I would meet my maker with this stain still on me.

These thoughts played over and over in my mind as the last preparations were made. Finally, the IV was inserted and the anesthesia injected, and the darkness took over.

I remember waking up and experiencing a few seconds of disorientation as I stared at an unfamiliar ceiling, followed by recognition and then realization. A tremendous feeling of emptiness and ache filled my chest as the tears streamed out of me. I don’t know how long I cried. I wondered if it was a normal reaction for young girls who had found themselves where I was at that moment.

After the sobs subsided, a nurse noticed and walked over to me. She patted me and said, Don’t worry now. It is over.

I thank God every day he did not see it as over. I would have never blamed him if he had written me off on the spot. It was what I deserved, after all.

He did not. Instead, he redeemed me.

We talk about redemption like it happens in an instant, but I don’t think it does, at least not for all of us. I think of redemption as more of a journey, during which God takes us as we are and transforms us into what we were intended to be. He could have left me as I was, wracked with regret and determined to carry my sin. Instead, he took me on a journey. He taught me many truths about him, and I am forever changed.

Brokenness is caused by sin. All of us experience sin differently. Unfortunately there is no genetic code to help us understand who is predisposed to certain sins. Some sins, like addiction, do seem to be handed down through the generations, but there is no definite pattern or algorithm that can be used to escape sin’s clutches. Sin seems to permeate all of our lives, like a cancer seeking to destroy anything and everything it can attach itself to. Your sin is probably different from mine. Maybe you were the innocent bystander to someone else’s sin and still grapple with its effects. Whether you were the victim or the victimized of a particular sin, with God’s redeeming hand, you can become the victor. But first we must understand how sin works.

Sin is seductive. It did not walk upright into the garden. It did not announce its presence. Instead, it slithered in under the guise of a serpent. The Enemy chose his moment well. He chose his words cautiously. He offered questions he already knew the answers to in order to plant the seeds of temptation. Rarely does sin knock on our door and ask to be invited in. It slithers and snakes its way in, an inch at a time.

Sin never appears in its true form. Years ago, the television was flooded with commercials advertising cigarettes and tobacco products. Not one of them depicted the withered and sallow face of a smoker with a lingering cough and gravelly voice. Instead, they glamorized the harmful product with beautiful people in beautiful locations. Perhaps if they had sold the truth instead of the lies, the consumer would have made a better choice. Sin is always packaged and advertised to look appealing.

When Eve told Satan that they could not eat of the tree in the middle of the garden or they would die, he carefully replied with the half-truth that she would not die, but she would become like God, knowing good and evil (Gen. 3:4 NIV). He packaged the sin to look appealing. Who would not want to become more like God? Who would not want to know more of goodness? Satan packaged it well and sold it deceptively. The result for Adam and Eve was the sweet taste of goodness being quickly overshadowed by the bitterness of death.

Sin weaves its way into our lives, seducing us to want more and more until our lives become like shrapnel, ricocheting off those around us in its destructiveness. Do you think those around you are not affected by your sin? Just ask the child of an alcoholic how the consequences of sin spill into the lives of bystanders. How about the daughter of an adulterer or the son of a gossip?

Sin does not discriminate. It does not recognize borders or socioeconomic status. It does not recognize country, race, or religious preference. It is not a cultural problem. It is a human problem. There are no vaccines or medicinal cures. There is only one solution. It came at the highest of costs, and yet it is free to all who are willing to receive it.

From that day in the garden to this one, our world has been broken. Sin has continued to corrupt human hearts and minds. Creation has groaned under the burden of death. Many have looked around at this world and wondered why God has turned his back on it. Where is he in a world seemingly programmed to despise truth? Has he turned his face away from us, or is he more present than ever? Perhaps now more than ever, God is counting on the redeemed to realize the reason for their redemption and take their place in history.

The truth is that God did not turn his face from this world. Instead, he watched as his Son was beaten, bloodied, and buried to pay the price for our sin. When his own creations rejected him, when they mocked and denied his authority, he did not turn from them. From that day at Calvary to this one, he has watched, loved, and redeemed those lost to sin. What was broken in the garden was reconciled on Golgotha.

It is finished were Christ’s last words on the cross (John 19:30 NIV). Jesus was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification (Rom. 4:25 NIV). The papers were stamped and filed that day so that whoever believes in Him, shall not die, but have everlasting life (John 3:16 NIV). Through our faith in Jesus Christ, we are justified. Through Adam, man’s sinful nature sentenced us to death, but through Christ, we are given life. The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification (Rom. 5:16 NIV).

The chasm between God and man could not have been reconciled by anyone other than God himself. He provided the solution through the sacrifice of his Son. That day on Calvary was the day God chose, before the creation of the world, to redeem mankind. However, he did not redeem us to keep the status quo. His purpose was never to leave all as it was. He redeemed us for a holy purpose. He redeemed us to restore a relationship that was broken in the garden.

It was through our redemption that God reconnected himself to his creation. The bonds of communion between men and God were broken by sin, but God redeemed mankind through his Son and restored those bonds. It will be through these very bonds that God will heal nations, call out to the lost, and restore righteousness to his creation. Our redemption was for a reason. That reason stretches farther and wider than our individual existences. Our redemption has global and generational influences, but only if we begin to explore it and discover it at a personal level. God can heal nations, but it begins with one person at a time.

Redemption is personal. My husband and I were married in a church he had attended for many years prior to our engagement. We were both excited to be married by a much-loved pastor whom my husband had known for several years. Prior to the marriage ceremony, we went down to the courthouse and applied for our marriage license. We then took the marriage license to the pastor and had the premarriage conference that our church required.

On the day of our wedding, I distinctly remember the smile that spread across my face when I heard the pastor say, Because of the oaths you have made to one another before God and by the power vested in me by the state, I now pronounce you husband and wife. We were married! Now we were considered husband and wife by both the state and the pastor.

The minute a sinner professes faith in Christ, that sinner is justified. However, who do you think has a more vested interest in the success of a marriage—the state or the pastor? Both consider us married, but whose perspective was more personal?

I can remember our pastor saying to us in our marriage conference, If for any reason you have problems in your marriage, I want to be the first to hear about them. I was a little taken aback until I realized it was because he cared. It was out of love for a young man he had watched mature that he was investing his heart and soul into our marriage. Both perspectives wonderfully joined us as husband and wife, but from one perspective, it was personal.

It would be more than ten years from that day in the clinic until I realized the full impact of God’s redemptive power. He was about to take me on a journey that would forever change the course of my life. Never throughout this journey did I question my salvation. I was then and am now justified through faith in Jesus Christ, but now I understand the process and purpose of redemption. I’ve seen Christ take my messed-up life and transform it into a powerful tool for his kingdom.

To understand the reason for your redemption, you first have to learn to see yourself through Christ’s eyes. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8 NIV). He didn’t wait until we got cleaned up. He didn’t wait to catch us on a sober streak. He didn’t wait until we dusted off and walked the straight and narrow for a couple of miles. He took us as we were, because he loved us. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16 NIV). The Holy God of the universe looks down on you with love. That love is not earned. It is not conditional. It exists because you exist. It was through love that mankind was formed through the work of his hand, and that love extends to you and me.

To further recognize the reason for your redemption, you must realize that through Christ’s eyes, you are a spiritual savant. Don’t we marvel at child prodigies? Seeing a five-year-old playing the violin like a master sends chills down our spines. Prodigies’ abilities amaze and delight us. Christ sees in you these same abilities. God sees beyond what the world can see. He knows who you are, but he also knows who you can be. Just ask Gideon.

Gideon was threshing wheat in a wine press one day when an angel of the Lord appeared to him. A wine press is probably the last place you would normally thresh wheat. Wind is needed when threshing wheat to separate the chaff from the seed. A wine press is a sunken or low place without wind.

The angel greeted him: The Lord is with you, mighty warrior (Judg. 6:12 NIV). I wonder if Gideon looked behind him to see what mighty warrior the angel was speaking to. I wonder if, for an instant, doubt and disbelief clouded his vision. How could a young man threshing wheat in fear possibly be considered a warrior?

Well God did in fact make a mighty warrior of Gideon, and Gideon became known as one of the greatest military minds of the Old Testament. I’m sure Gideon’s life, if left up to him, would have been vastly different. It probably would have consisted of much less excitement and much less substance.

I wonder if Moses ever saw himself as a deliverer, or Joshua a conqueror, or Esther a queen, or even David a king? I would be willing to bet they did not. They were probably very much like us. They saw their faults, their impossibilities, and