The Seven Redemptive Names of God by F.F. Bosworth....#2

The second redemptive name of God is "Jehovah-Shalom" which is translated "The Lord our Peace" and reveals to us the redemptive privilege of having His peace.  Accordingly Jesus says, "My peace I give unto you."  This blessing is in the Atonement because "the chastisement of our peace was upon Him" when He "made peace through the blood of His cross".



(my thoughts).....Understanding the "big" words of the Bible is crucial for any real growth as a believer.  We have a tendency to accept the words we read without allowing the Holy Spirit time to engrave the meaning on our hearts. 
     I know I have struggled understanding the full  meaning of this precious word..redemption.  Being from the South, I was acquainted with the ugliness of racism as a small child.  I can remember the feelings and the attitudes I was taught and practiced, that demeaned another human being of a different color.  It wasn't until I met a Jewish man, Fred Klickstein, who was my brother-in-law, who set me down and explained the vileness of those actions and the harm it does to all it touches.
      To redeem according to Wilson's Old Testament word studies means..."to demand back one's property; hence (1) to repurchase, buy again an estate which had been sold, to set free, deliver, without reference to price from servitude, death, to pull or rescue out of the hands of an enemy..."
     When I was in the fourth grade, my father forcefully took me and my siblings away from our mother.  For four years we were controlled by this man's actions, and were physically and emotionally brutalized by him and his 5th wife.  This is painful to write, but it is a graphic and real explanation of what it means to me to "to set free, deliver, rescue out of the hands of an enemy".
     What happened during those four years was to bind my childish soul with the chains of fear, anger, and hatred that affected me throughout my teen and adult years.  It wasn't until I was in my late 20's and had been graciously "found" again by the Lord that I began my own journey into "redemption".  As God's grace, through the knowledge of His Word, began to penetrate my memories and emotions, I began to understand not only how to "be" forgiven, but how to forgive. 
     I was praying one afternoon in my family room in Phoenix, AZ.  Suddenly, the Lord opened my mind to see and feel the love He had for my father.  It angered me at first because of the abuse our family had suffered.  But, somehow He made me "feel" His love that separates the sinner from his sin.  I saw the sin that  had bound my own father all his life, and the Slave Master-Satan, that he had chosen to serve.
     All in that split second of time I also understood the Grace of God that surrounded my father all of his life, and yet, he would not bow his heart nor give up the sin he served.  God never, never, never wanted me to be a victim of my father's rebellion just as He never wanted Adam and Eve to sell mankind to the slavery of sin.  But, whatever were the chains of sin that were wrapped around my father's soul as a young man; they held him fast, and demanded "servitude".
     Just like in the South, men and women were forced to produce children to serve their plantation masters, so does sin demand that generation after generation serve it.  But.....Grace came.  God's grace that sets the captive free. God's grace that is so free no one deserves it but praise God it came anyway.  Jehovah-Shalom....God's peace became ours.  We became reconciled to God....peace was made through the blood of the cross.  The heavy chains of sin were broken, and God's property was "repurchased, returned to its rightful owner, and rescued out of the hands of the enemy".
     This is why I love Jesus.  At the age of 27, He rescued my soul.  He broke the "big" chains, and over the years He has continued to work on the "smaller", less visible emotional chains that many times has tried to ensnare my soul with depression.  He has become my "peace which passes all understanding".  I am 61 years old, and the more I know Him, the more I love Him.
     If you are suffering or in any bondage of spirit, soul or body......run to God's Word.  Let it fill you, speak to you, comfort you, lead you, and take you by the hand to begin your journey to peace and freedom.