"Oh no!" Grant groaned, pulling a tray of overbaked cookies out of the oven. "I completely ruined these cookies!"
"That's okay," said Grant's cousin, Katy. "You can just make another batch!"
"I don't have time! I was going to deliver them to my friend Ryan for his birthday, which is today!"
"Hmmm," said Katy. "I have an idea. Here, get the grater."
Grant found a cheese grater and handed it to Katy. She used it to scrape off the burnt bottoms of the cookies.
"They're not burnt anymore, but they're still rock hard," Grant pointed out.
"Do you have ice cream?" Katy asked. Grinning, Grant ran to the freezer. They put a scoop of ice cream between two cookies and squished them together. "There!" declared Katy. "Ice cream sandwiches!"
"Wow! Thanks for helping me!" Grant exclaimed. "The cookies were terrible, but you saved them and transformed them into something even better--cookie ice cream sandwiches!"
"You're welcome!" Katy laughed. "One might say that I ‘redeemed' the cookies."
"Redeemed. I think the pastor said that in the church service last Sunday, but I didn't know what it meant," Grant said.
Katy explained. "To redeem means to recover, to rescue, or to make up for something. Your burnt cookies are a bit like us. God created everything good. But just as burning the cookies ruined them, sin--turning away from God--brings hurt and death into the world. We were ruined by sin, and there was nothing we could do to fix our relationship with God. But Jesus died so that we could have life; His death brought a solution to the problem of sin that separated us from God. He didn't stay dead and rose again to life, bringing eternal life to all those who trust in Him!"
"Oh, I get it," Grant said. "Our cookies were a disaster, but we redeemed them into something good again."
"Yep!" Katy nodded. "And even when our lives seem like disasters, God works through the hard things to bring us good. And one day, He will restore the whole world."
Grant smiled. "I'll have to tell Ryan the whole story when I give him the redemption cookie ice cream sandwiches!"
-Abby Ciona
HOW ABOUT YOU?
Do you ever feel like you’re too bad to be rescued by Jesus? No matter what you’ve done, Jesus’s sacrifice pays the price for your sin. When we trust in Jesus, our sin is cleaned away, and we have a new life in Him. He can work through the hard things in our lives to do great things for His Kingdom. Trust Him as your Savior, and He will redeem you. (To learn more, click the "Good News!" button in the right column of this page.)
TODAY'S KEY VERSE: Ephesians 1:7 (KJV)
In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace. (NKJV)