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Friday!
Proverbs!
The wicked are a ransom for the righteous, 
and the treacherous, for the upright.
Proverbs 21:18 CSB
Exodus 30 describes the payment of a ransom for a life.
Job 33:24 is about paying the ransom for a life.
Who is paying here?
The wicked, the criminal, the one who has offended against the righteous, the innocent. 
This is about justice for the innocent.
And it's about a life.
This ransom is not a fine or penalty for a property crime, like someone has stolen your car, but when someone has stolen your life.
And yet you're still living.
Some of you know what that is like.
Sexual abuse was part of my childhood story. Life that is stolen while you're still living.
This proverb says the abuser should pay the ransom, pay to redeem what has been stolen.
That doesn't seem to happen very often.

But there is a Redeemer, one who was treated as a criminal though completely righteous, who knows what it is to have his life stolen while innocent.
And he has already paid the ransom.
He is the ransom.
The cross is where pain and sorrow and loss and grief and sin and evil and  justice and mercy and hope and love crash into each other.
And love wins.
#thereisaredeemer
#theransomispaid
#lovewins

(If you don't know The Redeemer, Jesus, or you want to talk about a stolen life, if life feels hopeless, reach out to the person you get this message from.
You're not alone.
Hope is real.
Love does win.
Arohanui)

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