Revelation 1:5 “and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood.”
Isn’t that an interesting phrase, to be “released from our sins?” The word is translated as loose, destroyed, dissolved, put off, and melted in other places. The word picture is clear: Jesus Christ did a number on our sins. They are gone, melted away. They are no longer the weight around our neck. We’ve been released.
I’ve done track and field most of my adult life. My big sport was pole vaulting. My coaches always thought a good way to stay in shape before the season started was to run cross country. I was terrible at it, but I persevered. It did what it was supposed to do. It kept me in good shape for the start of future competition. Years later, I even ran a couple of marathons. 26.2 miles of sheer agony. I’ll save the details and comedy of those races for another devotional.
I learned a critical element of running long distances during one of my marathons. At the start of the race, the temperature was in the 30’s. I was freezing. I was wearing a heavy gray sweat suit. Looking at the hundreds of veteran runners around me, I noticed that they were in shorts and tank tops only. I thought they were crazy. I felt compelled to enlighten them. IT’S COLD. But I restrained myself. About two miles into the race, my sweats were soaked with, guess what? Sweat, my sweat. I could hardly move. I had to stop, strip down to my running shorts, and discard the sweats. I never did find them again. The moral of the story: Don’t weigh yourself down before a race.
What did Jesus do for us? He removed the weight of sin from our lives so we can live. Live without the entanglement and burden of sin. He loves us that much!