“You will never get enough money to pay for your own life. A human life costs too much to buy it back. Nobody could ever pay enough. ” (Ps 49:8)
Someone called Psalm 49 a “Psalm for recession times.” A recession makes all of us—rich and poor—panic. Let’s be honest: both the rich and the poor can be equally materialistic, albeit for different reasons—the one desires to grow even wealthier, the other wishes to be rich too. We so easily fall into the trap of an insatiable desire to have, and have, and have. Yet, “Every human being, without exception, rich and poor… when they die, they take nothing with them…” (Ps 49:3,18).
Death is a relentless and greedy reality. There is no escape from it. Thus, the psalmist asks (in v.8): Who can pay God a ransom for a life? The answer comes swiftly: “For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people.” (1 Tim 2:5-6). What makes this so remarkable for me is that the ransom of Jesus is not intended to reconcile us with God only after death, but so that here on earth we may “serve the living God! For this reason, Christ offered himself as a perfect sacrifice to God through the eternal Spirit” (Heb 9:14).
In this life, we often live as slaves—slaves to materialism, slaves to others’ opinions, slaves to our past. And the list goes on. But Paul reminds us: “You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men” (1 Cor 7:23).
Live your life as one who has been redeemed. Serve God fully, with no fear of death.
PRAYER: You have lifted the yoke of slavery, Lord Jesus. Let me follow You in freedom.
MUSIC:
We listen to Psalm 49 by the King’s College Cambridge Choir.