Bought Back

"There's a video game I want, but I don't have enough money," Graham told his friend Tobias. "I wish I could think of a way to make some extra cash." "Why not sell me the tires from your old bike?" said Tobias. "I told you I wanted to buy them, and my dad said it was okay." "Oh, that's right! I forgot," said Graham. "My dad okayed it too, so it's a deal!" Tobias paid Graham for the tires, and Graham bought his video game. For a while, the boys played the game almost every day. As the weather turned warmer, Graham and Tobias didn't play inside as much. They began to take bike rides around the neighborhood. One day, Graham ran over a broken bottle and slashed his front tire. "Oh no!" he exclaimed. "This whole tire is ruined! Now what am I going to do?" He frowned. "I guess I should have kept those bike tires I sold to you." "Well, I only used one, so I'll sell the other back to you," Tobias offered. "I don't need it." "Really?" asked Graham. "Cool!" So the boys got the tire and went to Graham's house to put it on the bike. "What happened?" asked Graham's dad when he came home and saw the boys at work. "My tire got ruined, so I bought this one back from Tobias," Graham explained. Dad smiled. "You redeemed it. That word is used a lot in the Bible, and what you did with the bike tire is a good example of what it means. 'Redeemed' simply means 'bought back.'" "But…why is that word used in the Bible?" asked Tobias. "God created people, so they belonged to Him," Dad explained. "But Satan came and tempted them to sin, and they did. They turned away from God and chose evil instead. So all people became sinners, enslaved to Satan and sin. But when Jesus died on the cross for us, He paid the price to buy us back. When we trust in Him, we no longer belong to Satan, but to God." Tobias grinned as he looked at the tire on Graham's bike. "I never thought I'd have something in common with an old bike tire--I've been redeemed!" -Lenora McWhorten