THE BENEFIT BONUS: Pit Redemption

Greetings Brethren and Cistern. I hope your Human Resource experience has been a good one so far. The key to a good Human Resource Director is (1) they must be human (2) they must serve as a resource for you.

Do you remember going to the grocery store...and when you pay the bill...you were given a certain amount of GREEN TRADING STAMPS? My mother would take those stamps...lick them...and paste them in the SAVINGS BOOK. For months...we would look at the REDEMPTION BOOK...and dream about what we could REDEEM with our stamps. There was some pretty good stuff in that book. The more stamps...the better the prize. We would then travel down to Nashville fromMurfreesboro (about a 30 mile drive)...go to the REDEMPTION STORE...turn in the stamps and REDEEM OUR PRIZE...take it from the store...and back home.

Back in the 70's...one of the hottest games around was PIT. My brother Tom Rutherford...recently purchased an old Pit game with the official bell. It is a trading game of the Stock Market. The goal is to trade the cards in your hand and have a complete set. The trading is frantic as everyone is shouting out loud how many they are trading...2, 2,2...3 for the win...5, 5, 5, 5,....when someone gets a complete set they shout at the top of their lungs...PIT!!!!!...and ring the bell in the middle of a table. Brenda and I hosted a PIT party once...where we had five tables going at once (talk about a sonic boom)...and one of the guys at our table got so excited...he leaned back in our nice...wooden chair...and broke the back off of it. Aaaaahh those were the days my friend...we thought they'd never end.
In our BENEFITS PACKAGE...there is another PIT. This pit is not so much fun. A PIT can be anything from a Bar-B-Q Pit where delicious pig is cooked to an orchestra pit where melodious music swells with raputre....to a grease pit where old stinking grease is stored. But the PIT that we are talking about is a PRISON...where a hole in the ground is dug out....to the level where the captive one cannot jump up or climb out. At the beginning of this Rambling I sent out greetings to all of the brethren and cistern. Cistern a play of words on sisters...compared to the brethren...or sistren. A cistren was a place of collection for water... but if the CISTERN is cracked...and won't hold water...the cister could be used as a PIT or a PRISON. What once was a place of life could be turned into a place of death.

NOW...finally...we are REDEEMED from the PIT. Something of value has been exchanged for our REDEMPTION...from the place...the prison...the PIT...that has held us CAPTIVE. The REDEEMER ..the thing of value is a person not a thing..He is JESUS the CHRIST...who hung on a cross...in our place...as a SUBSTITUTE...as a SCAPEGOAT...as the propitiation or satisfaction for God. As the song goes....I've been redeemed (I've been redeemed), by the BLOOD OF THE LAMB (by the blood of the Lamb)...I've been redeemed (I've been redeemed) by the blood of the Laaamb...I've been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb...filled with the Holy Ghost I am...all my sins are washed away...I've been REDEEMED.

As sinners...we were bound by the sin in our lives. He has PARDONED all of our INIQUITIES...He HEALS our DISEASES...and now He REDEEMS our life (which really was death)...from the PIT.

WOW.....these benefits just keep getting better and better. You may be thinking to yourself...well...I don't see any of this stuff in my life. It really is a matter of faith...love and obedience.

"He/She who has My (Jesus) commandments and keeps them...he/she it is who loves Me...and he/she who loves Me...shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him, and will disclose/manifest/reveal Myself to him."
(John 14:21)

Access into the benefits is by FAITH..."Now faith is the substance of things hoped for (the benefits)...the evidence of things not seen (the benefits)." (Hebrews 11:1)

NEXT TIME: The Crown: Size 7 3/4

Love and PITLESS kisses
Rodney "Savings Stamps Quartet" Boyd