Present Perfect

¹“But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.” (Isaiah 43:1). When the Lord speaks through Isaiah and says, “I have redeemed thee,” He is using the present perfect grammatical tense. He did not say I will redeem thee if everything works out. He said, I have redeemed thee. The present perfect tense is used to express a past event that has present consequences. Christ redeemed us in the past, but that past event has consequences on our present. We must deal with life in the present. That means we have to face what's in front of us with the gifts and talents and weaknesses and complexes that have gotten us to this present moment. That can be really scary. We don't usually get the benefit of wisdom and experience until after we have made mistakes and suffered the consequences. But thanks to the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we can combine our present with His perfect. We do not need to fear because Jesus Christ has already redeemed us. That's not to say that none of our choices matter because we will be saved no matter what. We are still the ones in the present making the decisions. Bad decisions that we make will lead to suffering. But consider this. Christ did not suffer for all of our sins only so that Justice could be satisfied. That was an important part, but not all. It is through our suffering that we gain wisdom and discover how to break out of our predicaments. But if Christ has already suffered for us, then He knows exactly how to get us out of any difficulties into which we may fall. So, we don't need to fear the present because Christ has already come up with the perfect escape plan for every situation. We still have to put our trust in Him and choose to follow Him, but when we do, there is no uncertainty. He has redeemed us already. That happened in the past, but it is always available in our present. When we choose to always have Christ by our side, then we can have a perfect present.