Marked for Deletion

When you delete a file from your computer, it doesn't immediately disappear. Your operating system simply marks that space as available — the data itself remains, waiting to be overwritten. Data recovery software like Disk Drill can scan a hard drive and resurrect files that seemed completely gone, restoring them byte by byte to their original state.

Sin works something like that destructive overwriting. It marks us, corrupts us, convinces us that the original image of God within us has been permanently lost. And sometimes we believe it. We delete ourselves from the story of who we could become.

But redemption tells a different story. What God created doesn't simply vanish. The imago Dei — the image of God stamped into every human soul — may be buried under layers of shame and failure, but it was never truly erased. Christ's atoning work is the ultimate recovery process, scanning through every layer of our brokenness and restoring what the enemy convinced us was gone forever.

The thief on the cross spent a lifetime making choices that overwrote his dignity. Yet in his final hours, Jesus looked past all of it and said, "Today you will be with me in paradise." The original file was still there. It just needed the right hand to recover it.

No matter how corrupted your story feels, God specializes in recovery. He doesn't look at you and see "permanently deleted." He sees "waiting to be restored."