Even though Marian Jordan Ellis, Bible teacher, author and graduate of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, grew up in a Southern Baptist church, it wasn’t until she was 25 years old that she finally surrendered her heart to Christ. Although life hasn’t always been easy since, she has always known the love of the Father.
“I was very much living in the darkness, very much riddled with strongholds and addictions. I was just a very broken girl. It was as if in the natural realm, what happened in the spiritual realm was true when it talks about in Colossians that He rescues us from the domain of darkness and brings us into His Kingdom.
“This has always been a picture for me of redemption,” Ellis said. Her redemption involved years of having her thoughts, mind and life healed and restored.
Ellis has the heart of an evangelist and in 2007, she felt called to help other women who were like her before she had undergone that major transformation.
Her passion has been to tell these women the truth of the gospel and the knowledge that God has so much better in store for them — that He wants everyone to experience the same redeemed life she is living. This led to the founding of her ministry, This Redeemed Life.
Provision
Ellis said living in God’s redemptive power hasn’t always been easy. She said that she’s always been a “late bloomer” because most are saved in childhood. She was also single until she was 38 years old.
“Although God had done wonderful things, there was still this longing in my heart for a child. All of the statistics said it was too late.
“One thing that God always challenged me with was to never give up on His goodness and to always believe in the power of prayer. So when I was 42, I heard the Lord tell me I was going to have a baby,” she said.
Ellis’ pregnancy the next year was a reminder of how “all through the Old Testament and the old covenant, there were these whispers of God to the prophets about, ‘Here’s what’s going to happen. Don’t lose hope.’”
Even with such a powerful testimony of what God did in Ellis’ life, she said that she sometimes still has difficulty believing in God’s provision. Her husband owns his own business, and she is in ministry full time. With the struggling economy, the couple has to continually pray for the resources to meet their family’s needs.
“Seeing the God who provides so dramatically and knowing that that God who provides wants us to know Him as Father — a Father who meets our every single need — is very personal when the rubber meets the road in my own house.
“I can entrust my every need, my every care to Him because He has already proven His faithfulness,” Ellis said.
Weighty, but accessible
One of the needs Ellis noticed was for a Bible that is more understandable to the women she ministers to. Her recent release, “Garden to Garden: Through the Bible From Eden to Eternal Paradise,” is all about taking what can seem to be an overwhelming task of reading and understanding the 66 books of the Bible and making them manageable, bite-size sections that still focus on the redemption story that flows throughout all of Scripture.
“That story, that metanarrative of Scripture, is what caused me to love Jesus more and to know Him. ‘Garden to Garden’ is this outpouring for others to experience that — to experience the God who pursues us, who rescues us, who redeems us,” she said.
The idea for “Garden to Garden” arose when a friend mentioned that she wanted something she could hand a non-Christian in her tennis group or a nonbelieving family member that would explain the overarching theme of the Bible without having to tell them to read the Bible through.
“But at the same time, this isn’t an entry-level, basic devotional. It’s got meat but it’s also accessible,” Ellis said.
The devotional is divided into 30 sections, with each section having four parts. There is a focal Bible verse or verses, a passage to be read out of one’s own Bible, a commentary with applications for everyday life and a section of things to think about that could be coupled with a separate journal.
“The world is becoming anti-Biblical where in the natural world it feels like sometimes Satan’s winning. When I turn on the last day (of the devotional) to look at the new heavens and the new earth and the new Eden that’s going to come down from the Father, it’s that reminder that Jesus wins.
“I think we can get in despair as believers. We can feel defeated. I think the hope of the Church is that we know the end of the story.
“For me, (there is) that constant reminder of having to see that God has given us the end of the story and it’s a beautiful one. We don’t have to be in need and despair. We don’t have to lose hope. We have a living hope, as Peter says, of what awaits us.”
“Garden to Garden” can be used either for individual or group discipleship. Additional video resources to accompany the study as well as hundreds of Ellis’ other articles and teachings can be found at thisredeemedlife.org.
Share with others: