Hebrews 9:14 NIV
[14] How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!
Sacrifice. It’s something we hate as people.
We love it when someone sacrifices for us, but we don’t enjoy doing it for others unless we really love them. Jesus really loves us. We remind ourselves of that over and over and over again. But it’s hard to remember. We talk of God’s love and we seek to feel His heart close to us, but in no time at all we forget all He did for us and why. Because of that sacrifice we are no longer required to give God blood, but now are to give Him our hearts and to serve Him as living sacrifices, this is a privilege even if we don’t see it as one. We get to be clean before God because we are seen through the lense of Jesus’s blood. IF. We have given our lives to Him. Now our sacrifice looks like avoiding sin. Helping others. Obeying God’s laws. Sharing Jesus with others. Gifts to God because He gave us the greatest gift of all through Jesus. How much more than the sacrifices we give to God, will the sacrifice His son Jesus be in His eyes. Our gifts are like a sprinkling of sand in the desert. Yet God still loves our offerings because He loves us. We come to God broken, sinful and some days even insincere, and we lay our dirty, blemished offerings before Him. And He accepts them and loves us. Like a child who brings a sculpture of mud to her mom and the mother smiles and takes and says its beautiful, because she loves the heart of the child who made it. That’s what our offerings to God looks like. And His love of us and His love of what we do for Him makes our mud beautiful.
If our dirty offerings can be seen as beautiful. Imagine how much more so the spotless, blameless, pure sacrifice of Jesus is to God. Beautiful beyond compare. The only truly worthy sacrifice.
Cleanse us Jesus from actions that lead to death, so that we may serve the LIVING God!
Category: free
Feet part 6
Psalms 26:12 NIV
[12] My feet stand on level ground; in the great congregation I will praise the Lord.
Level ground is an interesting expression. It can mean that you stand in righteousness. It can mean you stand in safety. It can mean you stand in place of discernment.
I feel David meant that he stood in safety when he said he stood on level ground. It’s like hiking. During the summer my family and I went to Port Renfrew in BC. My dad, Phallen (my dog) and I hiked down to the beach there. And when I say hiked, I mean there were moments I wished for a guideline to help me get back up the mountain. Phallen was fine, he trudged along like a tropper. But I was bent over trying to keep my balance, the difference between two legs and four I guess. At one point the trail leveled off for a bit. It felt like I had taken lead weights out of my shoes when I hit that level path. I finally could catch my breath. That’s what standing on level ground feels like. Rest. Peace. A weight being lifted. When you stand on level ground you are stable. When Jesus puts you on level ground, you are safe.
And then to stand on that level ground and praise the Lord. You stand in the safety of His presence and have the privilege to praise Him. The Great Congregation sounds like Heaven to me. The congregation of Heavenly hosts singing praises to God, standing in safety in His presence. I love that a warrior like David was also someone who longed to stand and sing praises to God in a Heavenly choir. Not many warriors are depicted like that. Yet, I think of the old stories. Knights riding into battle with a herald going before them, sometimes singing songs of their victories. How would the song of Jesus’s victories have gone?
He evaded Herod’s seekers, men who sought His life.
His family fled in secret, hidden by the night.
He taught at twelve in the Temple and have His mom a fright.
But He knew He must be with His father, and of course He was right.
He called twelve men to join Him when He was fully grown. He was baptized by the baptist and a dove came down from Heaven’s throne.
He healed the sick and cast out demons, He even raised the dead. But the leaders feared His power so they called for His head.
He stood bold before Pilot, no shame was on His face. For He stood there not for His own deeds, but instead for my disgrace.
He was beaten and mocked by those He loved, they spit upon His face.
He carried His cross up the hill of the skull and died in my place.
Three days went by and the tomb stood shut, but there was work happening behind the scenes. Jesus took the keys of death and set the captives free.
Then He appeared before His friends and showed them His hands, feet and side. They were surprised but shouldn’t have been, He had told them He would rise.
Now He waits in Heaven’s throne, for the day He will bring us home.
For now we are His hands and feet, to show this world His love and carry on His deeds. We will preach His word! We will pray for those in need! We will walk in His foot steps! Because we follow where He leads.
I would say a list of accomplishments like that would send His enemies running. But it’s not just some story. He really did all those things and so many more. And He really is coming back for us some day. So for now, let us follow in His footsteps, until at last we see Him face to face again.
Feet part 3
[9] “Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”
That desire. That longing to be known and owned fully by God. Peter knew it. He understood somewhere deep in His spirit that He needed to be covered by Jesus’s cleansing. I wonder if that desire to be baptized in the water, to be supersaturated by God, made Jesus happy. How many of us live God enough to say, “all of my Lord, cleanse it all.”
Stormie O’martan spoke of her heart as house. She said that in the beginning she let God into the main room and thought that was enough. But soon He was knocking on the door to another room, another part of her life, so eventually she let him in. Then He began knocking at another door and another and another, until finally He was in every room. It’s not enough to simply accept that Jesus is Lord, you must also let Him into your life, all of your life, let Him control everything. That can be hard. There may be things you are told to give up. Or things, (or harder still, people) you are told to add to your life. It’s a hard path. But no worth while path was ever ea
Feet part 2
John 13:8 NIV
[8] “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.” John 13:9 NIV
Peter thought it beneath Jesus to wash his feet. He did not want the one he knew to be the son of God, their long awaited king, the Messiah, kneeling at his feet and washing them. Jesus knew that Peter meant no offense in his statement but He needed all his deciples to understand that if he did not wash them clean they would have no part in Him. To this day we all must be washed by Jesus to share in His presence and glory. Of course, we mean washed spiritually by His blood. If we are not cleaned by the blood of Christ, if we have not made a statement of Faith and asked Him into our lives, then we are not shareholders in His reward. He must be part of us for us to be part of Him. Like Rev. Dr. L.H.VanBeek once said. His Spirit draws us to Him so He can give His Spirit to us. It’s such a profound thing. And something to be longed for and valued.
Hands part 5
Luke 23:46 says: Into your hands I trust my spirit.
Into your hands I trust. Five of the hardest words we ever say to God. I trust you Jesus. With this and all things. It makes a nice fridge magnet but do we mean it? How often do we say it? Leaving God to take over is so hard because we are doing creatures. It’s sort of like domesticating a wolf and trying to teach him that he is no longer needing to hunt and fight to survive, now you feed and protect him. God takes us out of our struggle and brokenness and cares for us, but we want to take care of ourselves because we think we know better, this reminds me of a poem:
Let Go and Let God by Laurette Burns
As children bring their broken toys,
with tears for us to mend,
I brought my broken dreams to God,
because He is my friend.
But then instead of leaving Him in
peace to work alone,
I hung around and tried to help,
with ways that were my own.
At last, I snatched it back again and cried,
“How can you be so slow?”
“My child” He said, “What could I do?
You never let it go.”
We must learn to let go, only God can control things in a way that will make them work out perfectly with His plan.
Hands part 3
I recently wood burned an image of Jesus’s hand. The artist I used to copy had drawn His hand as a carpenter’s hands would be. Strong and rough with little lines that could be cuts or could be cracking from the work, and in the center of that hand was a big, black hole. A nail hole.
I can’t help but think of the hands of the men I care about when I think of Jesus’s hands. They are the hands I have held to compare to. It’s easy for me to imagine that His hands are rough and strong and perhaps have sand or wood shavings on them. It’s easy for me to see them as hands where I could hold on and swing my feet off the ground and they wouldn’t drop me. But those are in the good times. When bad times hit it is too easy to take our eyes off of Jesus and feel like He has let go of our hand. But in truth, we have let go of His. He will never let us go.
Those hands were pierced for us.
Hands part 1
Ephesians 2:10 says that we are God’s handiwork!
Think on that for a moment. We are God’s handiwork. Handiwork is defined as something someone made- a synonym for Handiwork is handcrafted, which of course means skillfully made. This makes me think of the fearfully and wonderfully made verse. We were made with skill by hand, by God’s hands. He put us together piece by piece, ion by ion, chemical by chemical until at last we were His perfect creation.
Whenever we receive a gift that is hand made we smile a little more because of the effort that went into it, the love and time needed to keep create it. God gave is the handmade gift of ourselves, we are special and unique and put together with effort and love.
And just like that….
And just like that….
So. You go about your day totally fine. You meet some people, you smile and laugh, and then the next day hits and boom, just like that you have a cold. You were fine the day before, but somewhere along the line you were exposed to a virus and now you are sick. Your cells are fighting the virus with all they’ve got and all you can do is walk around and be host to the battle. One day the cold will leave, but not without a struggle.
Sin is like that. You are fine and go about your day, you expose yourself to some minor things but are not affected by them, then some more minor things add on and some more, until one day you look at yourself and realize you are no longer living like a Christian. But God. God is like your white blood cells, He is fighting the battle against your sin. Unlike your cold, however, you are not just a host to the battle, this battle you fight too. You walk away from sin, you spend more time with Jesus. You fight everyday with your desires and you teach yourself to have only one desire, Jesus.
It’s funny how Jesus helps us fight to get closer to Him, when He is who we are trying to draw closer to.
He battles for us even when we don’t live Him or acknowledge Him. He is our true friend.
Whistle
You can be as brave as you make believe you are.
Remember that line in the King and I? I love that line, it reminds me of sound of music when she sings her way to the front door because she is afraid. Music is amazing. All creatures sing, even rocks. Don’t believe me? Well, that gets into molecular science so it may not be a well known fact.
Make a list in your mind of all the creatures and other organics which make a type of music.
I can list geodes, dogs, dolphins, birds and seashells off of the top of my head. I’m sure you can list a whole bunch of others.
I would like to focus on wolves at this moment. Canines sing many reasons. When they are sad, or lost, or frightened or simply because they want to. People are like that. We sing for all reasons too. God loves song. Look at how often He speaks of singing. The biggest book of the Bible is mostly songs. God loves to hear us sing. Singing is such a release. It takes your emotions and let’s them out. That is why worship is so important. It’s singing to the Lord. Expressing our emotions in a raw amd open way. I heard once that singing in the Spirit has become a rare thing. We don’t hear it so much anymore and I’ve listened and have noticed how true that is. But when someone is blessed to sing in the language of Heaven it’s like… everything. It sounds like a balm to the soul.
We tend to hold it all inside and keep our emotions to ourselves. But we shouldn’t do that. We need to be discerning about who we share our emotions with, but we can always, openly share them with God.
So the next time you don’t know what to say, open your heart up to sing. Maybe God will even give you song. You will never know if you don’t try.
Hell will not prevail against you
Jesus said in one of his sermons during his final days that the gates of hell would not prevail against Peter, or against the church which was built on him.
Now. Can anyone tell me how Peter died?
Exactly. He was hung upside-down on a cross. Yep.
What did Jesus say? Not that Peter wouldn’t die. Not that he wouldn’t suffer. But that hell would not prevail against him.
After everything Peter did and everything he went through in his denying of Jesus and then meeting him again on the beach all those days later. I wonder what was going through Peter’s head? I wonder if Peter needed to be reminded that hell would not Prevail against him, that his mistake was not the end of his connection to Jesus. Because it was the devil causing Peter to fear which made him deny his Jesus three times. That day the Gates of Hell tried to prevail. But Jesus reassured Peter that the gates of hell would not Prevail against him. They knocked him around and caused him to sin, but they did not win. If only that had come to Peter’s mind before he denied Jesus. Yet in the end Jesus’s prophecy came true, as they always do, and Peter never lost the war aginst hell. Judas ate at the supper but so did Peter. Judas sinned against Jesus and so did Peter. But Peter was the only one of the two of them who fully repented and turned his life around and went back 100% to serving Jesus. That was Peter’s redeeming quality. The moment he fell on his knees before his Lord and friend and declared never again God will I deny you.
Now some will say that Jesus wasn’t talking about actual hell he was talking about that place of execution and religious ceremony of the Romans. They claim that this place was referred to by the Romans as the gates of hell. Some claim when Jesus said the Gates of Hell will not Prevail against you he was talking about this place. I for one do not believe at all that he was talking about that and not actual hell. My Bible which is a study Bible does bring up the gates of hell in the Roman culture later on in a different thing Jesus was talking about. However in this circumstance the study Bible does not ever suggest that Jesus wasn’t talking about the very real hell to which we are all fighting against every day. Now setting that aside and going forward in what we believe in Jesus actually meant. Jesus said the Gates of Hell will not Prevail against you. He was talking to Peter but he was also talking about the church. Too often does it look like hell is getting a foothold within the church. Too often does it look like we are losing ground and the devil is winning. But Jesus told us that the gates of hell would not Prevail against us. He told us that he was always with us. He told us that where he is evil cannot abide. He told us that he walked into hell took the keys from the Devil and now through Jesus we have the freedom to have our bonds loosed. He can take those keys and we can raise our chain hands to him and he will unlock our Fetters and set us free. Christ did not die in vain and he stands in the biggest Gap there is protecting us from the Devil. Jesus never said you were so powerful that you can go out into this world without Him and the Gates of Hell would never Prevail against you. The Gates of Hell will not Prevail against us because Jesus walks with us, he is there holding us guarding us. Like the Cub who runs under the feet of the Lion we are safe from the jackals and the crocodiles and the wild beasts that would hunt us and kill us. Because our Lord Jesus Christ is a great Lion of Judah and he protects us.
We may feel like we are losing ground. We may feel like that person we pray for will never be saved. We may feel like the titans are too large for us to fight. But Jesus is on our side.
Carried in the cross 