The Holy One calls to me this morning. His Presence fills the room and with that comes delight. My Holy Counselor has been teaching me a lot in this new season of my life. Much of my "education" has been to unlearn old things rather than learn new things.
While I know Truth as a whole, there has been error mixed in, Those errors have put me in forms of bondage that I was set free from when my Savior was nailed to the cross. My perspective is changing and the blessing of His wisdom is peace.
It's amazing how many times it has been written: "Do not fear", "fear not", "be anxious for nothing", yet fear has seemed to prevail in every challenge with the unknown. Today my gentle Counselor calls me to consider why fear is unnecessary as a servant of the Most High.
"Fear is bound up in judgement and judgement is bound up in the law. Jesus came to set you free from all of it". Wow, what an accurate assessment of the subtleties of wrong thinking and the hope of a greater freedom to be experienced.
When Jesus died on the Cross, He said in a loud voice, "It Is Finished!" We read those words yet forget what they meant.
The Levitical priesthood, was the core authority for the Nation of Israel historically and most of our laws trace back to theirs. The relationship with the Sovereign God of all creation was distant and only a few were given privilege in their human form to participate in relationship. Few found what we have been offered today.
The "law " for all our human attempts to live by it, could not change a heart. The law only proved our desperate depravity. Flesh is consumed with self-preservation, self-promotion and lusts. Flesh distorts even the highest principles of good character, and ends up on it's own throne and sets it's own rules of engagement in life.
The law was a target no man could hit. God's used the "law" to convince us of our own inability to successfully work for His acceptance. He used the "law" to point out our desperate need for a Savior and then sent His Son, Jesus, to rescue humanity who could not rescue itself.
I notice that observation of the "law" back in the day, kept humanity at a distance from the Holy One, then, just as it does today. For some there is a little box that is entered where sins confessed and penitence paid is supposed to bring us back into right relationship with God. Unfortunately that does not make one right with God. We cannot atone for our failures.
Much like the "Tent of Meeting" in the Old Testament, there was a curtain that separated the people from their God. Only the "High Priest"could enter the Holiest of Holies and then only on a certain day, in a certain way was the advance into His Presence, acceptable to the Most High. The people had to maintain a respectable distance or suffer extinction. Jesus came to change all that.
While we, the Church have lost some of the rigidity and obedience to the "law" it still impacts our lives in countless ways. We claim we are free, but observe the very thing that nailed our Savior to the Cross.
As an example, The Holy One speaks of the "law" of tithing. I feel the weight of that law. He takes me back to the reason for that law, where I find it was establish for the most part to provide for the Levites who were commissioned to serve in the temple and were not able to "work" fields or support themselves or their families outside of their calling.
God was simply providing for His servants through the "law". Today, our failure to observe the "law" produces guilt and condemnation in the heart of most believers.
Does God need our worldly possessions and money that we have such a tight grip on in our temporal lives? Or does He have a higher end in mind?
Psalms 50:9-15, "I have no need of a bull from your stalls, or a goat from your pens, for every animal in the forest is mine and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird on the mountain and the creatures of the field are Mine. If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is mine and all that is in it. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? Sacrifice thank offerings to God. Fulfill your vows to the Most High and call upon Me in the day of trouble and I will deliver you and you will honor Me."
The law is good for society to maintain order and boundaries for our selfish flesh to live within. It is good for it emphasizes the point that we, in human flesh, cannot meet or live up to God's standard of life and Holiness. But the law, does not change the heart of the human. In this time of Grace, once we have been rescued, the law produces guilt and condemnation, and cannot co-exist with the Grace that God has given through the shed blood of Jesus.
When Jesus said that He came to fulfill the "law" and then from the Cross, shouted "It is finished", the curtain in the Temple that separated man from His Creator was torn in two...top to bottom...came down from Heaven and opened the way, into the Holy Place of God's Presence.
God, in the Person of Jesus Christ, reached out to our humanity like never before, to reveal Himself as in no other time in the History of our days upon the earth.
As we set about to "obey" the law, the rules, or the requirements of the Church to be a member, may we instead consider this: If we are truly "saved" we have already "obeyed" the only thing needed in God's extravagant offering: Acceptance of His rescue through Jesus Christ His Son. There is nothing more to be done or worked out in order to be "right" with God.
However, the flesh has a throne of it's own to exalt and that is where we must put the "work". We are free from the "law" that was set up externally to govern our flesh, but we find that a new internal code has been established that we know as the 'law of love'. For this purpose, Jesus sent His Spirit to dwell within and empower us to live out His Holy life.
To follow His earlier example, in the "law" of tithing, the Holy One calls my attention to the conviction of sharing and giving: not under compulsion, but rather the sweet desire to be a blessing to the world around me.
If I say "no", when He asks me to share or give, I will not be condemned, but I will miss out on a blessing that He has waiting for those who obey His voice from within. Blessings do follow obedience, not to the "law" but to the voice of my Shepherd.
The Spirit is calling. can you hear Him?
While I know Truth as a whole, there has been error mixed in, Those errors have put me in forms of bondage that I was set free from when my Savior was nailed to the cross. My perspective is changing and the blessing of His wisdom is peace.
It's amazing how many times it has been written: "Do not fear", "fear not", "be anxious for nothing", yet fear has seemed to prevail in every challenge with the unknown. Today my gentle Counselor calls me to consider why fear is unnecessary as a servant of the Most High.
"Fear is bound up in judgement and judgement is bound up in the law. Jesus came to set you free from all of it". Wow, what an accurate assessment of the subtleties of wrong thinking and the hope of a greater freedom to be experienced.
When Jesus died on the Cross, He said in a loud voice, "It Is Finished!" We read those words yet forget what they meant.
The Levitical priesthood, was the core authority for the Nation of Israel historically and most of our laws trace back to theirs. The relationship with the Sovereign God of all creation was distant and only a few were given privilege in their human form to participate in relationship. Few found what we have been offered today.
The "law " for all our human attempts to live by it, could not change a heart. The law only proved our desperate depravity. Flesh is consumed with self-preservation, self-promotion and lusts. Flesh distorts even the highest principles of good character, and ends up on it's own throne and sets it's own rules of engagement in life.
The law was a target no man could hit. God's used the "law" to convince us of our own inability to successfully work for His acceptance. He used the "law" to point out our desperate need for a Savior and then sent His Son, Jesus, to rescue humanity who could not rescue itself.
I notice that observation of the "law" back in the day, kept humanity at a distance from the Holy One, then, just as it does today. For some there is a little box that is entered where sins confessed and penitence paid is supposed to bring us back into right relationship with God. Unfortunately that does not make one right with God. We cannot atone for our failures.
Much like the "Tent of Meeting" in the Old Testament, there was a curtain that separated the people from their God. Only the "High Priest"could enter the Holiest of Holies and then only on a certain day, in a certain way was the advance into His Presence, acceptable to the Most High. The people had to maintain a respectable distance or suffer extinction. Jesus came to change all that.
While we, the Church have lost some of the rigidity and obedience to the "law" it still impacts our lives in countless ways. We claim we are free, but observe the very thing that nailed our Savior to the Cross.
As an example, The Holy One speaks of the "law" of tithing. I feel the weight of that law. He takes me back to the reason for that law, where I find it was establish for the most part to provide for the Levites who were commissioned to serve in the temple and were not able to "work" fields or support themselves or their families outside of their calling.
God was simply providing for His servants through the "law". Today, our failure to observe the "law" produces guilt and condemnation in the heart of most believers.
Does God need our worldly possessions and money that we have such a tight grip on in our temporal lives? Or does He have a higher end in mind?
Psalms 50:9-15, "I have no need of a bull from your stalls, or a goat from your pens, for every animal in the forest is mine and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird on the mountain and the creatures of the field are Mine. If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is mine and all that is in it. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? Sacrifice thank offerings to God. Fulfill your vows to the Most High and call upon Me in the day of trouble and I will deliver you and you will honor Me."
The law is good for society to maintain order and boundaries for our selfish flesh to live within. It is good for it emphasizes the point that we, in human flesh, cannot meet or live up to God's standard of life and Holiness. But the law, does not change the heart of the human. In this time of Grace, once we have been rescued, the law produces guilt and condemnation, and cannot co-exist with the Grace that God has given through the shed blood of Jesus.
When Jesus said that He came to fulfill the "law" and then from the Cross, shouted "It is finished", the curtain in the Temple that separated man from His Creator was torn in two...top to bottom...came down from Heaven and opened the way, into the Holy Place of God's Presence.
God, in the Person of Jesus Christ, reached out to our humanity like never before, to reveal Himself as in no other time in the History of our days upon the earth.
As we set about to "obey" the law, the rules, or the requirements of the Church to be a member, may we instead consider this: If we are truly "saved" we have already "obeyed" the only thing needed in God's extravagant offering: Acceptance of His rescue through Jesus Christ His Son. There is nothing more to be done or worked out in order to be "right" with God.
However, the flesh has a throne of it's own to exalt and that is where we must put the "work". We are free from the "law" that was set up externally to govern our flesh, but we find that a new internal code has been established that we know as the 'law of love'. For this purpose, Jesus sent His Spirit to dwell within and empower us to live out His Holy life.
To follow His earlier example, in the "law" of tithing, the Holy One calls my attention to the conviction of sharing and giving: not under compulsion, but rather the sweet desire to be a blessing to the world around me.
If I say "no", when He asks me to share or give, I will not be condemned, but I will miss out on a blessing that He has waiting for those who obey His voice from within. Blessings do follow obedience, not to the "law" but to the voice of my Shepherd.
The Spirit is calling. can you hear Him?
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