Under The Blood

Suzanne and I have had a couple of conversations recently about being "under the blood." She had been challenged with this idea recently by a respected friend. Her friend was saying that we should take our place "under the blood" and place our struggles there and walk in victory. I agree. But have you ever used a phrase like this and just wondered if you really had a clue what it meant? That's where we found ourselves.



As we talked about this, Revelation 12:10-11 came to mind.

"And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, 'Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of the brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death." (ESV)



I believe this is how we overcome the enemy, and I pray this over my family every night. I plead the blood of Jesus and say, "Jesus is LORD." But I still don't think I understand all that it includes. I know that Jesus' sacrifice on the cross satisfies the wrath of God toward sin and I know that "He was wounded for our transgressions...crushed for our iniquities...(and) upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His stripes we are healed." (Isaiah 53:5 ESV) But I believe there is even more.

In the book of Exodus, when God delivers the people of Israel from the bondage of Pharaoh in Egypt, He tells them to kill a lamb. Then He tells them to take hyssop and dip it into the blood of that lamb and apply the blood on the top and sides of their door frames. Then, as Moses explains why, this is what he says.

"For the LORD will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when He sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the LORD will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you." (Exodus 12:23 ESV)

When I heard that, I thought, "WOW! That's what I am praying when I plead the blood of Jesus and say Jesus is LORD. I am applying Jesus' blood to the spiritual door of my family and claiming this promise that the destroyer will not be allowed to enter! I am overcoming him 'by the blood of the Lamb and word of my testimony!!'" We have entered into the covenant promises God made with His people way back there through the perfect Passover Lamb, Jesus Christ and we can be sure that He will protect what He has purchased with that blood.

Pleading Jesus' blood,

Jon

A God Centered Church

Here we are, January of 2008 and I am being amazed at how God is speaking. I am reading one book in particular that is resounding in my heart with every page. It is called "A God Centered Church" by Henry and Mel Blackaby. I believe that God is in the process of teaching us what His church is to look like as we are moving toward the future and I am learning a lot from this book in particular. Here are a few quotes to hopefully whet your appetite and encourage you to go out and buy this book and read it for such a time as this. ~Jon


"Jesus established the church as a divine institution for the proclamation and extension of the kingdom. The church is not need-centered or people-centered but God-centered. When a church is God centered, they will know His awesome presence. When God grants His presence to a church, He expresses His wisdom, His power, and His activity to accomplish His purposes." (pg xii-xiii of the introduction)

"Our problem is that we are capable of running a religious organization, and we have learned to do it well. But too often our standard for evaluating the success of our church is to observe how large it has become. Church growth is not the biblical standard to evaluate the health of a church. A church can grow through effective marketing, but Christ may not have anything to do with it. Jesus said, 'I will build my church.' Yet we run around to church growth conferences to discover how we can build a successful church. Most conferences do not tell us how to recognize the activity of Jesus as He builds His church. Jesus, in this passage, gave two criteria: (1) the gates of hell will be coming down, and (2) we will be using the keys to the kingdom of heaven to free people from the bondage of sin and bring them into the presence of God." (pg 16)

Jesus' "...strategy of evangelism is the interdependence of each member related to the body and following Christ as the Head." (pg 17)

Speaking about the church in Acts 2, it says, "The striking characteristic of this moment was that they could not get enough fellowship. They loved to be together, for they experienced God together....They met daily and grew to have one mind and heart. The fellowship went from the temple to the homes and into the streets. Their relationship with one another was an essential part of God's plan. As they gave God the glory, He continued to add to their number day after day. That was the result of an encounter with God; that was the result of God's great salvation.

Whereas sin leads to independence and self centeredness, salvation leads to radical interdependence and Christ-centeredness. The sign of a healthy Christian, who has been set free from sin, is interdependence with other believers and commitment to function within the body of Christ." (pg 19)

"Over the last few decades, the focus has shifted away from God's people to evangelism and the lost. However, significant evangelism is a by-product of what God does with His people. If we bypass the people of God, we have shut down evangelism. But when we help the people of God know who they are in Christ and what God purposed for their lives through salvation, the world will be turned upside down." (pg 21)