A few months ago, God impressed upon my heart to read and meditate Song of Solomon. I am still on my little quest, but already I see there is so much in this book to be revealed to the body of Christ. I mentioned in an earlier post that God had revealed to me through this book the way he sees me, without spot, faultless. This was such an amazing revelation that it took quite a while to sink in. I would meditate this scripture (Song of Solomon 4:7) everyday and still found it amazing.
Today, I would like to discuss a scripture very closely related to the above. Song of Solomon 1:16 says, "Behold thou art fair, my beloved, yea, pleasant: also our bed is green." Remember, Song of Solomon is an ongoing dialogue between two lovers along with some background information to set the scene and mood of the script. This is a perfect depiction of the love and affection between Christ and the Church.
Here in this scripture, Solomon, representing Christ, speaks to his bride who represents the Church. He says to her "Behold, thou art fair." 'Behold' is a term that brings attention to a particular statement or truth about to be revealed. Just as in Song of Solomon 4:7, Christ is revealing to the Church just how He sees her. He says she's fair. This word 'fair', in the original Hebrew in which it was written, means much more than beautiful as in our modern, English vernacular. It means to be 'bright'. We, the Church, are a light unto the world. We are shining His love for everyone to see.
The Bible says that God is love (1 John 4:8). It also tells us that God is light (1 John 1:5). We are the very embodiment of God, the 'body of Christ'! Yes, we are that "city set on a hill" as a light for the whole world to see (Matthew 5:14)! As long as we abide in Him, we should not feel as if we are trying to rob God of his glory. All through the Word, God confirms that he wants us to share in his glory, and the whole creation groans in waiting for us to get this revelation (Romans 8:18-22, but that's a subject for another time)! As he is, so are we in this world," 1 John 4:17!
After assuring the bride that she magnificently shines His beauty as a representation of Him (meaning, "When they see you, they see me. We are one!"), He calls her his 'beloved'. Now this is important because this is the only place in the book of Song of Solomon that the word translated 'beloved' comes from the Hebrew word 'ahab' or 'aheb'. All the others are translated from the Hebrew word 'dod' or 'dowd' which simply means lover or friend. The word 'aheb' means to have affection for. According to The New Strong's Expanded Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, this word means "to love in the sense of having a strong emotional attachment to and desire either to possess or to be in the presence of the object." Not only does he share his glory and magnificence with the bride, but he is so attached to her and desires to be in her company more than any other.
As if that isn't enough, he then goes on to call her 'pleasant', which means delightful. God tells us in Revelation 4:11 we exist and were created for his pleasure. Our main purpose in life is to give God the pleasure of delighting in us. Wow, what a calling! 1 Corinthians 1:9 tells us that God is faithful and has called us into fellowship with his Son. This would be sort of like a prearranged marriage! I always disliked the idea of prearranged marriages until I caught the Father's heart in this. It was a faithful act. He was fulfilling his promise to save us and make a new covenant with us based on His blood, not our works. God was saying, "I am your father, and I know what's best for you. I've been scouting out the land, and I've found the absolute best! I've arranged a wedding for you. I know once you meet him and get to know him, you will absolutely adore him!"
To top it all off, Solomon, our picture of Christ, reminds her, "...also our bed is green." The word 'green' here is translated from the Hebrew word 'raanan' which means verdant (green with growing plants, unripe, fresh), new, prosperous. He was in essence saying, "We have a whole new field to play on. It's untouched and it's just for you and me. We can explore this new life together. You are mine, and I am yours. We can have intimate fellowship anytime you'd like. I love getting to know you and revealing myself to you. I'm always ready."
This completely dispels the myth that we must be perfect before we come into the presence of God. He already sees us as perfect. He created us to bring him pleasure. He longs for our fellowship. This is why he tells us to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17). He wants continual unbroken fellowship with us. Just as we don't divorce our mate when we see a mistake or flaw, God will not kick us out of His presence when we sin. Here you see that God gives us an open invitation. No more long baths and beauty rituals! We' have already been washed in His blood! He has beautified us! We are perfect just as we are because we are exuding His love, His light, His image! He beckons us to come to him, explore Him, truly get to know Him. When we see his heart, we will fall head-over-heels in love with him!
Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,
By a new and living way which he has consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;
And having an high priest over the house of God;
Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.
Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful who promised;)
Hebrews 10:19-23
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
New Life in Christ (Part 3)
The reality of the 'new life' we find in Christ is an ongoing subject because it is such a deep, ongoing revelation. This is the last post that I will blog in this series for now, but obviously it will not be the last article that hinges on this revelation.
Today, I would like to share what I believe to be one of the greatest revelations of my lifetime. It demonstrates just how great was our Lord's sacrifice on the cross and just how powerful His blood remains forevermore. I mentioned in the last two posts that when I was first born again the fact that I had became a new creature was quickly made evident to me. This new identity meant that now I would identify with Christ and his suffering on the cross for me. Over time, I came to recognize I was no longer bound by the guilt of sin, my sins or the sins of anyone else. I could walk away free from the pain of rejection and grief because Jesus had borne my griefs, carried my sorrows, and suffered rejection for me.
Now, this next truth is so huge that it completely shook me to the core. Not only had I been delivered from my sins and the hurt inflicted upon me by others, but I had been completely loosed from fear of future sins! Yes, that's right! Jesus' blood didn't just cleanse enough sins to get us temporary right with the Father, but He bore all our sin, past, present, and future!
At first, I was taught by the church that God forgave us of all our past sins. This made us new; However, afterwards, we could be tainted by future sins. We then had to continually examine ourselves, confess our sins, and be cleansed all over again. What a rut this put me in! I was doing all I knew in order to be holy, and for the most part, I lived right, but as soon as I thought an evil thought or argued with my husband, which happened quite often, I came under the condemnation of having not performed quite perfectly. The church also taught us that sin put a rift in our relationship with God and that if we took communion in this 'fallen' state, we were in danger of sickness or death. If we tried to worship God with sin in our heart, our worship was like Cain's gift to God and not received.
Can you imagine my intimacy level with God? I was so paranoid about sinning that I was continually 'checking my heart'. If I felt the presence of God one day and not the next, I was questioning God trying to find out what I had done wrong. I would repent before taking communion, even if I could find no fault. I felt continually dirty.
Finally, I reached a place where I thought I had mastered the 'repentance system' and was better than most Christians. I became self-righteous and judgmental. My husband was not perfect, as no person is, so I constantly tried to 'convict' him of his sins so that he would not be tainted and go to hell. Our marriage was falling apart all over again. Only this time I didn't know where to turn since the blood of Jesus had not been good enough. We went to counseling, but nothing helped. It wasn't until we understood this truth that things began to change.
It took years for me to find out the truth, but thanks to teachings from Andrew Wommack and Joseph Prince, God was able to get the message over to me, save my marriage, and change my household! When I saw that God was not keeping record of my sins, that when He said that my "sins and lawless deeds" He would "remember no more" that He really meant it, my entire world was changed!
God has already judged our sins when he poured out his wrath on Jesus on the cross! Jesus was made sin for us. Now we can rest assured that we have been made the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21) no matter what we do!
Some people try to defend their right to be a low-down, dirty, old sinner. I don't know about you, but it gives me much more peace knowing that if I mess up, God hasn't just swiped a tally mark against me in the great book. God is just. Why would he judge my sins on the cross, then judge them again on me? Justice has been served! Christ died, now we are risen again with Him, seated with Him in the heavenly above sin! (See Ephesians 1:20-21; 2:6-10!) Hallelujah!!!
My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
1 John 2:1-2
Today, I would like to share what I believe to be one of the greatest revelations of my lifetime. It demonstrates just how great was our Lord's sacrifice on the cross and just how powerful His blood remains forevermore. I mentioned in the last two posts that when I was first born again the fact that I had became a new creature was quickly made evident to me. This new identity meant that now I would identify with Christ and his suffering on the cross for me. Over time, I came to recognize I was no longer bound by the guilt of sin, my sins or the sins of anyone else. I could walk away free from the pain of rejection and grief because Jesus had borne my griefs, carried my sorrows, and suffered rejection for me.
Now, this next truth is so huge that it completely shook me to the core. Not only had I been delivered from my sins and the hurt inflicted upon me by others, but I had been completely loosed from fear of future sins! Yes, that's right! Jesus' blood didn't just cleanse enough sins to get us temporary right with the Father, but He bore all our sin, past, present, and future!
At first, I was taught by the church that God forgave us of all our past sins. This made us new; However, afterwards, we could be tainted by future sins. We then had to continually examine ourselves, confess our sins, and be cleansed all over again. What a rut this put me in! I was doing all I knew in order to be holy, and for the most part, I lived right, but as soon as I thought an evil thought or argued with my husband, which happened quite often, I came under the condemnation of having not performed quite perfectly. The church also taught us that sin put a rift in our relationship with God and that if we took communion in this 'fallen' state, we were in danger of sickness or death. If we tried to worship God with sin in our heart, our worship was like Cain's gift to God and not received.
Can you imagine my intimacy level with God? I was so paranoid about sinning that I was continually 'checking my heart'. If I felt the presence of God one day and not the next, I was questioning God trying to find out what I had done wrong. I would repent before taking communion, even if I could find no fault. I felt continually dirty.
Finally, I reached a place where I thought I had mastered the 'repentance system' and was better than most Christians. I became self-righteous and judgmental. My husband was not perfect, as no person is, so I constantly tried to 'convict' him of his sins so that he would not be tainted and go to hell. Our marriage was falling apart all over again. Only this time I didn't know where to turn since the blood of Jesus had not been good enough. We went to counseling, but nothing helped. It wasn't until we understood this truth that things began to change.
It took years for me to find out the truth, but thanks to teachings from Andrew Wommack and Joseph Prince, God was able to get the message over to me, save my marriage, and change my household! When I saw that God was not keeping record of my sins, that when He said that my "sins and lawless deeds" He would "remember no more" that He really meant it, my entire world was changed!
God has already judged our sins when he poured out his wrath on Jesus on the cross! Jesus was made sin for us. Now we can rest assured that we have been made the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21) no matter what we do!
Some people try to defend their right to be a low-down, dirty, old sinner. I don't know about you, but it gives me much more peace knowing that if I mess up, God hasn't just swiped a tally mark against me in the great book. God is just. Why would he judge my sins on the cross, then judge them again on me? Justice has been served! Christ died, now we are risen again with Him, seated with Him in the heavenly above sin! (See Ephesians 1:20-21; 2:6-10!) Hallelujah!!!
My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
1 John 2:1-2
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
New Life in Christ (Part 2)
A few days ago, when I posted the last article, I had so much more to say, but I realized it would take more space than a normal post. Instead of trying the patience of my readers, I decided to break the post up into sections.
In "New Life in Christ", I shared with you how I learned early in my Christian walk that I was no longer a sinner. I was new on the inside, a whole new creation. I was no longer the old me, but she had been crucified on the cross with Christ. Now the new me could live no longer burdened with the stain of sin. Jesus had washed me with his blood. God had made me clean!
The next lesson took a little while longer to learn and came rather in phases than all at once, but for the sake of time and space I will just let you have it outright. This lesson hinges on the last and adds flavor to life. Of course, it is one that causes more dependence on Christ than upon self and has the potential to cause Christians everywhere to stand out, even among the best of the best.
It is the simple, yet profound lesson that all things are indeed new. It was quite easy in comparison to see that my sins were washed away and that I was no longer a sinner, but the biggie for me was that since I was no longer the same person, then all that had happened to cause me pain, although still in my memory, had not happened to me, but to the old me who was now dead.
It was quite easy to separate myself from the sins I had committed in the past but a bit more difficult to detach from the sins that others had committed against me. I had endured a particularly difficult and pain-ridden childhood and was now facing the idea that I should no longer hang on to past wounds and regrets. This process took some time and was equally as painful as the initial blow from each event that now plagued me in early adulthood. I could not even speak of certain events without breaking out into tears, and now God was showing me I could no longer identify with these happenings that so marked me!
The Holy Spirit pointed out to me that Jesus had borne my griefs and carried my sorrows (Isaiah 53:4)! I was free from them! I didn't have to walk around as a victim to these past circumstances any longer. I was unchained and could walk away free! Letting go of who I had once been, also meant letting go of everything that tagged the old me. Simply put, I was new; Old things had passed away. This meant everything that had happened to the old me had not happened to the new me. The person that had suffered the enemy's torments of the past was in the grave and totally oblivious to my new existence.
If anyone had lied on me, they had lied on the old me. If someone had stolen from me, they had stolen from the old me. If anyone had done anything undesirable toward me, it had not happened to me but to a girl that now lay in the grave and should be forgotten. If I were to dig her up, she would not utter a word about her past, for she had been crucified. She was dead never to be resurrected.
Needless to say, this reality causes forgiveness to abound. How could anyone hold something against someone who had done them no wrong? Just as I had thought it illogical for someone to hold ills against me for no reason at all, I now should not find fault in those who had not wronged me but one who was gone forever and could not even tell me of her inconveniences. I had been forgiven, freed from every debt. How could I hold on to the sins of others?
Jesus has carried all our sorrows. The Bible tells us in Isaiah 53 that Jesus was 'a man of sorrows', that he was 'acquainted with grief', stricken, smitten, and chastised for us (verses 3-5); 'for' meaning, 'because of', 'instead of'. Jesus took our place. We do not have to hold on to the anger and bitterness associated with the past. He has freed us to forgive! He was rejected and despised for us (verse 3)! We can lay down guilt because we are forgiven; We can lay down resentment because others are forgiven. All things have truly become new!
And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.
Ephesians 4:32 (emphasis added)
In "New Life in Christ", I shared with you how I learned early in my Christian walk that I was no longer a sinner. I was new on the inside, a whole new creation. I was no longer the old me, but she had been crucified on the cross with Christ. Now the new me could live no longer burdened with the stain of sin. Jesus had washed me with his blood. God had made me clean!
The next lesson took a little while longer to learn and came rather in phases than all at once, but for the sake of time and space I will just let you have it outright. This lesson hinges on the last and adds flavor to life. Of course, it is one that causes more dependence on Christ than upon self and has the potential to cause Christians everywhere to stand out, even among the best of the best.
It is the simple, yet profound lesson that all things are indeed new. It was quite easy in comparison to see that my sins were washed away and that I was no longer a sinner, but the biggie for me was that since I was no longer the same person, then all that had happened to cause me pain, although still in my memory, had not happened to me, but to the old me who was now dead.
It was quite easy to separate myself from the sins I had committed in the past but a bit more difficult to detach from the sins that others had committed against me. I had endured a particularly difficult and pain-ridden childhood and was now facing the idea that I should no longer hang on to past wounds and regrets. This process took some time and was equally as painful as the initial blow from each event that now plagued me in early adulthood. I could not even speak of certain events without breaking out into tears, and now God was showing me I could no longer identify with these happenings that so marked me!
The Holy Spirit pointed out to me that Jesus had borne my griefs and carried my sorrows (Isaiah 53:4)! I was free from them! I didn't have to walk around as a victim to these past circumstances any longer. I was unchained and could walk away free! Letting go of who I had once been, also meant letting go of everything that tagged the old me. Simply put, I was new; Old things had passed away. This meant everything that had happened to the old me had not happened to the new me. The person that had suffered the enemy's torments of the past was in the grave and totally oblivious to my new existence.
If anyone had lied on me, they had lied on the old me. If someone had stolen from me, they had stolen from the old me. If anyone had done anything undesirable toward me, it had not happened to me but to a girl that now lay in the grave and should be forgotten. If I were to dig her up, she would not utter a word about her past, for she had been crucified. She was dead never to be resurrected.
Needless to say, this reality causes forgiveness to abound. How could anyone hold something against someone who had done them no wrong? Just as I had thought it illogical for someone to hold ills against me for no reason at all, I now should not find fault in those who had not wronged me but one who was gone forever and could not even tell me of her inconveniences. I had been forgiven, freed from every debt. How could I hold on to the sins of others?
Jesus has carried all our sorrows. The Bible tells us in Isaiah 53 that Jesus was 'a man of sorrows', that he was 'acquainted with grief', stricken, smitten, and chastised for us (verses 3-5); 'for' meaning, 'because of', 'instead of'. Jesus took our place. We do not have to hold on to the anger and bitterness associated with the past. He has freed us to forgive! He was rejected and despised for us (verse 3)! We can lay down guilt because we are forgiven; We can lay down resentment because others are forgiven. All things have truly become new!
And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.
Ephesians 4:32 (emphasis added)
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