Writing Through the Bible in a Year

Today’s Reading: 2 Corinthians 11:1-13:14

Working together with Him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For He says, “In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.” Behold, NOW is the favorable time; behold, NOW is the day of salvation. 2 Corinthians 6:1-2

I’ve been telling you about my adventures with The Light and how it was never something that I sought out, but rather something that has been seeking me; pursuing me if you will. For months now I’ve caught glimpses of The Light, not knowing what it was and never really even noticing it until this last time. The event at my birthday really struck me. I fully embraced the Light only to have it once again snatched away from me but not before I got to truly experience the freedom and peace that it brought with it. And that’s what stuck with me, the freedom that I felt. Free like nothing on earth, free to make mistakes, free to be imperfect, free to be who God made me to be and not anything less than that! So while the Enemy had succeeded in sucking me back into his lie of darkness and the false light of the Law and legalism he couldn’t remove my experience of that freedom, albeit brief. He managed to deceive me and convince me that his lies were truth, but now there was the lingering question what is the real truth? You see the Enemy had me totally convinced that in order for God to bless me, or look upon me in favor I had to DO something, I had to be someone, I had to be perfect. He even had me convinced that in order for God to be able to protect me from the Enemy I had to protect myself with enough prayers, enough declaration of “in Jesus’ name”, enough anointing oil… all lies! All actions dependent on myself. The Enemy had me convinced that in order for God to respond to my prayers I had to DO something. LIE! I don’t have to DO anything, I need only to trust, to be still and know that HE is God, not me. You see all my actions, my works, were all depending on the Law. The principles laid out in Deuteronomy 28, when you do x, y & z, then you will be blessed. I was TOTALLY missing the point! Those principles will still work today, if we are successful in doing x, y & z, then we will be blessed. However, that is merely the glory of the Old Covenant; the transient glory that is still fading away. It’s not the permanent glory of Jesus’ blood sacrifice, it’s not the True Light, it’s the shadow of what was to come and HAS come already.

You see the Enemy is a sly guy. He knows that I’m stubborn and that I love Jesus. So he got to work in his craftiness early and taught me from childhood the Laws of the land. And not just to me, he’s done this all over our country; everywhere I look I see it. I couldn’t before though. In Exodus when we look at the story of Pharaoh’s reaction after each of the plagues we notice something. He bargains with Moses hoping that Moses will compromise his idea of freedom. From one plague to the next Pharaoh varies the degree of freedom that he is willing to allow the Israelites until finally he concedes defeat and allows them complete freedom.

Compromise is one of Satan’s favorite tactics, “OK, you can worship your God and your Jesus… but don’t mean any of the words of the songs you sing”. But this is where I am so proud of Moses and he gives us an extraordinary example to follow! When Pharaoh suggests that the Israelites present their sacrifices while still in the land of Egypt Moses counters with “It would not be right to do so, for the offerings we shall sacrifice to the Lord our God are an abomination to the Egyptians. If we sacrifice offerings abominable to the Egyptians before their eyes, will they not stone us? We MUST go three days’ journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the Lord our God as He tells us.” While Pharaoh is willing to compromise, Moses is not! Way to go Moses! When God is working on breaking us out of the Enemy’s prison of lies Satan is going to do everything he can to get us to compromise, don’t listen to him! Do not compromise for anything less than God’s perfect Light in your life! It’s simply not worth it! I compromised for years by following the Law, to the letter at times, and it got me nowhere other than more pain, more suffering, more disappointment, more legalism and more chains. I was so focused on the “Thou shalt nots” that I completely missed the “Thou shall….” I cringe to think of the years of life and love and true freedom that I could have lived if only I had but known back then what I know now. However, God wasn’t done with me yet! No, He was simply using those years to teach me the real beauty of His grace.

While the Enemy has been clawing at me with doubt and tearing at my hope that God really can be so good as to have pardoned me once and for all, I have been clinging to what I KNOW. In HIM there is no darkness. His grace is radical! Radical like nothing I have ever seen or heard before. In HIM there is no darkness, no condemnation, no fear of rejection; only love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. In God there is Light and Truth and Hope and Faith.

Did you know that God has faith in you!?! I didn’t know that! But He must, because otherwise He wouldn’t ever use us to accomplish His plan! Think on that; ponder it for a moment won’t you. God has faith in YOU! Isn’t that amazing!?! God trusts YOU! And do you know what He is trusting you with the most? His heart. God has given you His heart. His living, beating, heart flowing with the lifeblood of Jesus Christ and placed it within You through His Spirit. How amazing is that? It’s a little intimidating to think about isn’t it? But don’t be intimidated, because that’s not His purpose. His purpose is for you to love Him back, to enjoy His presence in your everyday, mundane, doing the laundry, cutting the grass, washing the car life. It seems so simple, so… ordinary, so… un-god-like. Yet, that’s precisely what Jesus came to do! In the Garden of Eden, before the fall God walked with Adam and Eve. He had an intimate relationship with them where they talked, they were friends. God didn’t have a throne room where He sat and they came and knelt at His feet and worshipped Him with songs and wrote poems about Him. He came to them, in the garden, in the stillness, in the shade of the trees where the dew was still on the roses. He came to them. He brought Himself down to their level in order to be a part of their life. And they didn’t really know any different so they thought nothing of it. Until the listened to Satan.

Until they listened to the deceiver they were unaware that their nakedness was something to be ashamed of. They were naked and yet they had no problem sitting and talking to God Almighty for hours at a time. Although they knew that He had created them from the dust of the earth, it wasn’t something that they allowed to separate them from God, it was just who they were. Until they ate the forbidden fruit of knowledge.

Satan pointed their nakedness out to them, he pointed out to them that they were not equal to God, that they were not worthy of God’s companionship. By saying to them “you will be like God” he was pointing out the contrast between themselves and God. I truly believe to the depths of my soul that up until that point right there they did not realize that there was a difference between God and them. Why would they? He had come down to their level, he walked with them, and talked with them, they were made in His image – He LOOKED like them! Nothing about their circumstances would have told them anything different other than God made them to be His Beloved friends. When Jesus walked this earth in the flesh, the people that He grew up with had no clue who He is. If they had, they certainly would have treated Him a lot differently! I believe that in the Garden, Jesus was there with them. Today, we have that same opportunity to walk and talk with Jesus in a Garden of Relationship through our own lives. Jesus came as a MAN. Fully human. Yes, He is fully God, but if He wanted us to only see Him as God then He wouldn’t have come down here and put on the naked flesh of humanity. Jesus came to be KNOWN as human. He referred to Himself almost only as the Son of MAN. He wants us to know that He is like us, that we are like Him. He WANTS us to know Him as a person!

Right now I can feel the Enemy tearing at your souls to snatch away the hope that I’m trying to give you through Jesus. Don’t let Him fool you! Don’t let him deceive you any more. You are forgiven; you were made to be who you are. God made you and He doesn’t make mistakes He makes miracles! You are a miracle and you need to believe that with all your heart! Wrap your arms around that truth like a bear hug and don’t let go!!! God loves you, Jesus loves you. He loves you so much that He died for you. But even more than that, to this very day and time He LIVES FOR YOU!!! He lives to pray for you, He lives to love you with everything He has and everything that He is! Jesus loves you exceedingly abundantly above all that you could hope or imagine!!! Grasp that, cling to that, hold on to that and don’t let go. The Enemy is trying to snatch that away from you with his slimy claws of doubt and fear and judgment, ignore him! In Jesus name believe! Believe that God IS this good, that He does love you this much that He is for you and not against you! Believe it with all your heart your soul and your mind! Believe that God is willing to die AND live for you every day. Believe that He is willing to pour out His love and favor for you in the midst of this tortured life that we live. He is Light, within Him there is NO darkness. Believe that with all you have! I pray that God is showing you His pure Light right now, that you can FEEL it permeating your soul and bringing you the freedom and peace that He has to offer, the peace that passes all understanding and human knowledge. The peace that you just have to experience to know what He is. The Light that you just have to see to believe. Because once you’ve seen it, you WILL know it and all other light will pale drastically in comparison to it. I now understand why I have been compelled to take so many photographs of the sun lately, because it is the closest I can get to describing The Light. Because the Son is The Light. Oh my friend, do not let the Enemy deceive you any longer. Do not let him hold you captive in his Prison of Lies any longer, fight for your freedom! Pray for your freedom from lies. Ask God to show you His TRUE self. Seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance and don’t push Him back any longer. Satan has pulled the fluffy white wool of religious law and ceremony over our eyes for long enough, it’s time to tell him to go to hell and stay there! We want nothing to do with his lies any longer! Declare it my friend! In Jesus’ name, declare your freedom from lies, condemnation, judgment, falsehood, hardheartedness and declare your freedom to Truth and Light and Love and Peace!

In the plague of locusts God said to Pharaoh “How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me? Let my people go, that they may serve Me.” My friend God is saying the same thing to Satan today on our behalf! “Satan, how long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me?” God is declaring your freedom today! God is declaring His name over you as His treasured possession His holy nation, His precious child.

In the first few plagues Pharoah promises freedom, but then changes his mind and denys them that promised freedom. This is the Law to a tee! It promises freedom, but by itself brings us nothing but more chains, more rules to break and feel guilty over. The promised freedom that the Law does bring is Jesus. Jesus is the complete and total fulfillment of the Law. Every single requirement the Law has Jesus has fulfilled those requirements. He IS the perfect sacrificial Lamb, in Him there is no darkness, there is no captivity, there are no more requirements. Jesus asks for nothing in return but respect and thanksgiving for what He has done for us. Personally I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

Wish the Father a Good Morning! With Mandisa

Sing/Pray: Open the Eyes of my Heart

Today’s Reading: 2 Corinthians 6:1-10:18

Yesterday I shared with you about a piece that I wrote from the edge of my bed that was my first real encounter with The Light. This is that piece. Re-reading it again I now understand why it brought me so much excitement… and I also understand why the Enemy snatched it away from me and filled me with the fear of condemnation so that I wouldn’t publish it!!! It’s the Truth like I’ve never heard it before!!! God made us and we are soooooo beautiful in His sight! My dear friends, feast your eyes on the Light that Satan has, even today, desperately been trying to hide from our eyes.

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In the beginning God created them to love and to be loved. It’s impossible to love when you don’t have an object, a recipient, of your love. And we are precisely that for God.

God is love… but without us He had no one to direct that love toward. And for this purpose we were created. This was God’s original plan. Create an object to direct His affections towards. In the garden before the original sin took place, Adam and Eve were exactly the way we are right now… minus one thing, the knowledge of good and evil. In my reading this morning God brought me to the garden filled with trees that are pleasant to look at and good for food; the Tree of Life in the middle of the garden and also the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. (Genesis 2:9) Now God has taught me that trees in the Bible are a symbol of men. Which makes me wonder, when reading this passage symbolically the Tree of Life would be a person and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil would be another person. So, who is the Tree of Life? Well… God breathed the breath of life into Adam giving him life. Perhaps, seeing as how the Greek word used for Holy Spirit can also be translated as “breath” I think it’s safe to assume that the breath of life is the Holy Spirit. Now if the breath of life is the Holy Spirit I don’t feel it’s too much of a jump to conclude that the Tree of Life would be Jesus considering also how many times the scriptures refer to the cross as a tree. And Jesus tells us that He came to bring us abundant life.

So, if Jesus is the Tree of Life, then who is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? Well, as I meditated upon that quandary I thought back to the fruit of both trees. They both have fruit. If Jesus is the Tree of Life then its fruit is grace, and eating that fruit would be hearing His words of grace, chewing on them briefly and then swallowing them down like the best chocolate on earth allowing them to become part of who we are. Now, if that’s what the process for eating the fruit of the tree is, then the same would be true of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. You see knowledge is power. The more we know generally the more powerful we are. The fruit of this tree looks powerful and appealing, but in reality its end result is dissatisfaction and death. While Adam and Eve were standing before the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, with whom were they speaking? Yes, the serpent of old, the Enemy himself, Satan. This is incredibly shocking information for me to have learned – so counter to much of my Christian upbringing, but think about it! Before their conversation with the serpent, Adam and Eve were innocent and blissfully unaware of their sinfulness. They were naked and unashamed, human – just like us, sinful tendencies -just like us, but had not acted on those tendencies because of their intimate relationship with God the creator!

In the beginning He gave them one rule “of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, thou shalt not eat of it for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt die.” Or, in other words, “Don’t believe Satan! He lies about Me!” It wasn’t the talking to him, it wasn’t even the taking a bite and chewing on the lies, it was the EATING the swallowing, the accepting of his lies, believing them as the truth, THAT was the sin – the disobedience, the fall from grace. That one disobedience from that one rule ended in centuries of new rules being written and enforced. Creating the Law and with it death. Think about it, if there’s only one law – then there’s only one sin – one way to die. But the more laws there are it increases the opportunity to sin and therefore more ways to seemingly fall out of relationship with God! But oh! How great is the love of our God Yaweh?!? So great that it was killing Him to watch us attempt to figure things out on our own. He gave us the Ten Commandments to show us just how futile living on our own power of knowledge was! It was impossible to keep the Law. Period. End of story. And it still is. So, what did God do? He said “OK kids, now let Me show you how this is done!” And He took off His robe, got up from His throne and came to earth as a completely helpless baby; the perfect example of humility and trust. An infant knows nothing of this world, and honestly, they don’t care either. All they care about is being fed, clean, warm and most importantly loved.

That infant is totally and completely taken care of every single second of the day, every single thing they could need or want is provided for them. And this is how God intended for our life with Him to be. He originally placed humanity smack in the middle of a garden with all the food (both spiritual and physical) that we could ever need. And we didn’t have clothing because we had no need for clothes or shame! Those only came along with the belief of the false truth that the Enemy fed our father and mother. It’s a false truth that we’ve been feasting on ever since!

That the knowledge of good and evil does not lead to death. LIE! When we were children we didn’t know what was right or what was wrong. We didn’t know what was good or what was bad, nor honestly, did we care. That is how Adam and Eve were before they ate fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. They didn’t know they were sinful creatures with sinful unholy and ungodly tendencies, nor did they care. They were naked (= sinful) and UNASHAMED.

I want to take a look at a story of Abraham for a minute to illustrate a point here. In Genesis twenty Abraham and his wife Sarah are traveling and Abraham is afraid that the men will desire his beautiful wife and kill him to get her. So he tells her to say that she is his sister in order to save his own life. This results in Sarah being taken as one of Abimelech’s wives. Surprise, surprise. But before he even touches her God gives him a dream and lets him know that the plagues of barrenness are all because of this prophet’s wife being in his possession, and that if he knows what’s really good for him and his country, he will send her back to her husband! Well, of course he does just that and more! He sends the happy couple off so heavily laden with gold and physical riches that they can barely carry them all!

Now, what does this passage have to do with Adam and Eve and innocence? Everything! Abraham is known, above all else as being a man of faith. He LOVED God and he followed Him. Abraham was long dead before the Ten Commandments were given, so he had never heard of “thou shalt not bear false witness” or “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife” or even “Thou shalt not commit adultery”. All he had heard was “Follow Me and I will bless you and you will bless others.”

In this story of Abraham stretching the truth to protect his own skin and giving his wife up to be a new concubine for some guy, we also see that God didn’t punish him for ANY of that. Nope. He SAVED him from all of it. And not just Abraham but Sarah and Abimelech too!!! Abimelech was completely innocent in the whole thing. He had no way of knowing she was really Abraham’s wife; and said as much to God in the dream. But God kept him from touching Sarah! God looked right past Abraham’s half-truths and his attempts to save himself and pulled him out of the mess he had been in AND sent him away richer than he came in!

We were created as sinful creatures. Plain and simple. God MADE us that way – so do you think that that’s going to keep Him from loving us? Of course not! Nothing can separate us from the love that is in Christ Jesus! The only thing that happens is it keeps us from accepting His love for us. It keeps us from living in it. Just my love for my kids makes me want to be a better mom and my love for my husband makes me want to be a better wife. My love for God makes me want to be more like the way He sees me… the way He made me to be, His precious bride. It makes me want to be a better person. Make better choices, to do the right thing. But, what IS the right thing? And how do I know if I’m doing it or not? Well, Jesus tells us that the single most important commandment is to love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your mind and all your soul. Second is this to love your neighbor as yourself. With these two all the Laws of the Prophets are included.

If I’m doing something to another one of God’s children that is not showing them that I love them because He loves them, then I am not loving God and therefore I am not obeying God. Because of Christ’s sacrifice of the cross we can come full circle in our relationship with Him. We started with one rule “Believe Me, not Satan”. We chose to disobey that rule in turn eventually we received hundreds more! But Jesus came to fulfill the Law and on that cross with His dying breath He said “It is finished” and fulfilled every rule that had ever been written before. And replaced them with “Love one Another as I have loved you.” Yes, God is a wrath-filled God, but that wrath was written into the Law and the Law is fulfilled and FINISHED, once and for all, period! All that’s left is grace and accepting it (eating from the Tree of Life)!

Have we sinned? Of course! All day every day! But so did Adam and Eve even before they ate the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Remember, they were naked and unashamed, after they ate they were still naked the only thing that changed was that they were aware and ashamed of their nakedness. They weren’t ashamed of their nakedness until AFTER they’d eaten the fruit! They didn’t feel guilty until they listened to the Enemy – the deceiver himself! Guilt is from Evil – Grace is from God. We now have the knowledge of the two, and can choose which one we will believe; the fruit of Life – grace; or the fruit of death – guilt.

Jesus, the Tree of Life, died to SHOW you once and for all that you are forgiven. Today He LIVES to remind you that you have been freed from the prison of guilt and shame forever. Now go and live in that freedom, you are free from condemnation, you are free to be whomever GOD made you to be. Uniquely YOU!

Prepare yourself with: Sanctuary

Today’s reading: 2 Corinthians 1:1-5:21

Praise: Nothing but the Blood of Jesus

Over the last few weeks I have experienced a light like none other in my life. I was raised in the church; I thought I knew what the Light really was… I was wrong. Over the last few years of searching scriptures, chewing on them and digesting them through writing about them I have had brief glimpses of the true Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Each of those brief glimpses was just that… brief. The first of which I remember vividly, I was fiercely led to write, the urge was insatiable – as it often is after a day or two of going without. I grabbed my notebook and my pen and sat down on the corner of my bed, certainly not my usual seat choice for writing, which is part of what makes this moment stand out in my memory. I wrote a piece that shone such a brilliant light into my heart, I was shocked and amazed. I went back and read what I had written, not quite sure what mystery God had just revealed to me that was so bright. I have to tell you it was the strangest feeling, a feeling of glee and elation at having discovered something new. (I promise to share this piece with you as soon as the Lord allows, however I also have to prepare you for it the way He prepared me to receive it.)

Now I’m drawn to describe the Light to you, as the Light itself is the absolute key to what I’m preparing to tell you, although I did not know that about the Light at the time. As I wrote I could see with my spiritual eyes a Light. It came not from any discernible source in the room or even outside of my closed bedroom, but was within me burning brightly, brighter than any light I have ever seen in my life. A Light so bright that it should hurt your eyes to look into is, as though you were looking straight into the sun, yet it didn’t hurt the eyes at all but rather soothed them in a most pleasant of ways. The Light brought a delightful warmth to my soul and a radiance to my face that I can only imagine. This Light was the True Light, and I was seeing it for the very first time. I was so enthused and excited about the treasure that God had given me! His Light in my soul, His Light shining in the darkness of the world around me through the knowledge of the glory and grace of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Jesus is that Light and it is His face that radiates that marvelous Light.

And then I opened the door to my bedroom. As quickly as I had been given The Light it was mercilessly snatched away from me. I no more than opened the door to my room when words of doubt flooded my ears with their demon claws they snatched at the Light I held in my cupped hands and not realizing what was happening and not yet fully grounded in Grace I agreed with those words of doubt, all based in scriptures of Law. Before I realized what had really happened the Light in my spirit was gone and I imagined it only to have been an illusion to begin with, a false light somehow. Of course, at the time I was more concerned with what I had written and less concerned with the Light, until now that is.

Quite a while later, possibly months I’m not sure, I was laying on the couch in our RV reading a book. While reading that book I came upon a scene where the author was describing an encounter with Jesus where every human present was surrounded by different colored lights, the picture he painted with his words was breathtaking and once again I came upon that blessed Light once more! I can’t even remember what the revelation itself was, only where I was and what I was doing but again the moment I walked out the door of the RV the Light was once again violently snatched away from me and replaced with those words of condemnation and doubt. And whatever revelation I had received from the LORD was stolen away from me once more.

A third time I encountered the Light it was my birthday! I was sitting in our red recliner watching Joseph Prince “Destined to Reign” and he was retelling his own story of learning the lesson of grace. How he had lived a very legalistic life and believed whole-heartedly that his sins were only forgiven after asking for that forgiveness. One night in the barracks he overheard two of his military friends talking about him. One asked the other why Joseph was always covering his mouth and saying things under his breath, and the other replied, “I think he’s praying”. Joseph (and I) believed that in order to have a right relationship with God we had to do all the right things, live as sinlessly as possible and when we did sin we had to immediately ask for forgiveness, hence the covered mouth prayers. Joseph then talked about Jesus and His blood sacrifice being enough for all time to forgive us for our sins once and for all. He talked about how there is NO condemnation in Christ, and that because of Jesus’ sacrifice we no longer have to go around asking for forgiveness day in and day out, because we already have it! I wrapped my arms around that truth that day, I clung to the idea that I am forgiven and no longer need to be in a constant state of worry that I might accidentally sin and bring a barrier between my Beloved Christ and myself. As if my sin would cause Him to need to turn away from me in disgust. Even though I knew that He had promised (and meant it) I will never leave you or forsake you. That afternoon I sat down and wrote Son-glasses, one of my favorite pieces to this day. And that time I got to hold The Light for three days before it was snatched from my grasp again through those evil words of doubt and condemnation… the Law. It always came back down to the Law. The Enemy always used the verse about “If you love Me, you will obey Me.” And then would point out that God wrote the Law with His own finger on tablets of stone.

Funny, the Enemy never once pointed out that Jesus was the fulfillment of that very Law (Matthew 5:17) he was so quick to point me towards. Nor would the Enemy mention that love does not insist on always getting His own way (1 Corinthians 13:5) The Enemy failed to mention how he Himself tempted Jesus to turn stones into bread to eat on His way out of the desert when He was hungry from fasting. Stones into bread eh… as in tablets of stone in to the daily bread of Life… notice Jesus refused to do such a thing and countered the ole Liar with “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4 & Deuteronomy 8:3 emphasis mine) Every word; not JUST the Law, not just one book or another, but all of God’s words; including the ones spoken by the Spirit straight to your heart. Like the ones God had just spoken to His Son Jesus forty days before the Adversary came to tempt Him, “This is My Beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.“(Matthew 3:17) Those words were not written down anywhere yet, but Jesus clung to them in His time of testing when He pulled out the sword of scripture to counter the Enemy, He undoubtedly had that phrase lingering in His mind “You may say ‘IF I am the Son of God…’ but God has said to Me I AM His Son, and that is enough for Me!”

God’s Word is everywhere, it is in every heart, every mind, and on every tongue and we can hear it when we open our spiritual ears to hear it. We must stay grounded in the Bible, it has been tested through time and it is steadfast. Without the anchor of the Bible we are all too likely to drift away from the Truth and the Light that He brings to our path. However, we can not lean on the Bible alone. When we lean on the Bible and ignore the Spirit of Truth who guides us then we can get stuck in the past because we are clinging to the anchor and not allowing the Spirit (which in Hebrew can also be translated as wind or breath) to fill our sails and guide us to where the LORD God wants us to go. The scriptures are the Word of God, yes! Yes! Yes!!! BUT, they can be used for evil as well as for good! Satan is someone who knows those scriptures better than any of us! When I glimpsed those beautiful balls of pure radiant light through the truth of the Spirit I wanted so desperately to believe them, with all my heart and my soul. Because those truths, the truth of ultimate forgiveness through Jesus’ blood, was so radiant and filled with hope and joy and gladness and PEACE. But I let my brain get in the way. I let my brain be convinced that Jesus’ blood couldn’t possibly have been that powerful, that there was no way that I could have been ultimately forgiven for ALL my sins, just the ones that I had confessed and repented from. I believed the lies of the Enemy; I was deceived just like Eve. I was bamboozled and let Satan pull that fluffy white wool of fake light over my eyes once again.

In today’s reading we find: Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
The ministry that brought death, ahhhh, how well I know that ministry, it brought me much death in my short 32 years of life. And with that ministry there is glory, there is a light, and I knew that light well. But that glory, that light it is TRANSITORY, it is nothing more than a thick black coloring book outline for the ministry of the Spirit to come along and fill in with all His loving color. With EVERY messy color, from brown to gray to purple, fushia and puce! And you know what, I doubt that the Spirit will limit Himself by only coloring within the lines of the Law, but rather color the entire page, no, the entire BOOK with His breath of fresh color-filled air.

Holy Spirit of Jesus, guiding Spirit of Truth and Light and Life, come, Oh Spirit come, fill us with Your fire. Open our eyes to see You, open our ears to hear You, open our minds to understand Your beautiful light more, open our hearts to receive the love of Your grace fully, open our hands to give Your love generously and receive Your love humbly. Jesus we thank You that Your blood IS good enough to last for all time, to be a PERMANENT atonement for our sins and not a temporary fix like so many ministries would like for us to think. (Including my own at one point I’m sad to say.) Jesus thank You for not just dying for us, but LIVING for us every day to be our intercessor in the court room of heaven where the Adversary is constantly accusing us of wrong doing. Thank You for reminding him who is really the boss around here and that it’s not him! Thank You for being our only and best line of defense. Jesus help us to see You for who You really are. Not just God, but the human you became in order to relate to us more fully. Help us to see the person You are. Flesh and bone, eating and drinking with sinners all day every day and LOVING every single moment of it! You are the best friend any of us could ever have and we thank You for being our friend. Jesus I want to know You more, I want to know Your goodness like I’ve never known it before. You told the parable of the prodigal son and his brother, Lord, I was that brother, I was the one who worked for you day and night, I was the one who labored to obey your every command and was so blind to the parties and celebrations I could have had with You if I had just asked. Lord, I’m asking. You told that son that everything that belonged to you was his as well. What is mine and how do I access it? I know that the time of Your favor is now I need only ask, so on behalf of myself, my family and my readers I’m asking for You to pour out Your grace and Your favor on us, like a gentle spring rain. Oh Lord, I love You!!!!! Thank You for Your MARVELOUS light!

Marvelous Light by Charlie Hill

I Choose Jesus by Moriah Peters

Today’s Reading: 2 Corinthians 1:1-5:21

Please forgive me my inconsistency this week. It’s been a tumultuous week! From being gone all weekend, attempting to recover on Monday and Tuesday only to be interrupted once again with a diagnosis of pink eye and a lingering ear infection for my nine year old, so he was home today unexpectedly. He will be back in school tomorrow… only to be home again on Friday for an unused snow day! Plus, amid all that chaos I’ve been working on what I think is an amazing piece of teaching (if I may say so myself – it amazed me anyway)! So hang in there, just consider today a bit of a break… even if it wasn’t a real “break” for me! J Life happens!

Today’s Reading: 1 Corinthians 14:1-16:24

Let all that you do be done in love. 1 Corinthians 16:14

Well, I just got back from the Walk to Emmaus and boy, are my feet tired!

That was a joke someone told during joke time at the Walk, having no idea just how true is was for me as I stood on the other side of the curtain separating the kitchen from the dining room where they were telling the jokes. However, more than my aching feet is my aching soul. I feel so empty and dry right now. I’m exhausted in every possible way that someone can be exhausted. I have hurt in every possible way that someone can hurt, and honestly right now I’m done. I’ve had it. And the worst part is that it’s my kids that are taking the brunt of my frustration at the moment. I was gone all weekend long, they missed their Mommy terribly. And it’s obvious by how much they want (and need) from me now. Yet I have nothing left to give them! I gave it all to the women on the walk. I feel horribly mean and I’m terribly frustrated by it. I’ve got Mommy guilt, where I know I need to take time for myself to re-charge by allowing God to fill me up so that I can be the mom He wants me to be and the mom my kids need for me to be; yet I feel guilty for taking that time because I know they’ve missed me and want me NOW. I have spent all morning and half the afternoon on the couch between sleep and half consciousness. At one point I REALLY had to go to the bathroom but when I started thinking about everything involved in the process, getting up and walking across the room, I decided it just wasn’t worth the effort yet. I’ve been hungry, and haven’t gotten up to fix anything because it was going to be too much work. To say I’m tired really barely covers the surface of how I feel. However, “sore”, pretty much gets to the point. I’m sore in places I didn’t know could even get sore.

All morning my daughter kept asking for me to take her outside and push her in her swing and I kept telling her no until finally I couldn’t take the Mommy guilt anymore and caved to her request. I rolled off the couch onto the floor, where I collapsed in a heap from exhaustion. Moving was worse than I expected it to be. I willed myself to get to the bathroom where I could at least relieve my poor full bladder. I looked at my clothes hanging on the hook on the wall and decided, “Nope, not worth the effort of getting dressed to go outside. All the neighbors are at work right now anyway, who cares if I’m wearing bright yellow Spongebob pajama pants outside at two in the afternoon?” (I don’t even like Spongebob, they were a $5 deal that I couldn’t pass up.) I came out of the bathroom and realized that I now had to put on my shoes… the objects of torture from the weekend, the reminder of the excruciating pain I had endured for the sake of love. I cried. Seriously, I sat on the edge of the couch, looking at my gray and pink tennis shoes and wept. I fell over into the pillow at the end of the couch and sobbed into it, “Lord, do I have to go out already? I don’t want to! I don’t want to put my shoes on again. I know it won’t hurt my feet this time like it did before, but I don’t want to remember that pain so quickly. Right now I just want to sleep and forget it. I want to rest and recover, not push through it. I’m tired and I don’t want to keep going. The last time I loved it hurt so terribly, I’m afraid to love like that again. Yes it was an honor and a privilege, but it hurt! My spirit is oh so willing to go outside and play with my daughter who loves me and makes me smile, but right now my body is so weak. I’m weary. I’m tired. I don’t want to.” “You can” is all He said. It was all that was necessary. So through tear-filled eyes I wearily sat up and pulled on my shoes, I stood up and walked resolutely outside with Anna bounding like a bouncing ball behind me laughing. Ahhhhh….. the energy of youth!

Anna, of course, beat me to the swing and was shouting impatiently “Hurry up Mommy” from the across the yard and I did my best to try and keep the harshness out of my tone when I told her I was coming. It’s not her fault I’m tired and struggling to be nice right now. As I stood behind her and pushed she yelled “Higher!” and so I pushed harder, as hard as I could at the moment anyway. Next she asks if I will go jump in the trampoline with her!!! It’s one thing to stand in one spot and push a swing it’s completely altogether another thing to JUMP on a trampoline! So I made a deal with her, I would sit on the trampoline with her while she jumped. While the swing was in the dense shade of our thickly leafed crabapple tree, the trampoline is almost completely in the bright sunlight of mid-day and once on it I remembered one of the ladies at the walk telling me about how to get the stains out of my heirloom apron. “Wash it and then lay it out in the sunlight and the stains will disappear”. I lay down on the trampoline with my little angel of a girl bouncing around me and prayed that God would wash me out and make the stains of pain disappear. As I lay there she began bouncing closer and closer to my head making it bounce painfully on the trampoline, more pain, I wept again. And I began telling God “I’m sorry Lord, I can’t do it. I don’t know what it is that I can’t do I just know that I can’t.” And it was in that moment I realized that I had been going through a test, and had just reached that moment of brokenness that used to take moments to get to, then hours, now apparently days. I’m still not sure what the test was about or what lessons I was supposed to learn through it, but I do know that I have been sweetly broken by the stretching hands of my Lord and love pushing me to become all that I can be, only through Him. Through this experience He is helping me to realize that I need my own time-outs when I know I’m done. That by taking time out just for me, I am benefitting everyone around me and not just myself.

How can you pour water from an empty cup? How can you squeeze soap from a dishcloth when it’s dry? You can’t! How can you love your family and serve them with your whole heart when you are so focused on your own pain and fatigue? You can’t. You will serve them in bitterness and resentment; they don’t need that, it would be better not to serve them at all. I came in from outside knowing what I needed. I needed time for me. I needed time with my Daddy, the fountain head, the place where the streams of living water find their own origin, from the throne of God Almighty, my Papa. I had been gaining my strength from Him all weekend through frequent restroom visits where I would pray and breathe and read the new book I had downloaded onto my phone right before I left. The only way that I survived the chaos and pain of the weekend was to take time for myself. And while the Enemy certainly did his best to make me feel guilty for it, I refused to let him, because I’ve learned what I need. I need alone time with my Savior and when I don’t get it then I can’t survive. Period.

However, the real test for me this weekend was surviving the test without any of my normal methods of coping with stress. I had no Bible, not even on my phone because the ap wouldn’t work! I was only allowed short breaks for the bathroom due to our overwhelming amount of work we had to do in the kitchen to cook for 60+ people, three meals a day for three days. HOWEVER, I still had the bathroom! God has taught me well how to use the bathroom. J I know that sounds funny, but it’s quite a useful tool for those in any kind of ministry or child care. I have found that when surrounded by people who need you and are under your care there are times where you just need to be alone with the Lord. Jesus Himself spent many a day surrounded by flocks of people, but at the end of a long day of ministry where did He go, somewhere quiet to pray alone. I have found that places like those are hard to find… because the people (and children) will follow you to those places rendering them useless. But the bathroom is a place where you can shut the door and those four walls are your sanctuary. Who cares if you’re actually using the toilet or not! There have been many a time where I have sought refuge in the only place I could find to be alone, a public restroom. While people, or my children may be only mere feet away from me, those four partial beige walls still separate me from the world at large like a force field shielding me from the world’s ability to suck me dry in ways I never expected. But there in the privacy of my very own bathroom stall no one can touch me. I’ve found if I’m quiet enough people don’t even know that I’m there and will even turn the lights out on me! (That was a lesson all on it’s own!) Yes, the bathroom, of all places, has become my mountain top, my sanctuary, my Mount of Olives if you will. No matter where I am or what I’m doing I know that there is always a bathroom nearby where I can escape from reality for a moment’s time and breathe in the breath of Life. Somewhere where I can steal a strengthening moment with God and dump on Him what is weighing so heavily upon my shoulders. Whether it be worries, fears, troubles, insecurities, you name it, He’s there… in the bathroom behind a closed stall door, waiting for me to come and unburden myself upon Him.

Yes my friends, love is a very interesting thing. Sometimes, to show my family how much I love them I have to deny them the thing that they want from me the most, so that I can give them the very thing that they need the most – Me. A happy, fulfilled, satisfied, content, loving me. And by writing that down I have come to realize that that is precisely what God does for us as well. At times He denies us the thing that we want the most in order to give us the very thing that we need the most – Him. Of all the things I have taken away from this weekend of service I will never forget how God was there for me… in the bathroom.

I just went onto Youtube to find a song to go with today’s devotional and before I could ever put the song I was looking for into the search box I was drawn to another song I’ve never even heard of on the side bar of “suggestions”. I clicked on the song and it is so perfect for today’s message of giving your burdens to God and finding Him in, of all places, the bathroom. So I typed the name of the song into the search box to find the lyrics because they were so beautiful and I didn’t want to miss any of them. When the results popped up one of them was a video of the artist explaining the story behind the song. Well of course I had to click on that!

Story behind the song.

Mighty Wave by Sarah Reeves

Now, stay with me here for a moment because I’m going to stretch you here a little. The imagery of this song and her dream are precisely the image of a toilet washing away our waste. Sarah’s image of an ocean wave is decidedly much more beautiful and romantic than my own, however, they are one in the same. When we are using the restroom as a place of solitude to meet with Jesus our bodies are doing the exact same thing that our souls are doing, getting rid of the things we don’t need! And when we flush we are sending them to the ocean…eventually anyway. Do you see what I’m trying to get at here though? If you see God’s arms surrounding you in an invisible force field instead of metal partial stall walls and doors. And the toilet as a basin of washing where a mighty wave comes and washes away, as far as the east is from the west, the things that were causing you pain and discomfort beforehand. Then that place can easily become a beautiful place for you to seek refuge. Like a garden retreat or the shore of an ocean. Never the less, even if in your mind it remains a mere bathroom stall and a toilet, as long as God is still there it’s all that matters. Because He is there waiting for you; waiting for you to come and set down the basket full of burdens that you have been carrying and dump them out onto His lap where He can wash them away with a mighty wave down to the ocean floor never to be seen again.

Today’s Reading: 1 Corinthians 10:1-13:13

(The following post is a newly revised excerpt from our book True Intimacy which is available through Amazon’s Kindle Publishing for $0.99! It was too perfect for today’s scriptures; I just had to share it again. Enjoy!)

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Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails; (1 Corinthians 13:4-8a)

In the beginning, when God was creating the universe, He declared “it is good” over each creation until He got to man. At which point God says “it is not good for man to be alone”. And while I could come up with plenty of jokes about why men should not be alone, the point is that it’s not good for women to be alone either. As women, we were created for companionship; and therefore, we are constantly craving intimate interactions. Often we attempt to fill the gap with friends, co-workers and digital media like texting and Facebook only to deny ourselves the one thing we are actually craving. Truly intimate companionship with our husbands and God!

Gen 3:16 tells us, among other things, that as women we will “desire” our husbands. That word “desire” in the Hebrew is packed with significance. It’s not just a physical desire; it’s an all encompassing, the-two-shall-become-one, kind of desire. You know the way you feel naked without your purse or your phone? THAT’S the kind of desire it talks about, one where your whole being desires true intimacy from your husband and you just feel like you’re missing something when it’s not there. It’s a desire for a true love from him; where he loves you simply because you are who you are. Not because you’ve done great things, or because you’ll be rich and famous someday, but just because you’re you. We desire a love that goes beyond anything that anyone could ever really describe; one where, you complete each other so perfectly that it can get annoying at times.

    As a husband and wife we are symbols of Christ and His Church; which means that within marriage we are to love each other as Christ loves us. In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul explains to us not just why we should love others, but how God loves us as well. He tells us that “If [we] speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, [we] have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If [we] have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if [we] have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, [we are] nothing. And if [we] give all [our] possessions to feed the poor, and if [we] surrender [our bodies] to be burned, but do not have love, it profits [us] nothing. (1-3) Basically what Paul is telling us is that we can do as many great and wonderful things as we want, but if we’re not doing them because we love someone enough to do them, then we might as well save our breath and time because they’re meaningless. I can type as many kind and beautiful words as I want, but if there’s no love behind them – what’s the point? If I know all sorts of things that can change people’s lives forever, it’s not going to amount to a hill of beans if I don’t have a heart for those people first. I can give away every single material possession and if I’m not giving them away with love in my heart then I might as well keep them. Paul is making us ask, “What is my motive?”

    Paul ends 1 Corinthians 13 with a profound statement that I think is being greatly overlooked in our culture today, especially in marriages. “But now faith, hope, love abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (v. 13) LOVE. Why love? What makes love so special? Why is it more important than faith or hope? Because while faith and hope are crucial, important and good; GOD is love. So when everything else in this entire world fades away, love is all that’s left. Because love – when it’s a truly patient, kind, non-envious, humble, courteous, selfless, calm, forgiving, truth rejoicing, protective, trusting, hopeful, persevering, never failing love – it’s God.

Christian’s comments:

Don’t confuse love with lust. Our world today has these two terms completely distorted. The type of love God wants is outward love. It is to be directed towards others, not inwards towards ourselves. You must set aside your own wants and desires. Love others, and don’t expect anything in return.

    All that sounds great, but how do we do it? Easy, love with no holds barred. Love with all you have. Don’t have selfish reasons for loving. Do things out of love for someone, not for the things it could get you. Plain and simple, love for the sake of love.

Today’s Reading: 1 Corinthians 5:6-9:27

(The following post is a newly revised excerpt from our book True Intimacy. I feel the need to warn you, the content of this particular post is explicit. True Intimacy is a book about sex in marriage so be prepared. However, it directly addresses many of the key scriptures from today’s reading and many of the issues facing our society today. Sexuality in marriage is being attacked, this post defends it. I highly encourage you to read on, the content is a bit risqué but, it’s certainly not anything worse than you would see on TV lately!)

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God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day. Genesis 1:31

Humans were one of the things created on the sixth day. When God made humans He created them with procreation in mind. But more beautiful than that, He performed the very first wedding ceremony too! In Genesis 2:22-24 it tells us that
He brought her to the man (walked her down the aisle), the groom said “va va va vooom! I’ll take her! I DO!” and then God said the thing that has been repeated in almost every wedding ceremony since the beginning of time “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” Now, *ahem*, “and they will become one flesh”; WHAT do you suppose THAT means? They’ve just gotten married, God has approved and finalized the union, and then mentions that they will become one flesh. Hmmmm….. Well, God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; and fill the earth, and subdue it. (Genesis 1:28a) Hee hee! You see, God isn’t afraid of sex. He created it, and He created it to be “very good”! “God saw ALL that He had made, and it was VERY GOOD.” Ya-know, since humans were included in that statement, I believe that means sex was also included in that statement. God created it all, including sex to be VERY GOOD, otherwise we all would’ve stopped having it a long time ago.

When you view your body as a living sacrifice and a gift to both God and your husband, sex with your husband can end up being an act of worship and praise to God if you let it. As part of this act of worship I recommend praying together before making love. It may seem a little strange or silly at first (considering we’ve never seen it on movies or TV), but think about it; we pray together at the dinner table before we satisfy our body’s hunger for food. Is it really that far of a stretch to pray together at the marriage bed before we satisfy our body’s hunger for sexual fulfillment? Personally I think taking a few moments to thank God for our true intimacy is just as important if not more so, than thanking Him for our food. Besides, in a few more moments you’ll probably be praising God for His “job well done” in making your husband’s body, and your union. Just make sure that you’re not worshiping the sex or your husband, but the true maker of them both, God Almighty. He created sex for our enjoyment, so have FUN with it. Don’t allow sex to be another item on your to-do list, let it be something you look forward to with anticipation. Let it be something special between you and your husband, something to get silly and giddy about. Honestly, in our marriage, sex has gone from an obligation to, well, we’re acting like newlyweds again. We’re playful with one another. We’re whispering to each other. We’re speaking in code to tell each other “I want you”. It’s a whole new world for us now! Our God is a creative God, be creative in your love-making. With that being said, I must throw in this precautionary verse as a consideration for you.

In 1 Corinthians 6:12, Paul informs the Corinthians that while everything is permissible for them, not everything is beneficial for them. Meaning, just because it’s not considered a sin for you to do something doesn’t mean that it’s not harmful for you to do it. And that’s the question you have to ask of the LORD, “Is this sexual act I’d like to do beneficial?” Something that God has spoken through me is that “He made marriage to allow us to do whatever our filthy little minds would come up with.” From what I’ve been able to find through all my research thus far; as long as it’s within the bounds of marriage (one woman and one man for life, legally bound by the state), it is permissible. Whether it is beneficial is between the two of you and God! Remember, you do not want to do anything that will harm your body, or degrade each other. Your bodies are the temple of God, a living sacrifice, so you need to be respectful of that at all times; You do not want add a 3^rd party or pornography to your love life. These, among a few other things, fall outside the bounds of “one woman and one man for life, legally bound by the state” and would (in my opinion) be a big mistake. When in doubt about something, ask God and possibly a doctor if need be. If you can’t get a clear answer, I’d recommend skipping it for now. In my opinion, it’s better to be safe than sorry. Another aspect that you need to consider is if one of you is being degraded or disrespected by the sexual act in question? Let’s take oral sex for example. If my husband finds it disgusting and degrading, then it would be inconsiderate of me to ask him to do it all the time. However, if he chooses to do that for me, I would receive that as a HUGE act of love and kindness since I would know that it is something that he doesn’t really care for. You’ve got to be respectful of each other and your preferences.

Most of all, you need to be open with one another about these things! Have conversations about the things that you like and dislike, things you’d like to try and things that really turn you off. I’m telling you, these conversations can be QUITE eye opening and very exciting. They will help you to be more open to each other’s ideas, and give you an opportunity to discuss things ahead of time so that when you’re actually in the process of being intimate with each other you can simply focus on one another.

As I prayed for a nice scripture to wrap up this book, God gave me Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. Hee hee, God has such a great sense of humor!!! He then said to me, “that’s not the ONLY thing that I make straight!!!” May God bless your sex!

Christian’s comments:

Well, you made it. It has been thirty days. Are you ready to have sex? Don’t be surprised if you answered “No”. You may not be ready to go “all the way” yet. You may need to take a couple of days to build up to it. Just take it slow and enjoy the experience.

If you are like me, you like your wife to come on to you. However, if she follows Tamar’s instructions, she won’t this time. You must lead her in this aspect of your marriage, just like you do in every other aspect of it. If you’re not sure about that, don’t worry, God will lead you. I suggest that you pray together before you get started.

The best advice that I can give you is: HAVE FUN! Enjoy each other. Marriage gives you leave to do most of the things your dirty mind can think of. Try new things. Try new positions. Try new locations! You don’t have to be restricted to the bedroom. Ask your wife if there is anything she wants to try. You will quite possibly be shocked and pleasantly surprised by what she says. I was!

Husbands, buy your wife some lingerie. Wives, wear it! And not just in the bedroom. Surprise your husband by wearing it out to dinner under your clothes. Or better yet, TO CHURCH! Meet him at the door when he gets home from work wearing it (just make sure the neighbors don’t see)!

Husbands, surprise your wife too. Buy yourself a sexy pair of shorts or a thong at the lingerie store and strut around the house for your wife (just make sure the kids are asleep, or at a friend’s house). Or jump in the shower with her. Or surprise her when she’s doing laundry. Washing machines can be fun!

Maybe try costumes if you have always wanted to; perhaps a French maid. What I’m getting at here is, now is the time to start living out your fantasies with each other. But remember to pace yourselves; you have a long life together ahead of you.

Most importantly of all, keep God involved. He created sex. He wants you to enjoy it. With Him involved, it will be a very spiritual experience.

Well, this brings us to the end. I pray that reading and following this book helps you as greatly as writing it helped us. I think all that’s left to be said is, God bless, and great sex.

Today’s Reading: 1 Corinthians 1:1-5:5

(The following post is a newly revised excerpt from our book True Intimacy which is available through Amazon’s Kindle Publishing for $0.99! It was too perfect for today’s scriptures; I just had to share it again. Enjoy!)

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy and you are that temple. 1 Corinthians 3:16-17

In the bible the books are divided into 2 sections: The Old Testament, (books written before Christ was born) and the New Testament (books written after Christ was born). The Old Testament is filled with stories of miraculous events, most of which are very large scale and grand. Showing us how BIG God is and what He is capable of. Then Jesus comes along and the miracles of the New Testament are more personal, they are intimate. The majority of the miracles described in the New Testament are miracles of people set free from bondage of one form or another. Miracles of debilitating illnesses healed, evil spirits cast out, and sins forgiven. The life of the afflicted individual changed FOREVER. God’s involvement in His people’s lives gets much more intimate as you segue from the Old Testament to the New Testament.

This intimate involvement is proved very precisely by what happened to a curtain in the temple on the day Jesus died. Up until that moment God’s presence filled a room in the temple known as the Holy of Holies. As a shield to that room there was a curtain. No one was allowed behind that curtain. Only after many many ceremonies and ritual cleansings was the high priest even allowed behind it and that was only once a year! Since the presence of the LORD God filled that room behind the curtain, for anyone to enter His presence unprepared would have killed them.

According to Mark’s gospel, at the moment of Jesus’ death the curtain that separated God from the rest of the world was torn in two. God had made a way for EVERYONE to come to Him and NOT die instantly. Up to that point in history very few people knew what God’s voice actually sounded like. Only a handful of them had ever talked to Him in person. When Jesus died He made a way for us to enter the Holy of Holies without fear of death. Because of Jesus and His willing sacrifice we can go to God on a PERSONAL level. He is no longer this BIG unapproachable God, He is intimate and loving and wonderful and caring. He always was before but He couldn’t fully show us Himself in such an intimate way. If someone needed to ask for forgiveness they had to go to the priests in the temple and offer an animal sacrifice. They performed the rituals required of them and they left. The priests would accept the sacrifices on behalf of the Lord. The individual that had sinned would never be able to enter into the Lord’s presence to ask for forgiveness personally.

When you choose to accept Jesus’ sacrifice of love, the gift of salvation and radical forgiveness, you get to cut out the middle man! God goes from being an unapproachable God living in a box in a temple to taking up residence in your heart; YOU become the Holy of Holies, your body! Yes, really! He lives in you and through you every day.

Persevere, life is hard. But fear not my friends for Jesus has conquered this life, and so can we, through Him. Love. Love everyone like He loves us, yes it’s hard, but it’s worth it. We don’t deserve the love that He’s given us, so let’s pass some of that underserved love on to someone else today. Maybe even your husband.

Christian’s comments:

Your body is the new temple. So husbands, build a nice temple. I’m not talking about the outside. It doesn’t matter what kind of shape you’re in (like the old saying goes, “Round is a shape”), it matters what kind of shape the inside is in. However, you should take care of yourself so your wife can enjoy you longer.

It doesn’t matter how nice a church, temple, or tabernacle is they are just buildings. They could be an old house, an office building, a shed, or even just a tent. What makes them holy places is the presence of the Holy Spirit. Obviously, He isn’t always going to be a fog or a wind, but He is there.

I’ve been in churches where you can feel the Holy Spirit as a slight tickle on your body. I’ve been in churches where the Holy Spirit makes the hair on your body stand on end. I’ve been in churches where you could feel the Holy Spirit flowing out of the building when you open the door, as if the building can’t contain Him. Your temple (body) should be like my last example. The Holy Spirit should fill you so much that you can’t hold Him in and you just have to share Him with those around you.

Now, with that said, you need to lead by example. You can’t spread the Holy Spirit effectively if you don’t follow Jesus’ lead. You must live your life with as little sin as possible. Notice I didn’t say “with no sin.” It is impossible to live a completely sinless life. All we can do is make the choices needed to avoid as much sin as we can. That might mean avoiding web sites that might contain questionable photos. It might also mean not hanging around people that don’t lead a good example, tempting you to not lead by a good example. It might also mean changing your vocabulary if you “swear like a sailor”.

Will it be hard to change some of these things? Yes it will. But you know what, life’s hard, get a helmet.