tree | Tamar Knochel

“Be alert” Acts 20:27

Yesterday, as I was driving home from the vet’s office with the kids and dog in the backseat I had a strange thought run through my head, “Since you’re such an important person in the kingdom of God you should drive your car off the road into that tree and prove it.” Now, at the time I was driving at no slow speed so of COURSE the thought frightened me and I immediately pushed it aside. So while I didn’t obey it, I didn’t stop to think where a thought like that could be coming from either. I simply pushed it out of my mind and kept driving. And I didn’t think about it again until this morning at 3:22am when I woke up from a dream with a start. I can’t remember any of the dream except driving my car off the road into a tree!

Now while some may say a dream like that is straight from the devil I will strongly disagree with them, because that dream woke me up! It alerted me to the demonic activity that had been so surrounding me during the day that I had ceased to realize their efforts to destroy me. I had failed to remain alert to their ploys. I had not been taking EVERY thought CAPTIVE.

“For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.” 2 Corinthians 10:3-6

You see, those thoughts of running my car into a tree, they weren’t my thoughts. Yet I was still allowing them to tromp their way through my head instead of capturing them and punishing them for invading my space. Our minds are the battlefield of spiritual warfare because as a man thinks, so he is. And out of the overflow of his heart a man speaks, (Matthew 12:34, Luke 6:45) and those words contain the power of life and death (James 3) to all who hear them including the speaker.

When I awoke from my dream I simultaneously awoke from my spiritual slumber as well. I had been renting out space in my head to the Liar himself and it was high-time I kicked him out! So right then and there I opened my mouth and spoke, “Spirit of Suicide, in Jesus’ name, report to Jesus immediately for sentencing.” On and on I went, Self-harm, Self-destruction, Indifference, Lack, Depression, Fear, Self-reliance… capturing them by the ear by calling our their name and punishing them the best way I know how. I sent them to The Judge for eternal punishment. For an HOUR I lay in bed quietly and calmly calling out the names of my former tormentors, telling them where to go and then asking the Holy Spirit to come and fill the space they had occupied with His beautiful fruity self: “Come Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Goodness, Gentleness, Kindness, Faithfulness and Self-Control!” I praised God for opening my eyes to the bonds that had been hindering me from fully praising Him and fully appreciating His love for me.

In that very car on the way TO the vet’s office I had been sobbing for God to help me, to free me from this unknown and un-named prison I seemed to be in. A prison I knew I couldn’t get out of on my own. Right then the scale tipped back toward my favor and the Enemy knew he had been defeated because I had run into THE tree!

THANK YOU JESUS!

I feel like a completely different person today without all those “cling-ons”!

HALLELUJAH!

See what just one short week of daily Bible reading can do for you!?! I certainly have missed it! Oh my friends, the best is yet to come, won’t you join me!?!

Today’s Reading: Deuteronomy 19:11-22:30

Your eye shall not pity. It shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. Deuteronomy 19:21

Reading this today it just seemed so harsh! Have no pity? None? And yet this just proves to me how AWESOME our God is.

Take a look at Deuteronomy 21:18-21 again:

“If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city. ‘This, our son, is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst,, and all Israel shall hear, and fear.”

How often are we that rebellious child? I don’t know about you, but I’ve lost count myself! So while that punishment is what we deserve, it’s not what we receive!

Take a look at the very next passage, Deuteronomy 21:22-23:

“And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death (like being a rebellious child) and he is put to death and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance.”

A man hung on a tree is cursed by God eh? Mark 15:34 records that on the cross Jesus cried out, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Did you know that the twenty second Psalm starts with those exact words?

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest. Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In you our fathers trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them. To you they cried and were rescued; in you they trusted and were not put to shame. But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads; He trusts in the LORD; let him deliver him/ let him rescue him, for he delights in him! Yet you are he who took me from the womb; you made me trust you at my mother’s breast. On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother’s womb you have been my God. Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help. Many bulls encompass me; strong bulls of Bashan surround me; they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion. I am poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you law me in the dust of death. For dogs encompass me; a company of evildoers encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet – I can count all my bones – they stare and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them and for my clothing they cast lots. But you, O LORD, do not be far off! O you my help, come quickly to my aid! Deliver my soul from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dog! Save me from the mouth of the lion! You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen! I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you; You who fear the LORD, praise him! All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him, and stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel! For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him. From you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will perform before those who fear him. The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the LORD! May your hearts live forever! All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you. For kingship belongs to the LORD, and he rules over the nations. All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, even the one who could not keep himself alive. Posterity shall serve him; it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation; they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it.”

In John’s account of the cross he tells us that Jesus’ final words were “It is finished”. He had done it. He had finished the work God had sent him to do. He had been hung on a cross (also known as a tree).

You see, Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians,

“if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 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.” (5:17-6:2)

My friends, today is the day of favor, today is the day of salvation! Jesus is alive. He has paid the penalty FOR US! “it shall be a life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” Our lives should have been taken on that tree, but He put His Son there instead. Our eyes were the ones that deserved to be spit in, but He did that for us. Our teeth deserved to be gnashing outside the gates of heaven but because of Him they’ll be singing inside them. Our hands, our feet, they deserved to be nailed to that cross on that day, but He took them instead. For me. For you. For all of us, because that’s how Amazing Love really is.