Tag Archives: Real

Exodus [The Road Out] – The Blood

Posted on March 6, 2022 | Leave a comment

Exodus 24:1-8

He [The Lord] said
Come —
Aaron, Nadab, and Abhiu, and seventy of the elders
and worship afar off.
Moses alone shall come near
and the people shall not come up with him.
Moses came and told
all the words of the Lord and all the ordinances.
The people answered with one voice
“All the words which the Lord has spoken we will do.”

Moses wrote all the words of the Lord,
and built an altar at the foot of the mountain.
He sent young men of the people of Israel,
who offered burnt offerings
and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord.
Moses took half of the blood,
he threw against the altar.
He took the book of the covenant,
and read it in the hearing of the people.
They said,
“All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.”
Moses took the blood and threw it upon the people
and said,
“Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord
has made with you in accordance with all these words.” RSV

The contrast between the Lord’s instruction for some to come and worship “afar off” but that Moses alone should “come near” was the thing that caught my attention.  That separation is such a different idea than what we understand when Jesus says “Come to me ALL who are weary…”   My modern-day heart is looking for clues from this episode of “back to the future”  because I recognize that contrast still exists.  “Afar off” was the trigger phrase that reminded me these people are homeless, weary prodigals,  people who want, even need, to worship but they are lost in the circumstances of life. This is the Word of the Lord, and He’s the only one who knows the future.

Moses took half of the blood,
he threw against the altar.
Moses took the blood and threw it upon the people
and said,
“Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord
has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

The unpleasant visceral images of Moses’s application of that long-ago gory, blood sacrifice as part of worship have done their work in reminding me there are two important truths about blood sacrifice that have forever changed the future for ALL prodigals and I see the reality of them for today.  Jesus IS the Blood of Sacrifice that identifies both the PLACE of worship and the the PEOPLE who  worship there.

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Posted in Exodus, Matthew, New Testament, Old Testament

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“Real”

Posted on December 30, 2021 | Leave a comment

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real”and “because he loved you. Now you shall be Real to every one.”
…the quotes are from the Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

This Christmas I was reminded of the book The Velveteen Rabbit, first published in 1922, and discovered the quotes above woven into it’s tender story.  I know it’s not a perfect comparison but I saw a likeness to how God becomes real to His children and how in that relationship those children become real.  “It’s a thing that happens to you…because he loved you.”  The notable thing that caught my attention is that the caps in both quotes are not mine, they are the authors. Those capitals are the gift that pointed my mind to these other timeless Words that are a “Real” check about ”Real” love.

o you are a teacher of Israel,” said Jesus, and you do not recognise such things? I assure you that we are talking about something we really know and we are witnessing to something we have actually observed, yet men like you will not accept our evidence. Yet if I have spoken to you about things which happen on this earth and you will not believe me, what chance is there that you will believe me if I tell you about what happens in Heaven? No one has ever been up to Heaven except the Son of Man who came down from Heaven. The Son of Man must be lifted above the heads of men—as Moses lifted up that serpent in the desert—so that any man who believes in him may have eternal life. For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that every one who believes in him shall not be lost, but should have eternal life. You must understand that God has not sent his Son into the world to pass sentence upon it, but to save it—through him. Any man who believes in him is not judged at all. It is the one who will not believe who stands already condemned, because he will not believe in the character of God’s only Son. This is the judgment—that light has entered the world and men have preferred darkness to light because their deeds are evil. Anybody who does wrong hates the light and keeps away from it, for fear his deeds may be exposed.  But anybody who is living by the truth will come to the light to make it plain that all he has done has been done through God.”              John 3:16-21 J.B. Phillips NT

 

 

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Posted in John, New Testament, Reality

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Assurance –

Posted on January 7, 2018 | Leave a comment

1 Corinthians 2
• 3 I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.
• 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
• 15 The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, 16 for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

If you’ve been a believer in Christ more than 5 minutes you’ve heard about sharing your faith with others. God has become part of your life. He’s no longer out there in some vague cosmos, he’s changed your mind! That’s an exciting and real process that barely has words to describe it. This is where you get to raise your hand in agreement with Paul, “I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling.”

It’s scary stuff to speak [or write] about our faith because our spirit knows the reality of our thoughts and our merely human judgment finds it so easy to put information ahead of transformation. Paul’s words are both challenge and assurance to us.

Our words don’t have to be “wise or persuasive” but they do have to reveal God’s power to combine human wisdom with the work of his Spirit. That’s what makes them testimony and gives us the assurance that the “mind of Christ” is being created within us.

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Posted in 1 Corinthians, Assurance, Sunday

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The Big Event – God Bless Choosing Yes

Posted on December 24, 2017 | Leave a comment

Luke 2:1 In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to their own town to register. 4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son.

This journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem is so romanticized [make something seem better or more appealing than it really is]. In my mind it’s a serenely beautiful story of a faithful man and a very pregnant woman traveling at an inconvenient time. I see the image in my mind of them traveling alone on that road to Bethlehem carried along by the promises given by angels that the coming “holy Child shall be called the Son of God”  That image is further supported by many movies and books…but…

Then I started pondering the bottom line of what makes their story real…and beautiful too. Did they realize the birth was that close? What was the trail like? How far could they go in a day? Where did they sleep? How did they cook? What did they eat? How did they manage the required ritual cleansing? What about sanitation? Weren’t there many other people and animals on the same trail?

I don’t know any of those answers but here’s what I do know…Mary and Joseph were real people, in real circumstances with real choices. Each chose to believe their own promise received from an angel despite the impossible circumstances. They chose to obey the law of their heritage and go to the city of David to do what was required of them despite the timing. They chose to be obedient even when they others would say they had no choice in the matter. .

Their lives were filled with legitimate opportunities and reasons to say “no” to  circumstances beyond their control but instead they chose to say “yes” to  God.   God bless choosing “yes.”

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Posted in Christmas Eve, Luke, Sunday, The Big Event

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Firstlight

Posted on February 19, 2017 | Leave a comment

Romans 13:11 And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. 12 The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.

I wonder if the reason so many of us do our Bible study early in the morning is because intuitively we understand daybreak is a perfect object lesson of what God is saying through Romans. It’s surely one day nearer our salvation, by default, if nothing else.

The first thing you do if you’re an early riser is switch on the lights…and maybe grab a cup of coffee to get you going. We depend on the things we know to do in those first hours. Outside that personal space there’s another reality. It’s a shadowy and dark landscape that plays hide and seek with what you can see until the first visible signs of light signal the beginning of the day. That’s a great image to think about in regard to learning to live a life of faith that includes devotional time.

We all begin in that place where our dependence and security are on the things we know to do. Those early hours are the object lesson where we clearly see the difference between artificial light and real daylight. Right there waiting for daybreak with your Bible in your lap [or in my case my iPad version] those words “night is nearly over; the day is almost here” are the “real” firstlight that can become the armor for your new day.

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Posted in Romans, Sunday

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