The blood of Jesus...

A month or two ago I had the privilege of hearing Reinhard Bonnke preach the gospel. He said that he made no apology for the fact that the gospel he would preach was no 'different' to what he had preached a thousand times before, preaching as he watched in awe as the Lord gather more than 70,000,000 souls for His Kingdom!
Reinhard spoke on the power of the blood of Jesus.

Since then I have been thinking about the blood of Jesus. Each day it is my practice to take Communion, Holy Communion, Lord's Supper...call it what you will. Each day, as I do so, I am reminded of the broken body and the shed blood of Jesus. The Bible encourages us to correctly judge the Lord's body (1 Corinthians 11: 29), not merely to 'remember' His sufferings but rather to remember His body broken and striped and bring the truth and reality of that event right into today, right into our individual lives. As we do so we can 'see' that 'by His stripes we are healed' (Isaiah 53: 5) and we can believe and receive His abundant grace in healing.
Then as we take the cup we 'see' His righteousness become ours as we discern and embrace the blood of the New Covenant (1 Corinthians 12: 25). The shadow of this is seen in the Old Testament when the High Priest went into the holiest of holies, once a year, with blood and sprinkled it on and before the mercy seat which was over the ark of the covenant which contained the law, the manna and Aaron's rod that budded.
This event took place once a year but Jesus shed His blood once for all and went in to the Holiest of Holies, the presence of God Himself, and His shed blood was accepted, to put away sin, a once for all shedding of blood. In His acceptance we are accepted.

The shed blood of Jesus is powerful. The shed blood of Jesus is pivotal. As Jesus went in to the presence of God with His own blood everything changed. Everything! Why? Because all covenants in scripture are ratified by the shedding of blood. The New Covenant was ratified by the shedding of the blood of Jesus and on the basis of His acceptance by God the base line, the foundational truth of the New Covenant is as found in Hebrews 8: 12; God speaking, "For I will be merciful to their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more." On the basis of this God will write His law on our hearts, and our minds, and He will be our God and we, His people. I pray that you receive this truth because this is the most freeing, bondage releasing truth in all of scripture. In this truth we are truly set free. No longer is our 'righteousness' dependent in any way on us but solely rests in the acceptance of our substitute. The shadow of this is the burnt offering of old. The offerer placed his hand on the head of the unblemished offering and in that type the offering was accepted and the offerer was set free from the burden of sin and establishing their own righteousness before God. The difference for us is that what the blood of bulls and goats could not do (Hebrews 10: 4) Jesus has done to perfection and in Him we are eternally free from the need to establish our own righteousness and we can rest eternally in His righteousness. We are 'the righteousness of God in Him' (2 Corinthians 5: 21)

Everything was changed at the cross as Jesus shed His blood. The veil of the temple was torn in two from the top to the bottom. I am sure that man hastily took needle and thread and sowed it up again because today we see precious Christians trying, striving, labouring to establish their own righteousness. They receive Jesus and say it is by grace, and so it is, and then continue to try to keep the law rather than resting in the truth of the imputed righteousness of Christ and there be led by grace to Christ, and Christ-likeness.

You know the epic truth of the Cross changes everything. Everything before is changed.
Take the Lord's Prayer (Luke 11: 2 - 4) as it is known and prayed in churches all over the world...does this prayer apply to us today under the New Covenant? I don't think so! What! I hear you say? How can you say that! Oh please understand me, God is unchanging and ever glorious and worthy so as always and forever we will 'hallow' His name. Oh yes, forever and ever we can call down heaven on earth but frankly the truth and reality of this calling down came only as Jesus died and opened the way. It was after Jesus shed His blood that the Holy Spirit was given to dwell 'in' those who believed.
But Jesus gave this prayer I hear you exclaim! Yes He did.
But He gave it prior to the Cross to an audience under the law and He gave it under the terms of the covenant in place at that time, Moses covenant, the law. It is under the terms of the law, the old covenant which the book of Hebrews says is obsolete (Hebrews 8: 13) that Jesus encouraged those listening to pray, 'And forgive us our sins'. The tax collector in Luke 18 who beat his breast and exclaimed "God be merciful to me a sinner" went away justified but under the law he would have been back to beat and exclaim again, and again. Beloved not so with you...you exclaimed your need and you received His justification the moment you accepted, post-Cross, the finished work of Jesus and today, now, and forever you sit in rest under the terms of the New Covenant that says that He remembers your sins no more. How can we continually plead forgiveness for sins already forgiven...the Apostle Paul likens this to crucifying Jesus all over again. Crucifying Jesus over and over is consigning our salvation and acceptance to the terms of the old covenant which required repeated sacrifice over and over and we have been set free. How can we receive the truth that God remembers our sins no more and then be continually requesting that He forgive us our sins?
Is this teaching encouraging us to fail to accept our humanity? I don't think so but I am sure that to refuse to accept the fullness of the finished work of Jesus by insisting that we have some input into our total and never failing acceptance in Christ is certainly failing to recognise Jesus and what He has done.

Dear friend, the cross of Jesus and the shedding of His blood changed everything. We cannot receive things prior to His cross in the same way after His cross. We must put on new glasses, glasses of Grace. Colossians 3 from verse 12 encourages us to pursue a whole list of wonderful attributes but the mistake is that we could then try to pursue them in our own strength, with our own will, to establish our own 'righteousness'. Many do this today. Looking through the glasses of Grace, with eyes of Grace our gaze is diverted from ourselves to see only one, Jesus, the fullness of Deity. The attributes listed in Colossians 3 are HIM, put on HIM, sit at HIS feet, receive HIM, talk about HIM, exalt HIM, proclaim HIM, preach HIM. The more we talk about us and our strategy to be 'like' Him the more we see only ourselves and we become veiled to the truth of who He is. Who He is unveiled in abundant Grace, this is glory to greater glory revealed by the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3: 18).

We need to see Jesus and put Him on. This is freedom. As we put Him on we are set free from the need to 'do' for our own acceptance. That is freedom. The enemy wants us to focus on our condition, to do this he uses the law with which he constantly challenges us. Jesus declares a new position for us under the New Covenant and so for every temptation of the enemy we have but one answer, JESUS, in Him we are accepted, in Him we are righteous, in Him we are free. Filled with Him how is possible but for us to NOT be 'like' Him. It will be impossible for it to be any other way - Christ likeness, the absolute desire of every Christian.
 What a wonderful truth it is, Jesus did nothing to be made sin for us so that we need do nothing to made righteous in Him.
Hallelujah! Rejoice with me and give Him the praise, He ALONE is worthy.