Month: June 2022

Jesus said, “In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I IN YOU” (John 14:20).

“God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is CHRIST IN YOU, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).

If we keep thinking of Jesus as outside of us, then we’ll think we have to do something to get to Him, to stay with Him, and to follow Him.  But if we think of Him as He is, happily at home inside us, then we’ll look for Him there.  And the shear beauty is that when we look for Him there, we will find Him.  We will find Him in us full of life and love and joy; a life, love, and joy that we have the pleasure of expressing as He lives His life through us.  He is the one who came to us and who stays with us.  There is no following at a distance, no matter how small.

“And to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Hebrews 12:24).  The blood of Jesus speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

What “word” did the blood of Abel speak?  Recall the story from Genesis chapter 4.  “And it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.  Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Where is Abel your brother?’  And he said, ‘I do not know.  Am I my brother’s keeper?’  And God said, ‘What have you done?  The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground.  And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand’ “ (Genesis 4:8-11)

The blood of Abel spoke a curse.  The blood of Abel spoke a word of guilt, shame, and condemnation.  The blood of Abel called from the ground, “GUILTY!”  It identified Cain as guilty of murder.

What does the blood of Jesus proclaim?  The exact opposite.  The blood of Jesus declares, “NOT GUILTY!”  The better word of Jesus’ blood is that you are now identified as “not guilty” through the power of the sprinkled blood of Jesus.

The blood of Jesus declares you holy and blameless.  “He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death [the sprinkled blood of Jesus], in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach” (Colossians 1:22).

The blood of Jesus declares you righteous.  “For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One [to the point of death on a cross] the many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19).

The blood of Jesus declares you clean.  “How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Hebrews 9:14).

The blood of Jesus declares you forgiven.  “He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross [a cross covered in the sprinkled blood of Jesus]“ (Colossians 2:13-14).

The better word of the sprinkled blood of Jesus?  You are not guilty!  You are holy, blameless, righteous, clean, and forgiven!  That is a better word!