6.11.12 [ back to the cross ]

Sometimes you just have to go back to the start, back to the beginning of things. . .

Last week was just a really tough week for me. Without going into detail, I will say this- everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. Beyond losing my job and breaking my lease, on a very personal level my failures, my flaws, my secrets, my lies... they all came to light. I was faced with something very ugly, and that ugliness overwhelmed me, embarrassed me and sent me scrambling for answers. 

I had the opportunity to go to an "Encounter" this weekend. I went because one of my girlfriends asked me to. . . And literally within the first 15 minutes I was angry I was there. All of the ladies in my group had been saved less than two months. What was I doing here?! I've known Jesus since I was 4 years old! I immediately tensed up, closed up and just felt anger all over again. 

I don't need this! I already understand salvation, I need actual, real help!

This weekend I went back to the cross of Jesus. Like it was the first time. Like I'd never understood it before. I left all of my knowledge, all of my religion, all of my pride at the feet of Jesus and I experienced the Cross in a brand new way. 

I realized that I rarely think of the cross anymore. 

But the Cross of Christ is the center of everything I am, everything I believe. 

Without the cross, there would have been no forgiveness. Without the cross, 

we wouldn't understand love, because the cross is the ultimate definition of love. 

In my life I have accepted what Jesus did on the cross as the first step to living a Christian life. You go to the cross, you accept Him, you believe, your sins are washed, and you begin your journey following after Him. 

I realize that I leave the cross in the distance. I push forward and it's silhouette get's smaller and smaller on the horizon. 

This is where I've been wrong! This is why nothing has been working!

In order to truly walk with Christ we have to keep the cross of Christ in our sights. 

We don't do this to be reminded of our already forgiven sins, to remember how "sinful our past was", to keep us humble, to feel sorry. . . 

We need the Cross because we need to Blood of Jesus. We need to remember that EVERYTHING we need in our lives He paid for on the cross. Everything we need He took care of as He was beaten, as He was tortured. 

No, we don't need to feel sorry that Jesus went through these things- we need to feel grateful. He did it for us out of LOVE. It was His choice. Don't look at the cross and feel guilty- feel empowered! 

His Love for ME was so great that He endured the cross so that my sins might be forgiven. He endured the cross to silence the accusations of my enemy. We don't just accept what He did and keep moving. We depend on it! We know that it is power for our lives! 

Humanity was on a miserable path until the cross came, and changed the world. God is a God of Holiness, sin can't come anywhere near His presence. For years mankind offered sacrifices and followed rituals in order to be forgiven for their sins... But every sin required another sacrifice, and we kept on sinning! God's nature is so against sin that previous to Jesus there were laws that allowed sinners to be stoned for their transgressions! God reached out His hand from heaven on occasions and took the life of people who were in rebellion. Sin was no small matter. As time went by the gap between creation and Creator grew wider and wider. God loved the world so deeply, but the world was entrapped in sin. 

He had only one choice left, and that was to send Jesus, once and for all. 

God knew that only Jesus could break the curse of sin that was holding the world captive. The curse of sin is death and destruction. It is working and working and never receiving the fruit of your labor. The curse had enslaved the world and left everyone without hope. 

Jesus Christ came and changed things. Because He was blameless, He was able to take on all the sins of the world. When we go to the cross He transfers all of His goodness on us, and we transfer all of our sins to Him. It is this exchange that saves us. 

He conquered death and returned to the right hand of the Father. God still cannot look at sin, but now Jesus intervenes and intercedes for us. We go to Jesus and he pleads our case before the Father. He silences our accuser- He has cancelled our sin! 

The blood of Jesus allows us to stand boldly, confidently and securely in the presence of God!! But there is still more! 

When the Israelites were being held captive in Egypt God appointed Moses to go in and deliver them. There were a series of plagues sent upon the Egyptian and the final one was when God told Moses that He was going to send the angel of death over the land, and every first born son would die... God instructed that each of the Hebrew families were to kill a sheep as a sacrifice, and then take the blood and apply it over the door of their home. When the angel saw the blood over the home, it had to pass on by- there had already been a death here... 

This is a picture, hundreds of years before Jesus came, that shows us how His sacrifice works for us. When the Enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy... to take that which is ours, to tell us that we are nothing, that our new life is a lie, that we have no right to claim the inheritance of Christ... We, through the power of Jesus' sacrifice, have the ability to remember what Jesus did and declare that through Jesus sacrifice and His blood that the curse of sin is broken, that we are not held captive, that everything He says about us is true and that we won't believe another minute the lies of the enemy! 

This is why. . . This is why we have to stay close to the cross. Because the cross bridges the gap between us and the Father. Because the cross represents the Love of Christ for us. Because the Cross represents a broken curse and a powerless adversary. The Cross is power to live this life in God's perfect fullness!! 

<3 

4.12.12 (violence in the land of sleep)

There is a difference between sleep and rest and beyond that there is a difference also between sleep and slumber. I have been in this place where I have fallen into the trap of sleep.

I’m not just talking about the excessive hours I spend sleeping, pressing snooze on my alarms, resetting my alarms for 30 more minutes, another hour… no I am talking about my life attitude.

When slumber comes over your life it is a dangerous thing. That spirit of slothful complacency is so overpowering, you hardly realize you have been overtaken. It’s like when you sleep so much you just stay in a continuous state of exhaustion.

I always remember the story of when Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane… It was the night of his arrest… The eve of the biggest event in the history of mankind, Jesus was about to give up His life for ours… Tell me what the disciples did? We all know… Jesus told them to “watch and pray” and instead every time he returned to them, he had to shake them out of their sleep! I remember some words that I was taught when I was about 14 and sitting in that very same Garden, just outside the gates of Jerusalem. The teacher said that in our humanity we often use sleep as an escape when we are on the brink of a spiritual breakthrough. We become overwhelmed and we just choose to sleep. For some reason I’ve carried that thought with me for all of these years, because I have seen them to be true. But I know that it’s true in many areas. We use sleep as an escape from life at times…

Sleep has been hovering over my life lately, holding me down and keeping me from my plans and dreams. I have felt this powerful lack of motivation being held over me. The thought that, “I’ll do it later…” has occurred to me so many times.

When is later?! A verse that comes to mind is Proverbs 24:33-34

A little sleep, a little slumber, 
a little folding of the hands to rest— and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man.

This is so true, isn’t it?! I don’t have a problem with expressing publicly my struggle, because I KNOW that I am not the only one. Procrastination is the Enemy’s best tool against the Kingdom of God!

My girlfriend told me tonight, “Emma we have so much to do! We need to do it!”

She is so right. We all have a call, a commission, a purpose, and what are we doing to fulfill it? I know for me, I am sitting on the edge, on the precipice of selling out to a call I don’t yet understand, and instead of just pushing through… I sleep.

I just had a little flashback of a journal I used to write in. The cover had this verse written across it –

Awake, you who sleep
- Arise from the dead,
And Christ will give you light. See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time.

(Ephesians 5:14-16)

I think this reminds me that I have been here before, in the land of slumber.

He is calling me, so specifically, to wake up and make up for lost time.

On the one-year anniversary of my time here in Yuma I didn’t even have the energy to write. I felt that in my heart I knew I had accomplished much here, but at the same time I am in a place where I feel completely stagnant.

It started when I made the choice, in faith, to quit my job. I knew that that was the right thing to do, but in the process of believing for the new job, I became overwhelmed and gave in to the sleep of unbelief.

But the kingdom belongs to me! More flashbacks in my spirit of my childhood, adult bible study sit ins for so many hours have saturated my heart and spirit in the word of God.

“the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force”

Matthew 11:12

That verse puzzled me as a kid, but I understand it more than ever right now. Sure, a lot of Christianity is counterintuitive. We are called to be meek, not to fight back, not to return wrong for wrong… But meekness is not weakness. He actually commands us to put on ARMOUR. We are not required to put on a full suit of armor just to sit around and meditate on the word. We are also called into action. The only enemy we are called to fight against is the enemy of our souls, which is the devil himself. When the Kingdom, God’s Kingdom, your life, is attacked, we are called to become violent and fight for our rights!

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Ephesians 6:12

I am recognizing that I have the blood of Christ over my heart and life. I have the mark of redemption on my head, and the call of the Father on me. His Spirit is alive in me, and I am on the pathway to Heaven. Because of the Light I carry I am a threat to the Kingdom of Darkness. I will not allow darkness to come over my life another day. I will not allow the sleeplike apathy to control me another day.

The enemy comes to steal anything he can, and because he can’t have my soul, he has been stealing time from me. We are told to rebuke him, and he has to flee!

It is so incredible being on this side of the battle-- to be wearing the impenetrable  armor of  the Warrior of Heaven, to be promised victory on every count, to know that in fact, the battle is already won!

So it’s time to get up. Off the couch. Out of bed. Turn off the tv. Put down the phone. The violent… take it by force….

<3 Emma