HOW DO YOU SEE THE BLOOD?
Photo, 500px.com/p/mylovefromjesus
Exodus 12:13 'Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you [are]. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy [you] when I strike the land of Egypt.
“God doesn’t want us to punish ourselves to erase our guilt. He punished his Son to cancel our guilt. God will not build His kingdom on our pain because He is building it on His mercy.”
I well remember a conversation that I had with my good friend and roommate, shortly before I came back to Christ. I said something like this, “I really hate the way I am living, drinking and drugging and all that goes with this kind of lifestyle!” My friend looked me right in the eye and said, “If I am doing something that I hate, I just stop doing it!” His wise words rung like a bell in my soul! However, I was powerless to stop doing what I had grown to hate! It was not long after that conversation that I had a dramatic encounter with the Lord and came back to a relationship with Him. I was empowered to stop doing the things that I hated so much! The closer I drew to Jesus, the farther I walked away from my sinful way of living.
There was this one thing, I was haunted by, the sins of my past. I came to grips with how wicked that I had been and I could not even enjoy my salvation. When I read, “For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.” (1John 3:20) I thought, since my heart condemns me, God condemns me much more and He knows even the sinful things that I have forgotten! The next verse says, “Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God.” (1John 3:21). So I had absolutely no confidence to believe that God would even listen to my cries for help! I don’t know how to tell you how tormented my mind was for a long, long time. (4 years!) O but the great mercy and grace of God broke through to my dungeon of exile! One day at 3AM, I was up trying to find some peace in the things I was reading. Then God spoke to my heart and said, “Tom, your problem is that you do not value the blood of Christ the same way I do! When you turned to Me and put your trust in Jesus, I applied His shed blood to your life and I don’t see even a stain on your life. All is forgiven, all is forgotten! Now forgive yourself!” That encounter felt even more powerful than the moment I had turned to Christ 4 years before!
Friend, if you have a condemning heart, God is way bigger than that! Which means He is not condemning you! Put the same value on the blood of Christ that the Father does! Since He forgives and forgets your sin, why don’t you do the same?
Every blessing!
—Tom