In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will. (Rom.8:26-27).

This may or may not be a familiar verse to you but it is an incredibly important verse for every believer. In the first place, Paul acknowledges what most of us already know. There are times when we simply need help from the Spirit of God. He helps us in our weakness, our inability, or in our own lack of capacity to face a circumstance. There will be times when we simply don’t have what it takes in our own strength to overcome a temptation, understand a dilemma, or even know how to pray about an issue. When we get to such places, the Holy Spirit comes alongside and helps. Notice that “help” doesn’t mean that he does it for us, but rather he yokes up with us so that we can face a situation together. Believe me, he is pulling most of the weight.

In the context of needing a breakthrough in one of life’s dilemmas such as a martial crisis, a healing, a release from an addiction, or a financial crisis, sometimes we need help. I really like what Dutch Sheets has to say about such a moment in his “must-read” book, Intercessory Prayer. “Have you ever felt an inability in your prayer life to produce results? Have you ever come up against a “mountain” you couldn’t move? … The Lord says in this verse that one of the reasons we have this “inability to produce results” is because we don’t always know how to “pray as we should.” The word “should” here is a very important word. Dei is primarily a legal term meaning ‘that which is necessary, right or proper in the nature of a case; what one must do: that which is legally binding for someone.’ For example, Luke 18:1 tells us, ‘Men ought always to pray and never faint’ (KJV, emphasis added). The verse does not mean, ‘It would be a good idea to pray.’ It is declaring – ‘It is absolutely necessary-binding upon you-that you pray.’”

As you delve into this text, it suggests that we don’t always know what to pray for or how to pray to get the breakthrough we need or that someone else needs. Sometimes, we see the symptoms of a problem but we can’t discern the root-cause, which is really what we need to pray about. For instance, we may be praying for God to set someone free from an addiction but the addiction is the symptom, not the cause. The cause may be a deep sense of shame from a molestation experience as a child. Unless the shame is healed, the person will just find another addiction with which to medicate his or her pain. Maybe a person doesn’t need another job as much as he or she needs a work ethic so that they don’t keep finding themselves unemployed. Maybe we keep asking God to provide a spouse for a single friend when we should be praying for the spiritual growth of our friend so that he or she wouldn’t mess up any marriage God has arranged. In many cases, our prayers may be sincere but may not be on target.

The word “should” or “ought” also suggests that some legality may be an issue in the spiritual realm. Until that is dealt with or revealed by prayer, the enemy may still have a right to oppress the one for whom we are praying. We may not know what the legality is but the Spirit does. There may be curses connected to the sins of the person’s fathers that have come down from generation to generation or word curses that have been spoken over the individual. Maybe there was occult involvement as a child that the person has dismissed as trivial or doesn’t remember (Ouija boards, fortune telling, etc.).   That involvement may still give the enemy a place until these things are confessed, repented of, and renounced. These kinds of legalities operate in the spiritual realm and because we may be unaware of them, our prayers don’t touch them. At other times we are asked to pray for people but are given very little or no information about the prayer need. In all these cases, we don’t know how to pray as we should. What then? Ah…enter the Holy Spirit!!!

As we lift up people and circumstances we can simply ask the Spirit to show us what we need to pray about. A few months ago, a believer I’ll call Emily came into my office. She was suffering from an undefined sickness that was making her weaker and weaker. As we visited, she mentioned a sister who lived in another state who was in a Lesbian relationship with an older woman. Emily explained that she had met her sister’s significant other and that her sister’s friend seemed to feel very threatened by Emily. Through the Spirit, I sensed that the “friend” was a highly controlling woman who was, indeed, threatened by Emily’s influence in her sister’s life. Through some occult involvement she had placed a curse on Emily. When the curse was broken in the name of Jesus, Emily was set free and quickly regained her health. The “spiritual legality” had been taken care of.

At other times, we can yoke ourselves together with the Spirit and pray in the Spirit or in our prayer language (tongues), knowing that the Spirit is praying exactly the right things in the right ways through us. If we have prayed for months without breakthrough, we may simply be missing the target. Remember that the Spirit of God is ready and willing to show us how to pray (a Spirit of wisdom and revelation (Eph. 1:17) or to pray with us as we continue to seek a breakthrough. Don’t leave him out of the equation for he is very willing and very able to help us in our inabilities!

In my last blog, we explored the concept of “confession” which I believe is a powerful weapon in the arsenal God has provided for his people. In its simplest form, confession means that I say what God has said about any issue and not only say it but also agree with it. If I confess sin, then I am saying what God has said about an unacceptable trait, thought, or behavior and, hopefully, am agreeing with him about that in my heart. The third area of confession is simply developing a practice of saying what God has said about others and myself in the Lord.

We all know how important it is for faith to be transferred from a person’s head to his heart. To believe something intellectually is not as powerful as believing that same truth at a heart level. Speaking (verbally confessing) a truth facilitates that transfer. Paul says, “       But what does it say? ‘The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,’ that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom.10:8-9). In this verse, Paul is encouraging us to confess our faith with our mouths rather than just holding it as an intellectual conviction in our minds. He also suggests that the act of doing so facilitates belief in our hearts.

In the Hebrew mind, there is often a causal connection between two things joined together with the conjunction and. For instance, if someone were to say, “I slipped on the ice and broke my wrist,” we would assume that the slipping contributed to the breaking. One helped to cause the other.   In the same way, confessing with my mouth has a connection with believing in my heart. One powerful tool for transforming a belief in my head to faith in my heart is verbally confessing God’s truth regarding any area of my life.

Most of us struggle with our self-image. The world and the enemy love to beat up on us and leave us feeling unworthy, useless, and condemned even as believers. That is not the message of Christ. Jesus came to redeem us and to makes us into something new. That is the essence of being born-again and being a new creation. The New Testament is filled with God’s declarations about who we are now that we are in Christ. Those declarations should form our new identity in Jesus. Phrases such as, “the righteousness of God, fully forgiven, acceptable, worthy, holy, friends of God, temples of the Holy Spirit, empowered, competent, ambassadors for Christ, kings and priests, etc. all apply to every believer. They are part of our new identity that needs to seep down from our heads into our hearts.

The Bible says, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Another way of saying that is, “We live up to whatever we believe about ourselves.” Verbally, declaring who we are in Christ, on a daily basis, is a powerful tool for transformation. Speaking the same things over one another (especially our children) is also very powerful. As we agree with God about who we are, those truths are eventually written on our hearts. When they are written there, our view of ourselves changes and when that changes we change.

There is also a prophetic aspect to our verbal confessions. Isaiah declares that when God’s word goes forth it always fulfills its purpose. God spoke and his words created the universe. We are made in his image. When we speak our words have creative power, especially when his words go forth from our lips. When we declare his truth over any situation, we release God’s power to make those truths a reality (on earth as it is in heaven) whether it is shaping our identity, releasing his promises in our lives, or establishing destiny over our marriage or our children.

Confession aligns us with Christ, revokes the enemy’s authority to oppress us, writes his truth on our hearts, and releases the power of prophetic words to shape our hearts and the future. We should exercise this divine weapon often. It is how your authority as a believer is expressed. God gave you authority so exercise it for his purposes in your own life and lives of others. Remember, “The word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword” (Heb.4:11). Use it against the enemy.

Confession is a divine weapon that can have powerful, effects when exercised consistently. We tend to think of confession as the confession of sins either to God or to one another. If you have a catholic background it will summon images of confession to the local priest. Confession can mean that but encompasses much more. According to Strong, the Greek word exomologeo can be translated as: to confess, to agree, to approve, to assure, to promise, to admit, to concede and, judicially, to make a statement, or in the legal sense to bear witness. It also includes making solemn statements of faith.

I think the easiest way to understand the concept of confession is to think of it as agreement with the truths of God. Literally, it means “to say the same as,” to agree with God”, or “to say what God says.”  As I’ve already mentioned, one aspect of confession regards our sins. “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed” (Ja.5:16). “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness (1 Jn.1:9). To confess our sins means that we agree with God that what we have done is wrong and that we acknowledge our culpability in the sin.

In Psalm 51, David confesses his adultery with Bathsheba. He makes no excuses and blames no one else for his choice. “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge” (Ps.51:4). Notice that he takes full responsibility for his actions and declares that God’s standards are right and just. He confesses or agrees with God about what he has done. He agrees in his heart, not just with his words. A sincere confession is always woven in with godly sorrow. Confession of sin is a defensive weapon because a consistent practice of confession gives no place to the enemy to come in because we stand in agreement with God rather than Satan. Confession cancels any legal right Satan would have to oppress us and keeps any barriers from forming in our relationship with God.

There is another side to confession and that is standing in agreement with God about Jesus. To confess Christ is simply to say what God says about him. It is our way of declaring belief and belief is simply a conviction that what God has said about his Son is true. Jesus said, “Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven” (Mt.10:32-33). When we confess Jesus before men we agree with God about Jesus and we say so. We say what he has said.

Declaring who Jesus is will always include a confession that he is our Lord and Savior. That confession declares our alignment and allegiance to Christ and declares not only to men but also to the spirit realm that we serve Jesus. That declaration establishes our authority in the spiritual realm as followers of Jesus and sons and daughters of the king. Just as law enforcement officers have to identify themselves by uniform or announcement before exercising their authority, we need to do the same before exercising authority in spiritual matters. If we do not belong to Jesus, we cannot operate (pray or command) in Jesus name. Our confession of who Jesus is and who he is to us is critical when we stand against the enemy.

Thirdly, confession of who we are in Christ and what he has done for us is a powerful weapon to keep the enemy at bay and to write God’s truth more deeply on our hearts. There is also a prophetic effect when we declare God’s word regarding ourselves, other believers, or our own children and families. Next time I want to really develop this important aspect of confession because it is so powerful and yet so neglected. Be blessed today.

But on that day I will deal differently with the land of Goshen, where my people live; no swarms of flies will be there, so that you will know that I, the Lord, am in this land. I will make a distinction between my people and your people. This miraculous sign will occur tomorrow. (Exodus 8:22-23).

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” “Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.” “I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters,” says the Lord Almighty. (2 Cor.6:14-18)

In Exodus 8, as God was in the process of delivering Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, he declared a distinction between his people and all others. Goshen was the region of Egypt where Jacob and his family had settled after they were invited to stay in Egypt because of Joseph’s service to Pharaoh. It was a fertile area of approximately 900 square miles on which one to two million Hebrews lived – first as farmers and ranchers and later as slaves. In the text above, God told Moses that from that point on, the plagues that were impacting Egypt would not touch Goshen nor his people living there. There were several reasons why God would treat them differently from all other tribes and nations. First of all, he chose Israel as a man would choose his bride. A man may treat women, in general, with kindness but he should do more for his wife and do it sooner than for anyone else. That is how God relates to his chosen people.

In the same vein, God treats his people differently because he has a unique relationship with them that is described by words such as bride, household, priesthood, sons and daughters, family, saints, chosen, and even friends. Those are words that describe intimate and even covenant relationships. In a sense, God may know all people, but he is not intimate with them nor does he consider them sons and daughters. In addition, God says that he will make a distinction between his people and all others because he is with them. God is with his people and his presence makes a difference. As they say…membership has privileges and we are members of Christ.

It is clear throughout the Bible that God makes a distinction between his people and all others but scripture also reminds us that we are to make a distinction as well. In Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians quoted above, he emphasizes the distinction again and draws a contrast between those who belong to the Father through Jesus and all others. Those distinctions are: righteousness vs. wickedness; light vs. darkness; Christ vs. Belial (Satan or a high ranking demon); believer vs. unbeliever; and the temple of God vs. idols. According to Paul, God still calls us to “come out from among them and be separate. Touch no unclean thing.”

In my experience, many Christians don’t see themselves as chosen and distinct from all other people. They don’t see themselves as different nor do they make much of an attempt to be different other than church attendance. God is not calling us to withdraw from society, move into the desert, and form monastic societies. He is not calling us to some form of ritual cleanliness.  What he is doing is calling us to be distinct – first in our own minds and, secondly, in our ways.

What we need is the “salmon anointing” (not a biblical term) that makes us a people who are always willing to swim against the current and the culture of the world rather than embracing it or compromising our faith in order to “fit in.” God has not commanded us to fit in but to be different – as different as night and day. Jesus said we should be “in the world” but not “of the world.”

Sometimes we want God to do supernatural stuff in our lives. But if we want God to “act like God” in our lives with miracles and blessings then we must “act like his people” and as sold out citizens of heaven rather than comfortable citizens of this world. How many “unclean” things do we touch in a day by choice – especially with our eyes and our ears? How often do we compromise our faith “just a little” at school or at the office in order to gain membership or standing with those who don’t know or don’t care about the Lord? How often do we forget that God is with us when we swim with the culture rather than against it?

A church that has forgotten who she is will be a powerless church. If we desire to see the power of God we must remember that power is not given until it is needed. It is not needed as long as we are “going with the flow.” When we remember who we are; when we see ourselves as distinct from all other people; when we push back against the world; when we get busy destroying the works of the devil; ands when we choose to swim upstream toward the source – then, power will be needed. When it is needed it will be released. So…let’s go for the salmon anointing. Let’s swim as hard we can against the current, reproduce ourselves, and encourage as many as possible to swim with us. Then he will be our God and we will be his people. Then we will be distinct from all other people.

As the sun is setting on Easter Sunday, I find myself saturated with the story of Easter. In an effort to sharpen my focus on the real meaning of Passover and Easter I watched a number of movies and documentaries on the life and death of Jesus, his resurrection and ascension, and the aftermath for those who followed him.

It occurs to me that if I depended on Hollywood, television, or the entertainment industry, in general, for my understanding of Jesus and Easter, I would be totally confused. I wouldn’t be sure whether Jesus spoke with a rough middle-eastern accent or a highly-educated British accent. I would wonder if Jesus ascended to heaven after his resurrection or stuck around planet earth, married the girl of his dreams, and had kids. I might wonder if Jesus walked through life without emotion, seemingly untouched by events around him or whether he laughed and danced with those who just received new legs. I might wonder if 1^st Century Jews were actually blond with blue eyes or not. A few movies and documentaries seemed to make a real effort to tell the story with biblical accuracy while most movies or documentaries got part of the Biblical accounts right but used “artistic license” generously, very generously with the rest of the story. Some of the movies or documentaries left me wondering if they had read the biblical accounts at all.

On the one hand, I was glad that they were presenting the story at all. For the most part they presented Jesus as a man who actually lived, who was crucified unjustly, who rose on the third day and who ascended to heaven. All of that is a plus. But I find myself being troubled by the apparent paradigm that biblical truth and facts can be changed, modified or ignored at will for the sake of a more interesting story line that fits into a one or two hour format made for television.

I remember a time (old school) when Christians would demand that someone depicting biblical events would at least make an attempt to be “biblically accurate” because the text was sacred and should be handled with care. Now, it seems we operate on the cultural assumption that all truth is relative and personal. Objective truth doesn’t seem to matter anymore so we can take a “sacred text” and do what we please with it.

In my spirit, however, I sense that treating God’s word with a cavalier attitude is sort of like playing fast and loose with the Ark of the Covenant. Eventually, treating the sacred as something ordinary or insignificant will bite us and bite us hard. The Holy Spirit is very intentional and, through inspiration, directed the writers of the New Testament to record only part of what Jesus said and did (Jn.21:25). The part chosen by the Spirit to be recorded must be very significant – every word. Since the gospels were written especially to reveal Jesus, when we altar the text or when we change the story we alter the revelation. If we alter the revelation our understanding of Jesus will be incomplete or misguided. That concerns me. It also concerns me that even church-going believers may get much of their theology from television, movies, or books about the Bible rather than the Bible itself.

Here is the thing – Biblical accuracy matters. I do appreciate Hollywood making an attempt to communicate the Passion of Jesus. I love that Jesus is seen on numerous networks throughout the Easter season. It does give us an opportunity to reflect on Jesus and start conversations about him. But, for those who watch an array of shows or documentaries – or the wrong ones – it provides a real opportunity for confusion and a nebulous Jesus who is hard to get hold of.

Ultimately, we need to make sure that the church is communicating the sacred story of Jesus – not Hollywood or the History Channel. And, of course we are the church. Our first obligation is to make sure that we know the story accurately. Our second obligation is to tell the story – accurately and often. And it is a great story – a story with everything – love, suspense, intrigue, betrayal, devastation that rises to victory, a single man standing against the power of Rome, violence, death, life, the supernatural…and fishing tips. What else do you need? After all, Easter really is the greatest story ever told with a story line that needs no alterations.

Good Friday.  It would not have seemed good to anyone in the concentric circles that orbited  Jesus on that day. There were those closest to him – Peter, James, and John. Then the rest of the twelve including Judas, family members, a larger group that followed him from place to place and helped support his ministry, the crowds, and, of course, those set on destroying him.

The morning had begun before sunrise with his arrest. Betrayal had born its fruit. The night before, just as the twelve were taking the bitter herbs of their Passover Seder in the upper room, Jesus had announced that betrayal was at hand. It only took a few hours for that prophetic word to be fulfilled. Taken to a kangaroo court before the High Priest and members of the Sanhedrin, Jesus had been accused by conflicting testimony so that Caiaphas, the High Priest, finally bound him by an oath to tell the truth. “The high priest said to him, ‘I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.’ ‘Yes, it is as you say,’ Jesus replied. ‘But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.’ Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, ‘He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?’ ‘ He is worthy of death,’ they answered” (Mt.26:63-66).The confession of who we was would, of course, seal his fate in the mind of the Jewish leaders.

From our perspective as Americans, we expect trials to be logical events with twelve somewhat detached jurists coming to a conclusion to be read with little emotion in court. But in this “courtroom,” the high priest tore his clothes. Feelings ran high and anything that smacked of blasphemy raised a tide of emotion rather than a reading of the findings. Think of scenes on the 6:00 news in the Middle East – funerals or demonstrations with people weeping, shouting, and wringing their hands. Think of flags being burned and crowds filling streets chanting for the death of the Great Satan America. Those scenes frighten Americans because they seem so unpredictable. So out of control. So emotional. Imagine those crowds surrounding Jesus who had been accused of blasphemy on Passover Eve when Israel was awaiting a deliverer and needed no one to be offending God by his words or actions. Suddenly the kangaroo court would take on a life of its own and spill into the streets moving toward the quarters of Pontius Pilate.

From there “Good Friday” spiraled downward. Jesus became a political football that would be kicked around the streets of Jerusalem – Caiaphas to Pilate; Pilate to Herod; Herod back to Pilate and Pilate back to the Jewish leaders screaming for blood. Beaten beyond recognition, Jesus was finally dragged up Golgatha and spiked to a rough and splintered cross. All of this occurred by about 9:00 in the morning. The shepherd’s flock had denied him and scattered into the night, except for John, the youngest. All were hiding in fear and wondering what would come next. This was not the triumphal coronation of The Messiah they had expected. Instead of glorious and powerful, this Messiah was broken and helpless. Why didn’t he call on the legions of angels he had spoken about? Why didn’t he call down fire on Caiaphas as Elijah had called down fire when facing the prophets of Bail? Why could he not heal is own wounds as he had healed countless others? Nothing seemed good about that Friday.

Darkness followed. Then death. His limp body was pulled from the cross and placed hurriedly in a tomb to avoid desecrating Passover. I am certain there was no hint of Passover joy in the rooms where the disciples huddled in disappointment and fear. However, as the old sermon goes, “It was Friday, but Sunday’s comin.”

Three days later, a dismal defeat was transformed into certain, unimaginable victory. The Passover Lamb rose from the ashes and the world has never been the same. In Exodus 6, Jewish scholars find four promises that are reflected by four cups of wine in the Passover Seder. These were almost certainly recited by Jesus in the Upper room. To Israel, God had said, “I will bring you out. I will free you from being slaves. I will redeem you. I will take you to be my own.”

Those promises are for us as well. He will bring us out of the Kingdom of Darkness. He will declare us to be free instead of slaves and take away our slave identity. He will redeem us by paying the price for our freedom. He will make us his as a groom takes a wife to be his own. Jesus is our Passover, by his blood spread over the doorposts of our hearts he has brought us out, set us free, redeemed us, and taken us to be his own. In so many words softly spoken in the upper room, Jesus said, “This is my body broken for you. This is my blood shed for you that seals a covenant I have made with you. Remember all this until I come again and be sure that I am coming again.” It was a very good Friday after all.

There is a significant moment in the Passover order (seder) of observant Jews that goes back, at least, to the days of Jesus. The traditional unleavened bread is matzah which is the large, flat square of bread that looks like a huge cracker. It is made without yeast, rolled out, pierced with numerous small holes so it will not rise, and then baked at high temperatures on a rack so that browned stripes run across the bread. It is often called the bread of haste which recalls Israel’s hurried flight from Egypt the morning after the tenth plague.

In the tradition of the Passover meal the matzah is placed on a special plate and often is inserted into a matzah cover with three pockets. One whole unbroken square of matzah is placed into each of those pockets. At the set time, the middle piece of bread is removed and broken approximately in half. The larger piece is called the afikomen from a word that means “that which comes after” or “hidden.” That half is then placed in a decorative bag usually made of linen. The head of the house then takes the bag with the broken bread in it and hides it. Towards the end of the meal, the children are released to search the house to find the afikomen and bring it back to the table where it is then broken and shared with the family.

Here is the interesting part. Jewish rabbis disagree greatly about the meaning of the afikomen and its origins seem to be unknown. Since the matzah is placed in a bag with three compartments some assume that it represents the unity of the Jewish Patriarchs – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Others believe it represents a unity of worship consisting of the priests, the Levites and the congregation. However, they have no idea why the middle matzah is removed, broken, and made the afikomen.

Let’s think about it. What has three parts but is unified as one? The triune God – Father, Son and Spirit comes to mind. The Son, taken from the middle of that order and even crucified in the middle of three crosses, is the bread of life – broken, bruised, pierced, and marked with stripes for our sake. His broken body was wrapped in linen and hidden away until he was found by those who sought him. Some Jewish writers suggest that the afikomen actually represents the Passover lamb that can no longer be offered because there is no temple remaining in Jerusalem. At the end of the meal, after the afikomen has been recovered, it is broken into smaller pieces at eaten by the family in a way that strikingly mirrors the Lord’s Supper.

It is ironic that shortly after the afikomen is found and consumed, the Jewish family will send the youngest child to the door to see if Elijah is outside ready to announce the coming of Messiah. It is as if God has already announced the first coming of Messiah to his people through their own Passover Seder and especially through the afikomen. The gospel itself is hidden in the Jewish Passover waiting to be discovered. Messianic Jews clearly connect the dots but observant Jews do not. And yet, God has imbedded the truth of Jesus not only in Old Testament prophecies but even in the traditions that God’s people have added to Passover.

We wonder how they could miss it but I wonder how much we are still missing about Jesus, the Holy Spirit, our inheritance in Christ, and so forth that, in time, might seem so obvious that we will wonder how we missed it for so many years even though God had been clearly pointing to it. That possibility challenges me to be open to God doing new things that I have not experienced before. Perhaps, my continuing prayer should be the same as Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians – that God might give me the Spirit of wisdom and revelation that I might know him better. Because I am human I will probably miss much or most of what God is pointing to in my own strength but his Spirit can point the way. I must remain open to that and, perhaps, that should be your continuing prayer as well. What might he show us this Easter than has been there all along?

Easter truly begins with Passover. Passover will begin at sundown this Friday. The death of Jesus cannot be fully understood without the background of both Passover (Pesach) and Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement. But since this is the season of Passover let’s focus on that element. As you know, Passover is the annual celebration of the Hebrew’s release from centuries of slavery in Egypt. For Jews, it is the equivalent of our Fourth of July, Independence Day, yet with much greater spiritual overtones. It is the day God set them free and led them out of bondage to make them a nation and give them the land promised to Abraham and his descendants. It was a time when the power of God was manifested on behalf of his people to deliver them from Pharaoh, the most powerful despot on earth at the time.

Through Moses, God had commanded Pharaoh to let the Hebrews go that they might serve and worship him. Pharaoh had no mind to do so. One ragged, stuttering prophet Moses and his brother Aaron stood before the sovereign leader of Egypt and conveyed the edicts of the Almighty. Of course, Pharaoh who considered himself a god backed by pantheon of gods that Egypt worshipped, felt no compulsion to listen to this former but disavowed prince of Egypt. And so…God sent plagues, one after another, on the nation of Egypt. Each plague demonstrated God’s power over the “god’s” of Pharaoh: the Nile turning to blood demonstrated Jehovah’s power over Anuket, the goddess of the Nile; total darkness over Egypt demonstrated Jehovah’s power over Ra, the sun god, and so on.

After nine plagues devastated the nation, Pharaoh was warned that unless he let God’s people go, every first born (human and animal) in Egypt would die at the hand of God’s judgment. The Hebrew people were warned to stay in their homes that fearful night as God’s judgment passed through Egypt. They were to kill a lamb for each household and spread the blood of the lamb over the doors of each house. The sign of the blood would mark them as God’s people and the angels executing judgment on Egypt would pass over them, sparing their first born. Interestingly, even non-Jews who feared their God could come under the protection of that blood.

Inside that house they were to prepare themselves to leave Egypt. They were to roast and eat the lamb whose blood covered their door and they were to eat “the bread of haste” or unleavened bread prepared quickly for the journey. Exodus 12:11-13 states it this way: “This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover.  On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.”   Of course, this final judgment targeted Pharaoh himself and those who proclaimed the rulers of Egypt to be gods. At the death of his own son, Pharaoh released Israel that night into the hands of their God.

Other regulations regarding the Passover lamb state that the lamb (or goat) had to be a year old male without blemish. After marking their doors with his blood, the people were to consume every part of the lamb that was edible and to be dressed and ready to leave on a moments notice which underlined their faith that deliverance was truly at hand.

Christ is all over Passover. Paul declares, “For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor. 5:7). A year-old lamb is considered mature. A thirty-year old Jewish male was considered mature. Jesus began his public ministry at about the age of 30. The lamb had to be without blemish. Jesus was without sin. The blood of the lamb marked a household as belonging to God’s people and therefore allowed judgment to pass over that house. The blood of Christ marks every believer as belonging to God and allows God’s judgment to pass over each of us as his blood marks our sins and transgressions as paid in full. The household took the life of the lamb. Our sins took the life of Jesus. After the blood of the lamb was shed, the household was to eat or ingest every part of the lamb. Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (Jn. 6:53). It’s not enough that we are marked by the blood of the Lamb but we must consume and assimilate every part of Jesus into our lives. Jesus died at Passover. He was raised three days later but his death marked deliverance for each of us.

I find it almost jarring that Jesus said to his disciples, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Lk.22:15). What must it have been like for Jesus to go through each step of the Passover Seder with his disciples that night knowing that each part pointed to a the terrible death assigned to him in just a few hours? Yet Jesus said he eagerly desired to share that meal. Jesus dreaded the suffering to come but through the meal he looked past the suffering and saw the life and freedom that his death would purchase for each of us. Everything that Passover represents to the Jewish nation, should speak ten times more loudly to us for Christ is the ultimate Passover, our Passover.

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:36

With Passover and Easter coming up next week I thought I would use this week’s blogs to reflection on the single most significant event in post-Garden, human history – the death and resurrection of the Son of God.

As I look at Easter I wonder if it really had to be that way. Did Jesus really have to suffer for my sins? Couldn’t God have just swept them all away with an executive order and given Jesus a pass on his Passion? We could argue the point but the Father’s intentionality about the death of his only begotten tells me that there was no other way. Remember that Jesus asked the same question in the Garden of Gethsemane. The resounding silence of the Father answered the question.

His intentionality predates Adam’s sin. John tells us in his vision, “All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world” (Rev.13:8). The idea that in the mind of God Jesus was slain from the beginning of time tells us that, in his foreknowledge, God knew the path that man would take and the cost of redeeming his fallen creation even before he formed Adam. I find it remarkable that Elohim (Father, Son, and Spirit) was willing to pay that indescribable price in order to have a portion of his creation choose to spend eternity with him. That seems to be an almost obsessive love on the part of our Heavenly Father.

From the beginning of time, the cross would be the solution where God’s holiness and love would intersect. His holiness demanded that sin be dealt with rather than excused or ignored. Love desperately looked for a way to redeem the relationship between God and condemned man. Jesus willingly went to the cross to satisfy both the holiness of God and the love of God. Sin would be dealt with justly. Love would be triumphant.

The intentionality of God in his love was demonstrated from the very beginning. Immediately after the sin of Adam and Eve, God declared that the offspring of Eve (Jesus) would be in conflict with the serpent Satan and that the conflict would culminate with Jesus being bruised but the serpent would be crushed (Gen.3:15). Immediately after declaring that first Messianic prophecy, we are told that God covered Adam and Eve’s nakedness and shame with animal skins. At the outset, God sacrificed the innocent to cover the consequences of sin in man. From that moment on, sacrifices of innocent animals pointed to the sacrifice of the Lamb of God on the cross.   Sin condemned man as he ate from a tree in the Garden of Eden and man was set free from that condemnation as the Son of God hung on a tree (the cross) thousands of years later.

As God downloaded the Law to Moses on Mt. Sinai, a whole system of sacrifices was codified. Each sin offering pointed to the reality that sin deserved death, but that God would allow an innocent to take our place on the altar of judgment.   Paul declared that the “wages of sin is death” (Rom.6:23). Sin earns death and death, in the spiritual sense, is separation from God. On that Passover Eve two thousand years ago, did Jesus simply die a physical death or did he also endure everything that would be experienced by those who die in sin? For a moment, on that dark Friday did Jesus experience the absolute desolation of the lost: fear, shame, guilt, unbearable loneliness, absolute darkness, and even torment so that we would never have to experience any of that? I’m not certain but I know that, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2Cor.5:21).

I also know that this death, this sacrifice was not accidental, unplanned, or a last ditch effort to salvage men who had unexpectedly rejected Jesus. It was an intentional offering of himself on our behalf that had rested in the mind of God while the blue prints of this earth were still being drawn up. It is the intentionality of God’s unrelenting love. Passover and Easter are without question God’s lavish expression of his love for a fallen race.

But God demonstrates His own love toward us,

in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom.5:8)

Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him. John 14:21

This short verse out of the gospel of John contains one of the great promises in all of scripture. It offers the possibility that in the future (from the time of the writing) Jesus would show himself to believers. The word translated as “show” is the Greek word “emphanizo.” In various versions it is translated as show, disclose, manifest, reveal, make fully known, appear, make visible, and so forth.

We can understand this promise in a number of ways. We can understand that Jesus is promising a clearer understanding of who he is and how he operates in his church as we study the Word and meditate on it. We could understand him to be promising that we might hear him more clearly as he speaks to us through his Spirit. He might also be saying that he would display his love and power through us as we minister to others so that they might see Jesus in us. We could even understand this scripture in a way that promises that Jesus might even visit us in visions and dreams.

I personally believe that each of those possibilities is in the mix and that this greater and greater revelation of Jesus has the potential to be a life long process as we grow in our understanding and love for him. They key is in understanding how to release the promise. First of all, Jesus offers the promise to whoever has his commands. To have his commands implies both knowing and possessing. Many of us plan on growing in our love for Jesus without being established in his Word. We plan on praying and worshipping our way into an intimate relationship with Jesus while we continue to live life on our own terms.   Certainly prayer and worship are essential to the relationship but in this text Jesus is placing a premium on knowing his commands and taking ownership of them as his directives for living. There is an abundance of believers today who attend church, play K-Love, and pray daily for God’s blessings but who have significant parts of their lives “unsubmitted” to Jesus. They may be ignorant of his commands or have simply chosen to live by those that feel good and reject those that don’t. That will not bring the revelation of Jesus to our lives.

Secondly, he says that those who have his commands must also obey them. He defines that as a true expression of love. Love always directs us to do what blesses and honors the other person. Love is also expressed by submission. In scripture, children are to submit to parents, wives are to submit to husbands and husbands to wives (submit one to another – Eph.5:21) – and we all are to willingly submit to the Lord. Willing submission to the needs or directives of another is an expression of love as we live to please the other person. Willing submission is also a statement of belief that the one giving the directives or commands can be trusted because they love us and would only command us to do those things that will bless us.

Many of us declare our love to God and then live in disobedience. A friend of my wife Susan and mine has had some issues with the law lately and is spending some time in jail. She has written us to tell us how close she has gotten to Jesus since being imprisoned and was telling us about a great time of personal worship the other day. She said the Lord spoke to her clearly saying, “Worship me by obeying me.” That’s a good word for all of us.

Consistent obedience is truly an indicator of how we view Jesus. Is he Lord? Is he wise? Is he right? Is he trustworthy? Does he love us? If the answer is yes to each of those questions then why would we not obey him in all things? If we don’t live a life of obedience then we must answer “No” to some, if not all, of those questions. The way we live displays what we truly think about Jesus.

The revelation and manifestation of Jesus Christ is a precious commodity like getting an hour with the President of the United States or the CEO of a worldwide company. Their time and knowledge is precious and should be entrusted only to those who are trustworthy in the use of that time and knowledge. We are trustworthy if we are faithful and obedient. If we possess Christ’s commands and willingly obey them, then that is a true test of love and if we love the Son, the Father also takes notice. Ultimately, the reward for loving Jesus is his presence. After all, don’t we want to spend our time with those who love us, trust us, and appreciate us? Why wouldn’t Jesus feel the same?

If we want more of Jesus we will have to give him more of ourselves. If you are not connecting with Jesus or getting a greater revelation of him in your life, you may want to run an audit on your life to see if willing obedience motivated by love is consistently on the books. Be blessed and be obedient – even in the hard things. Then Jesus will gladly come to you.