For Such a Time as ThisA

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.- Act 20:28

Dear God, Your Church is a group of broken people. We often badly represent You. We sometimes misrepresent You. We frequently are disobedient to Your clear commands. We fight among ourselves. We get off mission so easily. Change seems to come so slow to us. We can be worldly, we can  act unholy and we can be downright stupid. Lord Jesus, thank You that we are not our church BUT Your Church. We are Your Church  because  we are purchased by Your blood. You didn’t pay so great a price to leave us as we are. You are in the process of making us blameless and spotless and like Youself. Your are invested in us at the highest level. You bought us and we are Yours…forever. 

for by Your blood. 

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. – Galatians 2:20 

Lord I was crucified with You. But I didn’t feel the whip upon Your back. I didnt wince when the crown of thornes was placed upon Your head, I didn’t scream in agony when the nails were driven through Your hands and feet. My breath was not taken away when Your cross was dropped in the ground. I wasn’t stared upon in shame as You hung there between heaven and earth. I never felt the pangs of thirst or the excrutiating pains of suffication. I didn’t shed one drop of redemptive blood. I never felt the blackness of our Father turning away  and I never felt the need to cry out My God, My God why has Thou forsaken me. But I was crucified with You. I felt nothing because You bore all the physical, emotional and spiritual consequences of sin. Not Your sin, my sin. What you have done for me is overwhelming. Thank You that I can say “I was crucified with Christ.”

We lose one hour. Don’t forget to set your clocks one hour ahead Saturday night or early Sunday morning.

Calvary Men of Impact Retreat – Friday Night through Sunday Mid-day – Please keep our men in your prayers.

Friday, March 10th, 2017

“​Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” – Ephesians 2:12-13

Lord, as Gentiles we were not in a good state.We did not have the advantages of Your people the Jews. We were Christless, citizenshipless, covenantless, hopeless, and godless in this brutal and dark world. You did not leave us in that sad state of affairs. We who were afar off are now made near. How was that made possible? The blood of Jesus Christ. That which kept us from God was our sin. My sin kept me in a position of being  far off. The impediment, the road block, has been removed. Now I am no longer separated from Christ. He is my Messiah too. I am now a citizen of heaven. I partake of the New Covenant were Jew and Gentile are one body in Christ. I am filled with hope and I have drawn near to God as His dear Child. All because of the blood of Jesus Christ spilt out on that tree. Positionally it can’t get any better than this and it is all because of the cross. All praise be to God the Father through the Holy Spirit in the Name of the Son. Amen

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. -1 John 2:1‭-‬2 

Thank You my Lord for being my Advocate with the Father. Thank You for being my lawyer, my lawyer like no other. You enter my guilty plea and then pay the penalty for my crimes, appeasing the just demands of a Holy God. Justice  says the soul that sins must die and that the wages of sin is death, seperation from God both now and eternally. Seated at the right hand of the Father,  Your pierced hands, feet and side are visual reminders that my debt has been paid in full by You and You alone, the only Righteous One.  At Your cross justice and mercy are displayed in their fullness. The sinner that I am is provided salvation by the Savior that You are. I am in awe. In Your Name. Amen.

live-out-5-outline

Knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. – 1 Peter 1:18‭-‬19 ESV

Heavenly Father, I was on market. I was a prisoner to sin. I desperately needed to be redeemed, to be bought off that slave market never to be sold again. I could not redeem myself. My only resources would have been the  persishable things of this life like silver and gold. No matter how much I had of these it would not have been enough. The cost of my redemption was beyond anything any human could ever pay no matter the extent of their wealth. The price of my redemption was the precious blood of the spotless, blameless Lamb of God, Jesus Christ,Your Son. There has never, ever, ever been a greater price paid for a redemption. God, it is so hard to believe but it is so powerful to know that I’m worth so much to You that You would pay that kind of price for me, broken sinful me. It was the only way and You made it happen. Hallelujah. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my heart, my soul, my all.

Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Hebrews 9:25‭-‬26 

Lord, You have provided such an amazing path to Yourself. The New Covenant in Your blood is so incredible. Your sacrifice is not one that covers my sin for a year but  it is one that cancels my sin forever. It is not like the animal sacrifices repeatedly daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. It is a once for all sacrifice.  It’s an eternal sacrifice made by an eternal person, You Lord Jesus, to secure for us, for me, an eternal salvation. Hallelujah. What a Savior. 

“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” – 1 Corinthians 1:18

Lord, the world just doesn’t get it. When I speak of Your cross and the salvation found through its work they find my words foolishness. They think serious followers of Yours are fanatics.They find our faith in Your blood sacrifice offensive. Thank You that the preaching of Your cross is the power of God. Thank you that the message of Your cross changes lives, that it changed and is changing my life. Thank You that those who meet You at Your cross are never the same. Thank You that it doesn’t matter that the wise of this world find the cross foolishness. You have made their wisdom to be foolishness by what you’ve done in countless  lives through centuries. Thank You that my life is one of those lives. In Your Name I pray. Amen