A Path Through the Blood of the Slaughtered
This post has been a bit of a struggle to write this morning, and I'm realizing it is because for some strange reason I am wrestling with God about what to write. This is His blog; it was not my idea, and it is not my endeavor. But now that it exists, I'm finding myself wanting to use it to speak my own musings until He reigns me in and says, "It's clever, but it's not what I'm saying." Isn't that just how the enemy works?
I woke up at about 4am this morning and started writing a post about "Lift Every Voice and Sing." As I sung it in my head, I wrote out all three verses as I had memorized them in 3rd or 4th grade. I was reflecting on MLK Day, but part way through writing the blog the Lord pointed out I was writing it and not Him. That has never happened before today. Normally if I am writing a note in my phone at 4am it is a download from Holy Spirit.
Lord, forgive me. I definitely do not want to exchange my own clever thoughts for Ruach-breathed, dynamis-empowered Words from You.
So I opened a new note and jotted down the rhema word which I felt Ruach was breathing on, and it was a message about the Red Sea foreshadowing the blood of Jesus. A way has been opened unto us out of the wilderness and into the Promised Land through the blood of Jesus.
It is the blood of Jesus which opens the way from death to life, taking us from being objects of God's wrath living outside of relationship with Him into to being His sons.
It is the blood of Jesus which drowns our enemy oppressors so that depression, fear, anxiety, greed, lust, perversion, addictions, offense, trauma, poverty/lack, incarceration, disease, control/rebellion/witchcraft do not follow us into our Promised Land (and I'm just naming some of the enemies in my own bloodline).
2 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:1-10 NIV
It is the blood of Jesus which frees us at every level to become who He created us to be. This is our Promised Land, our inheritance: abundant life. No more are we to wander around in the desert not knowing where to go. We are re-formed in the womb of Jesus (Hebrew word raham found in psalm 103:4), remade into His image and rebirthed into the world as children of God, doing the good works He prepared in advance for us to do.
We are no longer dead in sin, we no longer satisfy the cravings of our sin nature. We receive the gift of the blood of Jesus from the sacrifice of His life on the cross where He exchanged our destiny for His. His life was cut short but His life is now lived through us as we come together with the rest of the body of Christ and live out His purposes on the earth: setting captives free, loving the Lord with all of our hearts and loving others as ourselves.
Your Promised Land is where your flesh dies and your spirit man comes to life and you begin really living. What an adventure it is when we begin to actually serve the purpose for which we were created. What can you do today which will lead others in a path toward freedom?
Here is my rewriting of Lift Every Voice and Sing from memory. Please forgive any wrong lyrics or punctuation but this is the song as I learned it by heart:
Lift every voice and sing til earth and heaven ring; ring with the harmony of liberty.
Let our rejoicing rise high as the listening skies. Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us.
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us.
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun, let us march on til victory is won.
Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod felt in the days when hope unborn had died.
Yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears have been watered. We have come treading a path
through the blood of the slaughtered.
Out from the gloomy past til now we stand at last where the bright gleam of our new star is cast.
God of our weary years. God of our silent tears. Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way.
Thou who hast by Thy might led us into the night keep us forever in the path we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places our God where we met Thee.
Lest our hearts drunk with the wine of the world we forget Thee.
Shadowed beneath Thy hand, may we forever stand true to our God, true to our native land.
Prayer: Forgive us, Lord, for wanting our own way. Our way leads to death. But if we choose death, if we take up our cross and follow You, we will become more alive than we ever dreamed. Show us our next steps, Lord, in our own journey to freedom. Use our gifts, talents and resources to free others whether it be children and adults being trafficked in the sex trade or our own family members lost in addiction or depression. Let freedom march on in our lives and in our world.
Amen, Lord! May it be to Your servant as You have spoken.
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