Tag: Mercy

One day as I was talking to the LORD, expressing my devotion to him. I said to him, “My love and my life are yours! Consume me!”

What I meant by that is he could use me and do with me whatever he wanted. You see I have suffered and been persecuted a lot by people. And after all the hurt and pain and my soul feeling crushed, in a moment of ecstatic bliss with King Jesus I was laying my life on the altar again declaring to my King, “You can have it all. If you want me to be run down and beaten then my life is yours to do with what you want. And if you want me to pour out my love on people who will be ungrateful and despitefully use me then King Jesus it’s yours to do with whatever you want!”

Do you know what his response to me was? It wasn’t, “Oh, my wonderful servant! I love your exclamation of devotion towards me!” Nope, not at all. What he said to me was, “No! My LOVE and My LIFE are yours. Consume me!”

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

ESV, John 6:53

That was the response he gave to me. An emphatic NO. Then he began to show me where true Love and Life is found. It is found in his sacrifice. How he gave his body to be run down and beaten. How he poured out his love on people who were ungrateful and despitefully used him.

Not long after he told me that I went out and bought the elements of communion (the bread and wine). And began to take communion with my family more often. I would say, “Lord you told me, “My LOVE and My LIFE are yours. Consume me!” So that’s what I am doing eating your flesh and drinking your blood. Please teach me what you mean when you said to eat your flesh and drink your blood.”

Lessons Learned

I am still learning this lesson. I ask him what he meant by that often and I believe he has given me some answers, but I am still unpacking this. Some of what I have received I will give to you.

First, He was telling us to remember his sacrifice.

And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me

Luke 22:19

Second, he was talking about the New Covenant.

Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you

Luke 22:20

He wants us to remember his sacrifice. What he did to have us back to himself again, and how sure and steadfast that is. How he gave up his body to be broken for our healing, and how he poured out his blood for our redemption.

The next thing he was conveying to me was, that it’s not about my devotion to him. It’s about his devotion to me. Now, full disclaimer, I am not saying that we should not be faithful to Jesus. What I am saying is that we are unable to be faithful to him through our own strength and we need to rely fully on his promise to make us and keep us faithful to him. I will tell you this is a hard lesson to learn at times and I will explain in more detail below what I mean by this.

Our Devotion Or His?

If Jesus was looking at our devotion to him he would have respected Peter’s exclamation towards him before he took the cross. When Peter expressed to the Lord, “I will go with you wherever. I am willing to die for you!” (paraphrased from Luke 22:33). Little did Peter know that when he was relying on his devotion to the Lord he was trusting in his own strength to take him to the cross and not in the Lord’s devotion and strength to bring him through it.

You see that’s where a lot of us fall. We rely on our own love and devotion to take the cross and not on God’s love and devotion to see us through. But when you’ve been humbled by your own lack of strength, and you know that you can’t make it on your own. That’s when the words of Jesus ring so loud and true,

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”

Matthew 5:3

Poor In Spirit

It’s to the poor in spirit that Jesus said they were blessed and that the kingdom of heaven was their possession. But what does it mean to be poor in spirit? When we hear verses like: “The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit” (ESV, Psalm 34:18) what exactly comes to our mind? Is it a person whose spirit cannot be broken and full of strength? I will tell you right now that is not a person who has poverty in their spirit.

When I think of the poor in spirit a glaring example that comes to mind is Naomi in the book of Ruth. She was so crushed and broken that she ended up changing her name to Mara (bitterness). Bless God for Ruth and her faithfulness! Because of Ruth’s faithfulness to Naomi God’s salvation came to her. I also think of David when he was on the run from Saul in the wilderness. When he said in his heart, “I know that one day Saul is going to kill me. It is better to go live with the heathen so that I won’t die by his hands” (paraphrased from 1 Samuel 27:1).

In both of these examples, they were both crushed in spirit and had no strength left to give. That’s when God’s grace stepped in and elevated them out “from the ash heap, To set them among princes And make them inherit the throne of glory” (NKJV, 1 Samuel 2:8). With David, not long after he said that in his heart he received the kingdom. And Naomi after she called herself empty she became the mother (through Ruth) of kings! The lineage of David and Jesus came through her!

The poor in spirit are the ones that the New Covenant belongs to. Those who have finally come to the end of their self and realized, I cannot make it without you King Jesus. Please help me! This is the whole reason why the New Covenant was formed because we could not do it by ourselves.

Drinking The Cup of Old Wine

It was because of our insufficiency that Jesus took the cross and fulfilled the Old Covenant for us. I remember when Jesus was asking the Father to allow this cup to pass from him in the garden of Gethsemane:

And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” 

And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.

ESV, Matthew 26:39-42

Do you see the subtle difference in what he prayed? At first, he was asking the Father if at all possible to let the cup pass from him. Then when he saw his disciples sleeping he returned and said, If this cannot pass unless I drink it then your will be done. When he found his beloved friends asleep he realized unless I drink the cup of this Old Covenant then they will not be able to drink from the cup of the New.

And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will spill, and the wineskins will be ruined. Instead, new wine is poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants new, for he says, ‘The old is better

BSB, Luke 5:37-39

Our Father has shown me that not only while Jesus was fulfilling the Law and the Prophets (drink the Old wine for us), they actually gave him old sour wine to drink right before he died. Look at how amazing God is!

“And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink”

ESV, Matthew 27:48

So prophetic! God is so awesome at showing examples of things in the spirit by performing them on this earth.

A New Covenant For A New People

The Old Covenant is all about our devotion to him. While the New Covenant is about believing in his devotion to us. If Jesus was looking for our devotion to him then the Old Covenant would have been sufficient, but because there was an insufficiency with us that’s why he made another covenant.

For if that first Covenant had been without fault, no place would have been sought for a second. But God found fault with the people and said:

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a New Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the Covenant I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt— a Covenant they broke, though I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. “But this is the Covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD. I will put My law in their minds and inscribe it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people. No longer will each man teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquities and will remember their sins no more.”

By speaking of a New Covenant, He has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear.

BSB, Hebrews 8:7-8, Jeremiah 31:31-34, Hebrews 8:13

A New Day Dawns

That Old Covenant based on our devotion to him is obsolete and aging and will soon disappear. But this New Covenant which is based on faith in him (i.e. believing in his steadfast love and devotion toward us) is growing brighter and brighter.

“But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, That shines brighter and brighter until the full day”

NASB, Psalm 4:18

That path of the righteous is the one our savior made through his blood. Thank you, Jesus! God bless you Son of God. I no longer have to trust in my own strength to see me through to the end. I can trust in God’s love and life to see me through. I can trust in the power of His Spirit!

Then he said to me, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts.

ESV, Zechariah 4:6

I am so grateful that he decided to find me and call me to himself. Thank you for increasing the power of the weak! I am so grateful to you, God, for giving strength to the powerless. Bless him forever! As I come to a close I just can’t help but exclaim how grateful I am for this new and living way Jesus has made for us!

By his death, Jesus opened a new and [living] way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place.

NLT, Hebrews 10:20

I love you all and thank you for reading! I hope this is informative and helps bring understanding to what kind of Covenant we have with our God. So thankful that it’s no longer about me, but all about him! Take a deep drink of God’s faithfulness today and rest in the finished work of Jesus! He is our Sabbath!