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Prelude to Light |
Take and drink all of you.
The
Branching Blood of Jesus Messiah.
While living by Faith IN Christ Jesus, Paul and the other writers of the Gospel have abdicated the will of their minds, into the hand of the only Holy Lord God of the Living. God's Holy Spirit hones all of His yielded earthen vessels into righteous instruments that show forth God's Great Salvation Gift for man-kind and thereby bring Glory to the Creator of Life. Paul writes to the Corinthians of his manifest trials that do not shake him IN his faith IN Jesus/Yeshua, God's Holy One Who leads and the One Paul follows. It is God with Whom we have to do, that makes all things to work together for our good, according to His designed Will and purpose of bringing sons and daughters into the Kingdom of His Son. The Lord disciplines those whom He loves, and although the chastening appears severe in the moment of our time, the outcome in glory, far out weighs the present grief. No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening, it is painful! But afterward there will be a quiet harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way. So take a new grip with your tired hands and stand firm on your shaky legs. Mark out a straight path for your feet. Then those who follow you, though they are weak and lame, will not stumble and fall, but will become strong. (Hebrews 12 verse 11 thru 13). May God forbid that we, in our ignorance of His Holiness, would become stumbling blocks for others that would follow in the WAY of Righteousness that abides IN Jesus Christ.
Paul preaches the true Gospel through the power of the two-edged Sword of God's Holy Spirit. Paul's letters of exhortation to the Ecclesia, are written to strengthen their faith in the hearing of the Word of God, and encourage them in the straight and narrow way they are called to walk, even as he was called to faithfully walk after Jesus Christ. God has led him into and through fiery trials that in the exercising of his faith, Paul's mind becomes conformed to the Will of God, proving what is good, and what is acceptable in the Sight of God. Through Jesus Christ and His cross, Paul sees the working of death, in that which is good, for it separate the new man IN Christ from his own idolatrous self, so that the intercessory Life of Jesus Christ alone, is made manifest in the life of others. Nothing is hid in our darkness, and all of our thoughts are naked before the Holy Spirit of God. In the Light of His Word, God's One Holy Spirit reveals to the Ecclesia of our needful dependency upon Yahweh God's New Covenant in the Life giving Blood IN Christ Jesus: For Almighty God is faithful and just to cleanse Christ's followers of all their confessed unrighteousness through the Fountain of His Serum Water and Blood that poured from the wounds of Christ Jesus, for They are One with the Spirit of Holy God.
I have given---the blood to you on the altar.
The following scriptures and spiritual analysis are presented to you for your thoughtful and prayerful consideration, for they concern the efficacious reasons why we eat and drink of the Holy Spirit's Presentation of the real Body and real Blood, of Jesus Christ (Yeshua Messiah). Paul's rendering in 1st Corinthians 11 verse 26 is amplified thus: "For every time you eat this Bread and drink this Cup, you are representing (with in yourself and to the world) and signifying (with in yourself and to the world) and proclaiming to the world the fact of the Lord's death (for our sins) until He comes again. "With in yourself and to the world" is added to clarify the ongoing thoughts. Hopefully, all that is written in these pages will be understood, and provoke the reader to a deeper walk and Communion/Koinonia/Fellowship with our Just and Holy God of Love and Mercy, and with each other in the Holy Body of Jesus Christ.
For God so loved the world that He gave His Only Begotten Son. That whosoever believes in His Son should not perish, but have Eternal Life. (John 3 verse 16 .)
I have given: God has given the Life IN the Blood of His only begotten Son, as an Infinite Sacrifice for the sins of the world. Blood gives life to the flesh, and the Flesh of Jesus Christ is One with His Holy Father God Almighty, and likewise the Blood of Jesus Christ that is One with His Body is One with His Father Yahweh God. The LIFE Blood of Jesus Christ that supplied LIFE to the Body of the Son of Adam is Eternal Life, for His LIFE Blood is Eternally One with His Eternal Father Yahweh God Almighty. To wit, that God was IN Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and has committed unto us His Word of reconciliation. (2nd Corinthians 5 verse 19.)
In God's New Blood Covenant of LIFE, God poured out the full cup of His Righteous Judgment upon His Perfect Sacrificial Lamb, for Christ was the scapegoat for the blood guiltiness of all of man kind. The Son of Man, Jesus Christ, saw within the cup that He was to drink, the abominations of mankind and knew of Holy God's full judgment against man's sin. For He has made Him to be sin for us, Who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.. Then Yeshua/Jesus prayed three times that He would not have to drink from that cup of His Father's indignation. O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me: Nevertheless, not as I will, but according to Thy will. Holy God's Judgment was poured out in His fury upon His Only Begotten Son, for He was made to be Sin for all of man kind, For it pleased YAHWEH to bruise Him, He has put Yeshua to grief; when thou shall make His Soul and Offering for sin. YAHWEH shall see the travail of His Soul and shall be satisfied, because My righteous Servant has poured out His Soul unto death, baring the sin of many, and made intersession for the transgressors. (See Matthew 26 verse 39 and Isaiah 53 verse 10 thru 11)
Christ Jesus, the Son of Man/Adam, presented His Soul to God Almighty as an unblemished Offering for sin, and with His Offering of Himself, He would make peace with God, for all those who would have faith in mankind's Supreme Representative before Holy God Almighty. In the celebration of the three major feast of the Lord, all of the males of age were absolutely required of God to present themselves before the Almighty and to bring a presentation offering that would be sacrificed for sin as a peace offering. The required offering was called the Chagigah or Hagigah. With His death on the cross, Jesus the Christ of God, as the Son of the first Adam presented His sinless self as the Chagigah, (Presentation Offering) to satisfy God's Wrath against the sin of man-kind. There are no more sacrifices of any kind, for God presented to Him Self, His own Chagigah in His resurrected Word and Son, as the Representative Son of Man, meaning the first Adam.
Again we hear the Scriptures of Life say: For He (Yahweh) has made Him (Yeshua) to be sin ---- for us, Who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. (2nd Corinthians 5 verse 21 .) We, being the corrupted offspring from the loins of Adam, were that violence and filth of sin that has contaminated the whole of the earth with violence. The flesh of the natural man is offended in the reality of the Face of the TRUTH. If Jesus Christ, was made to be sin for us, then what does that in reality make each one of us? Were we not within the whole of our being of flesh, soul and spirit of mind, the very nature of controlling sin that breeds death? Our death, is a result of the innate iniquities within our bodies of flesh that are corrupted thru and thru, and in the end will be reduced to nothing but the dust and ashes of the earth.
It is our unloving nature of sin that defiled Jesus Christ, God's Unleavened Bread of Heaven, for Holy One of God came down to be the unblemished Sacrificial Lamb of God?
For Holy God Almighty so loved the world that He gave His Only Begotten Son. That whosoever believes in His Son should not perish, but have Eternal Life. Yahweh Father God Almighty was well pleased with the Love and Obedience of the Son of Man so that Jesus' Body did not see corruption, but God's Yeshua/Salvation was Bodily raised in the LIFE of the Spirit of God.
The Love of God overcomes this World of sin and death, and His manifest Love constrains us while we dwell in this body of flesh. And Jesus took a cup, and when He had given thanks, (to His Father God) He gave it to them, saying, "Drink of it, all of you; for this is My Blood of the New Covenant, which is poured out for many for the remission of sins. (Matthew 26 verse 27 thru 28 .) Do this in remembrance of Who I AM.
I AM poured out like water: Thou dost lay Me in the dust.
I AM poured out like water, and all My bones are out of joint: My Heart is like wax, it is melted within My Breast: My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and My Tongue cleaves to My Jaws: Thou dost lay Me in the dust. (Psalm 22 verse 14 thru 15.)
The Lord of Life took upon Himself the fullness of guilt for all of mankind's violence to mankind, and ultimately to God the Creator of life. From Adam's defection in the Garden of Eden to this present destructive generation, this violence of sin has made the whole earth polluted in the blood of man. Scripture confirms this premise, for the Lord says to Moses: So you shall not pollute the land where in you are: For blood, it defiles the land: And the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed there in, but by the blood of him that shed it. (Numbers 35 verse 33.)
God, in His mercy to mankind, laid on the innocent Man, Jesus Christ, the full responsibility and guilt for all the blood shed by the hand of all of mankind. Even as this is remarkably true of the Branch, a very powerful mitigating factor In His Blood is now also present in the earth to give Life to the souls of men who died in Faith of the God of the Living.
Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, you that dwell in the dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. (Isaiah 26 verse 19.) Thou hast ascended on high, Thou hast led captivity captive: Thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them. Blessed be the Lord Who daily loads us with benefits, even our God of Salvation. (See Psalm 68 verse 18 thru 21, and Ephesians 4 verse 8.) Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is. (1st John 3 verse 2.)
I will cut him off from among his people.
The scripture reads in Leviticus 17 verse 10: If anyone, whether of the house of Israel or of the aliens residing among them, partakes of any blood, I will set Myself against that one who partakes of blood, and will cut him off from among his people.
In the garden of Gethsemane, the Lord Jesus Christ saw the horror of the full cup of the abominations of mankind, containing adultery, fornication, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousy, wrath, disputes, sedition, heresies, envying, murder, drunkenness and orgies and the list of violence goes on. The Lord Jesus, as the Son of Man, voluntarily drank the fullness of the cup of wrath filled with the blood guiltiness of all mankind, and became fully the sin of all the generations of humanity. The Lord, while on the cross, consumed the climax of this cup of blood guiltiness, ending when the soldier offered to Him a sponge dipped in sour wine attached to the branch of the hyssop. After the Lord partook of the sour wine, He cried out; "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me", and then He said; "It is finished", and then gave up His Spirit. (See John 19 verse 28 thru 30.) He was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of My people was He stricken. (Isaiah 53 verse 8). With the whole of His person being made the filthiness of the sin of all humanity, our Lord Jesus Christ, suffers death for mankind along with God's absolute indignation and total rejection of sin and its damnable nature.
Truly, Truly, I say unto you; except a kernel of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone: but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit. (John 12 verse 24). And the one Seed becomes a plurality, and yet the same as from the beginning.
Every time the redeemed of the Ecclesia comes together, they should faithfully participate in Holy Communion. Each faithful covenant member of the Lord's Body is to remember that the Life Blood of Jesus Christ, became the Infinite God's absolute purchase price for our redemption from sin and death. Upon drinking the Covenant Communion Life Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, we are submitting ourselves to the Will of God, and through our repentance from sin, the old trappings of our carnal man are being cut off, or circumcised by God's Sword of the Spirit. This is so that the new spiritual man IN Jesus may prevail IN the Life of God's Only Begotten Son. On our part, we willingly remain in covenant agreement with our baptism into the Lord’s death to sin. On God's part, unless we resist, we are surgically being cut off from the life of sin, so that we may continually arise into the new life of faithful service, being Graced by God's Spirit of Grace into the Sacrificial Love of God. In the God-ward process, we are becoming the new created genus of man IN Jesus Christ, but in God's pruning, we are also becoming aliens from the nature of worldly man. See, How great a Love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. But we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is. (1st John 3 verse 1 thru 2.)
The natural man does not understand the Holy Things of God, and so he will not understand the zeal of God's new man in Christ Jesus. If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated Me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you! "No servant is greater than his master." If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed My teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of My Name, for they do not know the One Who sent Me. (John 15 verse 18 thru 21 NIV). For all, who walk in the WAY of the Lord, there will come separations and the cutting off of the old associated nature of man through circumcision by the Sword of the Spirit: For the Word of God is One with the Covenant Life Blood of Jesus Christ. For the Lord, while praying to His Father, says of His Disciples: “They are not of this world, even as I AM not of the world. Sanctify them through thy TRUTH: Thy Word is TRUTH". If we liken ourselves as dead to sin through faith in the One Who has died for our sin, then we are being cut off from this world of sin, and separated from our confessed iniquities. For God is faithful to His Word and His Covenant of LIFE in the Blood of His Son Jesus Christ. The Almighty will sanctify the faithful with the Sword of His Spirit, because He is not wiling that any of His children should perish in their death. Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as you are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when His glory shall be revealed, you may be glad also with exceeding joy. If you be reproached for the Name of Christ, happy are you; for the Spirit of Glory and of God rests upon you: On their part He is evil spoken of, but on your part He is glorified. (1st Peter 4 verse 12 thru 14.)
For the LORD your God will circumcise your heart, and the heart of your seed, to love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, that you may live. (Deuteronomy 30 verse 6.) If the Love of God through Jesus Christ is to permeate one's life, then in the trying of our faith, there are the possibilities of being devastated emotionally within our beings, being set on fire by the unloving judgments of our fellow man. The results can be especially catastrophic, when we find ourselves cut off from family members who do not know the Spirit of the Living God of Creation. And yet we are to be more than conquers IN Christ Jesus, Who Loves us. "Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a SWORD. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man's foes will be those of his own household. He who loves father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he who does not take up his cross and follow Me, is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it. He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me, receives Him Who sent Me. He who receives a prophet because he is a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward, and he who receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward. And whoever gives to one of these little ones, even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly I say to you, he shall not lose his reward. (Matthew 10 verse 34 thru 42.) For the Lord God says: "Whosoever drinks the Blood, I will cut him off from among his people". God, in allowing the trials of our lives, gives no ground, for the earthly man, who is born of God's Spirit, to fall back upon the familiar things of the earth. Jesus says; "No man having put his hand to the plough, and looking back (to the things he left behind) is fit for the kingdom of God". (In context St Luke 9 verse 59 thru 62). That which is of the earth, is earthly, and shall perish, but that which is born again of God's Spirit of LIFE, is that person, who looks to the eternal things of God's Kingdom and His Glory. I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose Life, that both you and your seed may live: That you may love the LORD your God, and that you may obey His voice, and that you may cleave unto Him, for He is your LIFE: (See full context Deuteronomy 30 verse 19 thru 20.)
Now, perhaps, the spiritually circumcised person, who has a new heart seeking after God in His New Covenant, may come to a better understanding of their difficulties with family, and friends and with in themselves. Yea, and all who will live godly, in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution. (2nd Timothy 3 verse 12). But, blessed are you, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for My sake. (Matthew 5 verse 11.) Let the time that is past suffice for doing what the Gentiles like to do, living in licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry. They are surprised that you do not now join them in the same wild profligacy, and they abuse you. (1st Peter 4 verse 3 thru 4 .)
To proceed to the next chapter, please click on The Altar and the Cross.
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Robert Glenn Pratten