put off the deeds
Romans 13:10–12 “Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.”
Beloved,
Let the fragrance of Christ arise within you, so that there will be no doubt in your relationship. It is a trust, a reliance on the truth, that there is no other, but Christ as Lord of our lives. It is internal and external, a unfathomable measure of His spirit living inside of us, exercising the Kingdom through us touching the world. Your worship comes from that position, to kneel before the Lord giving all of yourself to Him, and saying, “Here I am Lord, use me.” The song you hear erupting from within your heart, was first sung by Him. He sang with each step as He carried the Cross up the hill two-thousand years ago. It was in the cadence, the tempo of His breath in great heaves and gasps, physical strength evaporating as the sin of the world hammered down upon His shoulders until He reached the top. It was a love sent straight to you, though you were not born yet. It was a love that surpasses all of time’s boundaries, going past, present, and future.
The walk though labor intensive, brought joy to Him. He explained, “It was but for the joy set before me, that I endure the Cross.” He saw you, thought of you, examined you in-depth, forming a mental image of your life, and exposing it to His heart. What happened in those hours of torture and pain, excessive blood loss and flesh hanging from His frame? He cast the dream in you of something much more important than fleshly desires could ever attain, and established desire for the Holy. In you, He created a mobile temple of the Lord, which was never stationary. With His last breath, He exclaimed it is finished. The veil within the earthly temple was torn in two. The earth shook in the midst of the day, rattling with heaven’s grief at the loss of their only son Jesus. He reached into the depths of eternity with a single cry and commended His spirit into the Father’s hands.
The Father’s hands. Just the thought of resting there should bring everyone the promise of hope, of renewal, of healing, of life. We are God’s creation beloved, and being such have safeguards built into our life, bought with His blood and sealed with a kiss of His lips. That kiss, a breath that expired within a mortal frame, now released to travel the depths of a world gone mad, and empowered to take back the key to hell. Surely, the prisoners followed Him in a train through the Kingdom door, bought for this very moment. We enter in tonight, the temple of the Lord, to encounter Jesus like never before. His fire will consume you, if you let it. Change your outlook, give in to His love, His embrace that will leave you transformed. Nothing of this world can compare to this love, though the world’s dreams seek to do so but fall deathly short of achieving.
This my beloved is holy ground. Jesus was laid in a fresh tomb, and a stone was rolled over its gaping hungering mouth. All of mankind thought their savior was swallowed up by death’s grip and could not remember His words of three days. Established behind rock and wrapped in grave clothes hastily dressed upon His corpse’s shoulders, their lamb, this last sacrifice was laid. As morning of the third day arrived, a song of more love, more power, more of you in our life rose with intensity, and furor. The storm arrived, breaking the seal, that no other could break. Holy Spirit brooded in the face of the void, releasing eons of built-up righteous anger against the one that stole the world from man, and with a breath exercised the Father’s will bringing his Son Jesus out of the tomb and the world back into man’s hands.
His essence empowered through the promise of no decay for the holy one spoke, “The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.”
