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Good Friday - The Dust and The Blood

Good Friday - The Dust and the Blood

In Luke 22 verse 44 it reads in the Passion Translation, “He (Jesus) prayed more passionately like one being sacrificed.”

This account is describing when Jesus begins to pray with such agony that His sweat turns to blood. It is hard to imagine the enormous agonizing pain that He was enduring. Yet with these drops of blood and sweat the remission of sin had already begun.

We are told that Jesus habitually came to this garden to pray. Although we know exactly what He prayed for on this night of intense pressing, I couldn’t help but think about what else He must have prayed in this very place. Our natural, physical, place of prayer becomes a very special and intimate place of communion. Repeatedly, Jesus came to this place and joined His heart in intimate union with the Father. How many hours of communion had He spent there? There, Jesus heard the Father’s voice. He felt His comfort. He shared His heart and petitions with the Father in this very Garden.

The soil held history. The place became a consecrated place of communion. A place where love was shared by Father, Son, and Spirit. All of those intimate moments; all those little and large surrenders along the way had led Him again to this Garden of communion to be pressed with the ultimate pressing. Now, in this hour, He would experience His greatest surrender. The surrender that would subdue the soul’s will for all eternity. As Jesus prayed for the Father’s perfect will to be completed; dropping on to that soil was His all-powerful, saving, blood. Slowly dripping with souls’ agony and being absorbed into the dust.

There was another garden of communion in the beginning. In that garden Yahweh formed a man out of dust, soil, and molded him. He breathed into him the breath of Life and he became a living soul-the first Adam. Yet that first Adam, made from dust, committed his disobedient act by a tree. As he ate its fruit, he surrendered to his own will, bringing death and condemnation to us all.

It is a striking contrast to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Now, the Last Adam, Jesus, also made in humanity’s image and likeness is kneeling by a tree in the garden. Yet this time, He refuses to take the same path as the First Adam. No fruit to eat. Instead, Jesus surrenders in obedience. A surrender so arduous and agonizing He begins to sweat blood. Those drops of precious holy blood soak into the dust of this Garden declaring that victory is coming to overturn the curse that entered by the man made from dust in the beginning. Saving blood dripping for a will totally surrendered.

Yes, the first battle of the war to overthrow the curse and kingdom of darkness had been won. The final battle was just before Him, on a cross between two thieves. Praise the Lord!! He wins that one too!  

Centered On

While the world is captured by more and more chaos, it is a strategic time when the church of Jesus Christ should be praying more earnestly for the Lord’s return. He is coming….the time of His arrival has been set in the Father’s heart. The time frame may be debated on the earth, but His return is not. Jesus told us that wars and rumors of wars would happen. We should not be surprised or shaken because of them. Peace is the kingdom of God we hold within. Jesus is our Peace.

I want to encourage you to remember to stay centered on these: 

1. The Way
2. The Sound
3. The Spirit
4. The Light

The Way - make your hearts straight, open, before Him. In humility remove all interference that would keep you from intimacy with Him. We are not called to fix or perfect ourselves, however, we are called to make the adjustments Holy Spirit is asking us to. Our obedience to His leading is crucial in making our heart straight and open before Him. Remember, even if you fail, keep trying. Ask for His grace to be poured out upon you and rejoice that new mercies are new today, and every morning. 

The Sound - keep your spiritual ears open to hear what the Spirit is saying. 
Matthew 4:4 Amplified -
But He replied, It has been written, Man shall not live and be upheld and sustained by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.

Jesus said we “live on every SPEAKING Word from the Father.” He used the term “rhema.” It is important that we hear the sound, the spoken word, that is being released over us. As we “confess” the Rhema He speaks, we are “saying the same as.” I see this as entering in to the same sound. There is power released when we are in agreement with what the Spirit is saying.

The Spirit - cultivate, and keep cultivating communion with Holy Spirit. Fight for your time of intimacy with Him. As we partake daily of the written scriptures, prayer, communion, and even assembling with the body, we are ensuring that we are remaining vitally united with Holy Spirit. Paul writes in Romans 12:2, “surrender yourselves to God to be His sacred, living sacrifices.” (Passion Translation).Because of all that Jesus has done to redeem and restore us back to the Father, there can be no other response but to give all of our lives to Him in total surrender.
John 15:4 (Passion Translation)
So you must remain in life-union with me, for I remain in life-union with you. For as a branch severed from the vine will not bear fruit, so your life will be fruitless unless you live your life intimately joined to mine.

The Light - it is my whole-hearted belief that if we live in “life-union” with Jesus that He will completely, and perfectly, transform us. Transformation means Light! As Jesus was transfigured on the mountain He became a Light-being. So much so, that even His garments returned to their original matter…Light! 
Paul tells us in Romans 12:2, “but be inwardly transformed by the Holy Spirit through a total reformation of how you think.” That word “transformed” is the same word as transfigured when referring to Jesus on the mount.

If we will fully live “in the way,” with our ears open to hearing “the sound” He is releasing, while remaining in surrender and union with Holy Spirit, we will be transformed into the image of Jesus and become the Light, or we can say, “the glory” of the Lord. What is glory? It is the manifestation of the presence of God!
So in the midst of confusion, chaos, war, terror, etc, what the world needs is Jesus. The reality of Him and His love and His power. And beloved, He is shown through us, His church, His body, His Bride.