Fallen

One of my favorite singers is Sarah McClachlin, who must have one of the purest voices I have heard. She sings a haunting ballad, called Fallen, which has such powerful lyrics. For those in great crisis, she sings words of hope ....

Heaven bent to take my hand - and lead me through the fire
Be the long awaited answer - To a long and painful fight

She also reflects such honesty in her crisis ...

Truth be told I've tried my best - but somewhere along the way ...
I got caught up in all there was to offer - and the cost was so much more than I could bear

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A miracle reunion

A couple set out to reopen a church in suburban Brooklyn, but the building was very run down. They set a goal to repair it in time for their first service on Christmas Eve and worked hard to repair pews, walls and the floors. They were ahead of schedule and almost done, when a two-day storm caused the roof to leak, causing a large area of plaster to fall off the front wall of the sanctuary just behind the pulpit.

The pastor cleaned up the mess and headed home. On the way he saw a local business was having a sale, so he stopped in and found a beautiful, crocheted tablecloth with exquisite workmanship, fine colors and a Cross embroidered right in the center. It was just the right size to cover the hole in the front wall.

He bought it and headed back to the church, but on the way he bumped into an older woman who was trying to catch a bus. She missed the bus, so the pastor invited her to wait in the warm church for the next bus 45 minutes later.

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Every move you make

In 1983 Gordon Sumner aka Sting, released "Every move you make" with the Police. There is an ironic twist to the song, given that it was by the Police, for indeed they do watch, like big brother, ready to pounce if we err. However, it was a love song, not a policeman's rap.

The words speak of watching over every breath and move as we break our bonds:
Every breath you take and every move you make
Every bond you break, every step you take, I'll be watching you
Every single day and every word you say
Every game you play, every night you stay, I'll be watching you

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Heaven and Hell

A huge, rough samurai once went to see a little monk, hoping to acquire the secrets of the universe.

"Monk," he said, in a voice accustomed to instant obedience. "teach me about heaven and hell."

The little monk looked up at the mighty warrior in silence. Then, after a moment, he said to the samurai with utter disdain, "Teach YOU about heaven and hell? I couldn't teach you about anything. You're dirty. You smell. Your blade is rusty. you're a disgrace, an embarrassment to the samurai class. Get out of my sight at once. I can't stand you!"

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Was it a morning like this

We attended an Easter Sunday surnrise service this morning, but it was held in a graveyard. Did we seek the living amongst the dead?

The only reason we used the graveyard was that it afforded the best view of the village below, the mountains beyond and the watery sun that struggled to rise over an uncertain world.

It occured to me that the dead in this village had the best view of all, the best location of any other citizen. There is a metaphor in that, for in this life we see through a glass darkly, now in part, but then face to face. The best views in the house are all are reserved for our moment of death, when we pass out of this world with its limited perspective of glory and the gloom clears to reveal the breathless wonder that awaits us all.

Maybe if we could see more clearly, we would run more surely, but maybe that in itself determines our future perspectives. After all, a runner who has endured the race and fought the last miles, has a far better perspective of the glory of finishing than any spectator can ever have. So, in spite of the removal of the veil that obscures our grasp of heaven, a veil will yet remain for those who have not fought for the prize or run the race or gained mastery or struggled to overcome.

Only the hot and sweaty, the heaving and panting will gain a true concept of glory, for they will see through their tears and the mists of many sorrows, to a rest that surpasses all this world has to offer. They will have a surpassing view that even angels will desire to look into - for they will see Jesus not just as king or the Lord of all, but as the friend that stuck closer than a brother, the friend who never forsook them in life or death.

Peter Eleazar@4u2live.net

Across the line

The day before, the day after. Movie and song titles, which suggest life-changing moments of wonder.

In 1982, Abba released the song, “Before you came”. Though relatively unsuccessful in the US, with only one chart-topper, Abba became a world-wide phenomenon through the seventies and eighties.

“Before you came”, traces the recollections of a woman to the day before a lover entered her life. It reminds me of the day John F Kennedy died. I was a kid then, but I remember lying on the lounge floor reading about his assassination and marveling about it all. I also remember hearing the first news of 911 on my car radio. Initially the reports indicated a light plane had crashed into the World Trade Centre, but by the time I got home it was apparent that the US was under attack – so I grabbed my family and we rushed to the television to watch the unthinkable – before it had yet become an oft-replayed recording, we watched live feed of the towers collapsing into Manhattan dust. In both cases I know of many tales from many people that recount “the day before …”.

Well the singer in “Before you came” also recalled a hum-drum, predictable life of “bed by a quarter after ten (she likes to be in bed by then) with a book by Marilyn French” and a whole lot of other things that she could recall because of the predictability of her life. Then “he” came along and her life was never the same again.

She could have been singing about Jesus, for, although I cannot recount how my life was, “before He came”, I can say that my life changed forever after I met Him. It was a watershed moment that gripped my imagination, harnessed my passions and captivated my senses for the rest of my life. He is so real, so relevant, so faithfully accessible, that I could never live without Him. That was as true during the darkest years of my life when He was the last man standing: He never left me in my shame, but faithfully accompanied me through the vale of sorrow, to a new day.

In the game of cricket, the line or crease that defines the limits of a bowler’s run-up, can result in a penalty for the bowler: called a no-ball. He is not allowed to step over it, but he can even be penalized for standing on the line. The penalty call is reserved by the umpire. In cricket terms: “the line belongs to the umpire”.

In recent articles, I have referred to the law of precedence, that line crossed by Adam and many others, which brought misery on their descendants. I compared that line with the line that Jesus crossed to restore life and hope. Well that line also belongs to the umpire, the Father, the sole arbiter of His laws and the blessings or curses that derive from them.

The day before Jesus came, sin ruled and remained unchecked. The whole of humanity was in the relentless grip of Satan’s oppression, due to the precedence of Adam’s transgression. At Calvary, a new precedent was set and that line defined a past, present and future. Satan could only rely on the past, for the future was out of his hands: notwithstanding his ongoing influence over this world. The key to what I am saying relates to rights: Satan may still cause trouble, but he has no precedence, no legal standing. At best, Satan is only a liar, for the substance of his claims against us was revoked by Christ and the line belongs to the judge of all hearts.

In the next article I will show how Calvary implies a general victory and the foundation for all breakthroughs in our lives. But I will also show that the principle also applies to specific breakthroughs, where trouble in our lives will meet its Waterloo and become a thing of the past so that we can go on into an unhindered, liberated future.

(>(c) Peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com<>

By one man ...

A river alters course in response to key events or moments, just as historic incidents changed life.

The law of precedence is a powerful biblical principle.

When one man, Adam, broke one law, he brought an immediate end to his status quo and imposed a curse on all succeeding generations, you and I included.

Similarly, when one man, Esau, despised his birthright, he changed history and disqualified himself and succeeding generations from all participation in the Abrahamic covenant. However, in a similar act, one man, Jacob, stepped up to the plate, wrenched the blessing away from his brother and became the patriarch of Israel.

Later, one man, Saul, made one foolish blunder and invalidated his life and the lives of his descendants. It was just a single moment of madness, but it changed everything.

These are sad realities. I perceive that certain things happened in my own past, some of which generally impacted my family, whilst others impacted me personally. I am not entirely sure what happened, but I carried all kinds of burdens in my life as a result of a transaction that opened my life to spiritual oppression.

The principles behind all of this come from the laws of God, in terms of which curses and blessings are invoked by individual acts and inherited by succeeding generations. A right reading of scripture suggests that the laws and their implications preceded the articulation of the laws at Mount Sinai, for sin reigned from Adam to Moses (Romans 5). The laws merely came to reveal what was not known or understood about sin, namely that sin carries consequences, whether committed in ignorance (prior to the law) or deliberately (with full knowledge of the law). To that end, Paul says in Romans 1, that the gentiles who were without law, had the laws of God written in their consciences.

The curses are ingrained within the laws, so God does not subjectively respond to each incident of sin and decide to curse us. Sin is a curse and it invokes curses over our lives. Moreover, even if we exceed all the laws and fail only in one law, we are guilty of all sins under the law: such is the principle of precedence.

The perpetuation of sin leads to iniquities, (Hebrew: bent) which are the long-term distortions that result from sin: a bit like the reaction of plastic to fire. Iniquities are the sin-characteristics that become habitual and self-recurring in our lives, often exceeding our own awareness. Others may see the flaws in our personalities and psychologists may classify them into personality disorders or syndromes, but sin is still the route cause. Thus, sins set the precedence for long-term problems and distortions of our lives.

This brings me to another precedent. At the cross, one man died for all and in Him all died that we might appropriate His risen life. For as much as death came through one man, Adam, so the second Adam set a new precedent by which life came by one.

In a separate study, I have shown that time exists in heaven – read more at www.4u2live.net. A key implication of time is that it is always progressive. It has a past, present and future. That is also true of divine time. There is such a thing as yesterday and by way of confirmation we read that the angels worship “day and night”. If there is a divine yesterday, then the work of the cross is the marker that separates today from yesterday and concludes our past. God is saying through this, that the claims over your soul, the curses of sin, can only go as far as the cross. There they can be resolved and become a part of our yesterday.

That is a vital part of spiritual warfare. If we really want to be free, we must understand that in the cross we are birthed into a new day, free of the past. Romans 6 and 7 further clarifies God’s intent, showing that because of death (our death in Christ), we sever the jurisdiction of the law in a way that compares with a widow’s termination of all obligations to her marriage.

So I declare that in Christ you live in a new day. A precedent was set at the cross that is as fundamental as the bad precedent set by Adam. All who trace back their lives to the cross are heirs to the precedent of righteousness and mercy in Christ. That precedent revokes the foregoing precedence set by Adam. We are a free people and we are exempt from sins committed under the old covenant, because of what Jesus did.

(c) Peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com