Past The Thorny Crown

"Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe... So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, 'Behold the man!' " - John 19:1-2, 5 ESV

"Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain." - Mark 4:7 ESV

Thorns create a barrier of painful experience and yet Jesus endured wearing them on His head in full identification with us. That crown must have made carrying the cross that much more difficult.

I think having painful thoughts is a part of our human experience. We all have them at times. Jesus knows all about that. He led a shame free and guilt free life but He knows.

He wears a different crown today.

"I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all." - Ephesians 1:16-23 ESV

He identified with us and now we identify with Him. He experienced shame and pain and we experience glory and majesty.

"Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus," - Philippians 2:5 NKJV

God gave us a way to handle the thorns. Jesus is the way. We think with Him. He is past the pain and He extends His hand to us to bring us past it also.

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Come Boldly And Leave Through A Different Gate

I had a wonderful thought last night. It was a 'glimpse of a scene' thought. Often when I have thought about coming boldly before the throne of grace I have pictured entering a doorway and standing in a grand room with the king in a large chair. It was a room with one entrance that was also an exit. It was a place to linger and then leave but tonight I pictured something different. It was more like a parade that stops before a grandstand. People streaming in from one direction and then exited a different way. Some lingering but few leaving through the same entrance they entered.

"When the people of the land come before the LORD at the appointed feasts, he who enters by the north gate to worship shall go out by the south gate, and he who enters by the south gate shall go out by the north gate: no one shall return by way of the gate by which he entered, but each shall go out straight ahead." - Ezekiel 46:9 ESV

It was a grand vision for me because it spoke of progress.

If we don't exit the way we entered that means we pass through the throne of grace and end up in a different place because we went there and had an audience with God.

Wow. I don't think I will ever see Hebrews 4:16 the same way as i did before.

"Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." - Hebrews 4:16 ESV

Thank You God. I haven't seen Your throne with these eyes. I have only pictured it in my imagination but what a glorious place it must be. I go by faith now but one day we as a group will stand there beholding what we can only imagine now. Still just imagining it does something to us. We enter one way and we leave another way.

Hallelujah.

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Where do I Stand?

I just want to read this again and again and let it wash over me.

"Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace." Rom 6:3-14 NAS

What freedom this is! It is future filled with new beginnings. Transformation is what we have to look forward to. A life placed under grace.

We have died to sin consciousness... we have died to missing the mark... we have died in God's eyes and been reborn into something pure that can not be defiled or undone.

We can walk like the cross happened... like Easter happened. It happened in history and it has happened in our lives.

Nothing needs to reign in my life but God and this truth.

I like to read this and say to myself, "If this is true... since this is true... then what?"
I can read it and say to God, "Maybe I am thinking too small... God will you help me?"
Then I read it again... and again... and again... All the while I have a conversation with God about my relationships, my marriage, my job, my bank account, my future...

Today my body will not bow before the tyranny of a system I have died to... my mind is before another throne... It is a throne of grace.