"...Because His heart was focused on the joy of knowing that you would be His, He endured the agony of the Cross and conquered its humiliation..." (Hebrews 12:2 TPT)
Before Christ endured His final wrestling match on the Cross, He learned obedience through the things He suffered. He grew His spiritual muscles by resisting a barrage of weighty temptations, including forty grueling days in the wilderness. With God's Word as a double-edged sword in His mouth, Jesus dispelled satan's lies in exchange for His Father's truth. Our Savior presented a glorious picture of submission, which now helps us choose life-giving obedience to ask, knock, and seek until we understand and implement His purpose for our life in our own wilderness.
To see yourself rooted in Christ, like a branch in a vine that bears fruit in every season, is to see yourself pursuing Kingdom advancement and moving out of the confines and limitations of what you have experienced in the past -- abandoning passionless, feckless living -- being possessed by the fire of the Holy Spirit. Even as you're surrounded and championed by ministering spirits and the great cloud of witnesses, in Jesus' name, may you picture Emmanuel, God with us, more clearly today. For to see Him is to trust Him, and to trust Him is to be one with His Word.
"Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." - Hebrews 12:1,2
Before Christ endured His final wrestling match on the Cross, He learned obedience through the things He suffered. He grew His spiritual muscles by resisting a barrage of weighty temptations, including forty grueling days in the wilderness. With God's Word as a double-edged sword in His mouth, Jesus dispelled satan's lies in exchange for His Father's truth. Our Savior presented a glorious picture of submission, which now helps us choose life-giving obedience to ask, knock, and seek until we understand and implement His purpose for our life in our own wilderness.
To see yourself rooted in Christ, like a branch in a vine that bears fruit in every season, is to see yourself pursuing Kingdom advancement and moving out of the confines and limitations of what you have experienced in the past -- abandoning passionless, feckless living -- being possessed by the fire of the Holy Spirit. Even as you're surrounded and championed by ministering spirits and the great cloud of witnesses, in Jesus' name, may you picture Emmanuel, God with us, more clearly today. For to see Him is to trust Him, and to trust Him is to be one with His Word.
"Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." - Hebrews 12:1,2
