Communion Insights - The Price Paid

A friend's mentor in the faith told him to ask God for a new insight on the Communion every time.  Since my friend told me this, I've done so.

Today, Jesus told me that the bread is the price of my purchase from my master.

Satan wanted Jesus to worship him, and in exchange Jesus would receive a gift: the entire world.  Jesus did not dispute that the world was Satan's to give!  He would rather die than worship Satan.  So instead of giving Satan worship, He allowed His body to be taken away.

A body is strength.  A body has the ability to change the world.  Jesus, adopted son of a house-builder, certainly had a strong body, but that wasn't how He changed the world.  With His muscles, He could probably have been a great warrior, if so trained, but that wasn't how He changed the world.  Instead, He changed the world by allowing His body to be publicly drained of strength and suffocated by fatigue and killed in the place of a murderer and insurrectionist against Israel's submission to Rome.

But the trick is that He died once to free all who chose freedom.

I was born into the slavery of sin.  My heritage was weakness, my lineage was fallibility, and my master was Satan.

The price for me, one body traded for another, was paid by Jesus.  He came into the place I was enslaved, this cruel world, and asked me if I wanted to be free.  I said yes.  The eldest son traded Himself for my slave-price, and I was washed clean by the blood of the Anointed One and adopted as a son of the house of Heaven.

I am ever grateful.

Thoughts on the Cross

Thoughts inspired by my church's reading of the Good Friday account in John 18 and 19:

• Jesus' death sentence was for blasphemy. It was a false accusation, but He accepted the sentence for His friends, who each in their own sins had committed that blasphemy, had declared themselves to be more intelligent than infinite God through their defiance of His laws.  Our pride is our death sentence, and Jesus has taken it for us, if we choose to be His friend.
• “Shall I crucify your king?” Pilate asked. “We have no king but Caesar,” the chief priests answered.  In doing so, they, the highest religious authorities of Jacob's line, broke the covenant and ended the Levite priesthood. Then, upon Jesus' death, the inner veil of the Temple was torn, showing that God had accepted His sacrifice, that the age of the priesthood of Melchizedek had come, to offer forgiveness to all the Jews and gentiles.
• Pilate crucified Jesus with the sign "King of the Jews" in the languages of the people (Aramaic), of the Empire (Latin), and of the world (Greek). He was the appointed authority of the Empire of Rome, the hand of the Emperor of mankind, and he recognized what the priests refused to. In doing so, he declared who the world system would forever oppose: the King of the next world.

Our God Is A Postmodern God

Our God values us above all else. He values our freedom and our well-being, in that order.

He is a bountiful infinity, springs of living water, a burning bush; He never stops giving, producing, pouring, burning.

He is the infinite source of truth, of love, of change. He gives innovation, wisdom, and life. He is Free Will, and we are made in His likeness.

He is a positive infinity. He is so innovative that He created beings with free will, out of dirt!

He gives us a simple choice; we can be with Him forever, or we can be in another place. We can be with the Source of all good things, or we can remain in a dying universe, immortal but without protection from the corrupted free will of others stronger than us in personality and power.

Yes, He values our free will so much that He's willing to let us be apart from Him forever, as long as that's our honest choice. But He wants you to be an informed chooser, before eternity starts.

The rules for the rest of forever are simple:
1. Don't harm yourself, anyone else, or be the type of person who does.
2. Acknowledge that He is the one providing all things to you, sometimes directly, sometimes through less obvious methods, especially free will.

That's it. If #1 is too hard, He has provided a way in: Jesus' sacrifice provides legal defense, and makes it possible for God Himself to inhabit you (like a Trill, or a Tok'ra), giving you the personal resources to become that type of person over time.

If you're not the type of person who accepts that kind of story, He'll still accept you, if you choose Him and trust that He's telling the truth about the necessity of that sacrifice. His net is cast wide, seeking all who seek Him.

There are those who seek Him, who don't know His name, but who value His ideals above all else. Don't be one who loses eternity by not learning of the one who gave you those ideals in the first place.

Love

I saw a movie tonight which God used to remind me that He loves me.

His love is so deep that He died for me, personally. I can't express how amazing that is.

I can't express just how revolting to me the mistakes are that people have made in trying to understand Him. He did not die for humanity corporately, but personally for each and every person.

He found a way to save everyone; He stands with outstretched arms, saying, "Come to me, learn to live, to grow and learn forever. Let me be your guide, teaching you from infinite wisdom how to make right decisions, and what things have true value and real meaning."

He started the Church, not to run people's lives, but to give us a place to be at home. He is the King, and His kingdom has free citizenship, no questions asked. Have you been a bad person, a mean and spiteful person? He will forgive you, welcome you with open arms, and help you to change, to become a better person.

He is choice, infinite choice. We are made in His image; we are expressly designed for choosing. From hands that grasp to a voice that speaks, we are built for freely choosing.

His greatest gift is free will. It is this He values about us above all: we can choose. He values choice so much that if someone says, "I don't want to be with you," He lets them. It breaks His heart, but He lets them.

Choose Him, because He has already chosen you, and is waiting.