House of Palms

Here are the books I have mentioned on @house.of.palms. I’d love to hear what your favorite books and studies are! Leave them in the comments.

Will of God

Fear

Spiritual warfare

Bibles

house.of.palms

How can Jesus dying on the cross atone for my sins

How can Jesus dying on the cross atone for my sins?

I didn’t understand how Jesus dying on the cross could atone my sins until I began to learn about covenants.

1. First, let’s note that God is just and cannot let evil go unpunished. And the Bible is clear: “the wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23) Our sin from the beginning has corrupted and distorted his perfect creation and separated us from him.

2. Now, a covenant is a solemn oath between two loving friends. It is essentially saying: We are one. Your enemies are my enemies. Your family is my family. From this moment forward we are one. Traditionally, throughout time and throughout the world, a covenant was sealed with a sharing of blood. Because blood represents life. This transfusion of life is symbolic. They share the same blood and life now.

When we take communion and drink the wine representing his blood and eat the bread representing his body, we are entering a blood covenant with him. We are making him a part of us and us a part of him. What this means is because he put on our robe of humanity, we may put on his robe of righteousness.

Jesus lived a sinless life and therefore conquered death. He still shed his blood and willingly died though. For what purpose? He went to the cross so we wouldn’t have to.

3. He can be our sacrifice, our substitute, because we have accepted him and are one with him. It is so that those who enter the covenant with him, who become one with him, will be admitted into the Lord’s presence on his account rather than our own. We are adopted children of God because we are one with Jesus and God is his Father, his family. The Holy Spirit can dwell inside of us for the same reason.

Because of Jesus willingly died as our substitute, there is hope for the hurting. Hope for the grieving. Hope for the addict. Hope for the angry. Hope for lost. Hope for all of us who have sinned and cannot get to God on our own. Our hope is in Jesus and Jesus alone — the servant king who came down from Heaven, lived gentle and lowly life in every way, healed the helpless, loved the unlovable, taught the unteachable and died for even those who would reject him.

How does following Jesus change my life? When we d

How does following Jesus change my life?
When we decide to follow Jesus, we enter a covenant with him by taking communion, by being baptized and beginning to live in the Spirit rather than just our physical body.

Perhaps the most familiar covenant to us today is marriage, which is interesting because to the disciples (during the Last Supper) it sounded like Jesus was offering them marriage proposal!

An ancient Jewish marriage proposal included:

▪️Groom makes a payment to his potential bride’s father to buy a chance to marry her.
▪️Then the family and relatives would gather and witness the groom pass the bride a cup of wine. He would say, “This is my covenant with you. Will you take and drink it?”
▪️If she accepts, she drinks it and that is essentially saying “I do.”
▪️She was then called “one who was bought with a price.”
▪️The groom would go back to his town and the two didn’t talk during the engagement period except the best man who would relay messages.
▪️The groom spent this time building a mansion. It wasn’t our idea of a mansion though! It was a room built onto his father’s house.
▪️The father decided when the “mansion” was done.
▪️When it was finished the groom and groomsmen would march into the bride’s town. She doesn’t know the day nor the hour. The men blow their horns to announce they had arrived.

Jesus told the disciples:

▪️Drink of the wine, representing my blood shed for you. This is the New Covenant.
▪️We’re not going to see each other or awhile. But the Holy Spirit will relay messages.
▪️You don’t know when I’m coming back, but you are referred to as “one who was bought with a price.”
▪️I’m going to my Father, who has many mansions. I will prepare a place for you.
▪️When the Father says it is time, I will bring my angels and sound the trumpets.
▪️I will bring you home to Heaven for the Marriage Supper of the Lamb!

Our horizontal covenants with each other are messy and complicated because we are sinful and selfish, but the vertical covenant between you and Jesus is peace, unconditional love, unending faithfulness. He will never turn you away — even after empty promise after empty promise. You are his forever. Covenants are forever.

What is sin? Why do I need saved from it? Before

What is sin? Why do I need saved from it?

Before anyone can truly follow Jesus he or she needs to understand why we need a savior in the first place.

Our purpose in life is to glorify God. A sin is when we miss the mark, when we fall short, when we do not glorify him.

Ask an average person on the street if they are a good person. I imagine most would respond “yes.” However the Bible tells us that we have “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

Let’s look at the 10 commandments. Ask yourself: Have you worshipped anything other than God? Have you taken his name in vain? Have you ever dishonored your parents? Have you ever murdered someone in your heart? Or looked at someone with lustful intent other than your spouse? Have you ever stolen something? Or lied? Or coveted?

Clearly no one can say no to all of these — or most of them. Some years ago, as a newly-committed Christian, I wasn’t sure what a sin was. I googled for a list. The list I found was expansive, but I quickly found out, not exhaustive. So I began to ask myself this question I heard on the radio: Can God bless this? It’s not a perfect definition, but it can put new perspective on our smaller, everyday actions.

Can he bless this tv show? This drink? This computer time? The way I’m treating my family? The white lies I told? The gossip I just shared? …

So we all sin, but why do we need saved from it? Because our sin keeps us separated from a holy God. Sin is a decimation to his creation. We are endanger of hell if we chose to reject Jesus’ offer and remain in our sin. God will judge us one day — think of all the things you’ve said and done — but there is one who paid the price for you. All you have to do is accept it.

You could never earn your way to Heaven or do enough good to cover those sins.

You are on trial. God is the judge. Jesus is your defense. Satan lists your sins and faults and demands you be declared guilty. But our defender has paid our debt for us so our God sees us as righteous and free.

The solution is to turn toward God, not away from him, and ask forgiveness. You are now granted a full pardon, for your debt has been paid in full by his son.

FOLLOW ON INSTAGRAM

Leave a Reply