Identity // The Blood of Jesus

Note: Take the following links, depending on what you are looking for:

• Go here if you are looking for the print version of the info (available free on  this site, in PDF format).

• Go here if you want the audio (mp3, download on this site).

• Go here if you want to get the book that has subsequently been published and is available on Amazon.com. The name of the book, by the way, is Identity: Who I Really Am (pictured to the right).

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Here’s where it all started:

Last Winter (January 2011), we led a small group at The Birmingham Dream Center. Attendance shot to over 200 in 6 months; over 200 decisions for Christ were made… teams were formed to feed people coming from the inner city before the meeting… a kid’s ministry was added to the small group… it was- and remains- a great picture of God’s grace.

After the first few weeks into, we wondered, “What do the people need to know the most?” The answer was, resoundingly, “Grace and love. They need to know how much their Heavenly Father loves them, how much Jesus has done for them…”

The greatest example of God’s love is the Cross- so I began studying the Cross again as if I had never seen it. I began surveying it through fresh lenses. I wanted to know if I could look at God’s great display of affection for us in a way that I had not seen it before- totally anew. And, I wanted to learn if I could simplify that message of grace- if I could make it easy to understand and easy to hold onto. I wanted the people we were teaching to leave encouraged as well as leave being able to remember what they had been taught.

About the third or fourth time I read it in a book I caught it: Jesus’ sacrifice at the Cross did far more than I had imagined.

The author of the book I was studying posed the question, ‘Where did Jesus redeem us…?” The obvious answer was this: “At the Cross.” That’s what I was studying, the Cross. However, Pastor Huch (the author of the book I was reading at the time) suggested that Jesus didn’t just redeem us at the Cross. The Bible says that we were redeemed by His blood (i.e., 1 Peter 1:18-19). Since He redeemed us by His blood, it makes sense that He redeemed us at each place He shed His blood…

Understand, there is nothing you will find here that is original with me. I’m merely putting together the pieces of what the Lord is showing me as I stand on the shoulders of others who are wiser and more intimate with our Lord. Through this, I’m seeing the Blood of Jesus does so much more than I had ever imagined…

Peter says that we are redeemed by the blood of Jesus (1 Peter 1:18-19). He does not say that we are redeemed at the Cross. Rather, we are redeemed by the blood that Jesus shed at the Cross- and during the events surrounding the Cross.

This, of course, does not minimize the work of the Cross at all. Rather, it amplifies it.

Understanding the full scope of what Jesus did for us is like plugging the victory declared from the Cross into an amplifier or yelling it through a megaphone. Think about the Blood of Jesus for a moment:

• In the Garden, He prayed and sweat great drops of blood.

• As they soldiers came and arrested Him, they beat Him ruthlessly and He bled more- becoming bruised and battered even beyond recognition.

• The Roman soldiers scourged Him, opening most of His back, exposing His internal organs… and His blood…

• They then mocked Him by placing a crown of thorns on his brow, causing more blood to flow.

• As they nailed His hands into the cross-beam, He bled.

• And His feet became another place of bleeding…

• Even after Jesus was confirmed to be dead, a soldier pierced His side, puncturing His heart.

In other words, Jesus bled at seven distinct places- not just one- and each place brought some sort of redemption with it. Again, since we are redeemed by the Blood of Jesus, it makes sense that we were redeemed in some way at every place He bled- including the Cross. This, again, does not minimize the work of the Cross. Rather, it accentuates it.

All seven are parts of the Cross, parts of God’s ultimate expression of love for us.

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Again, here are the links:

• Go here if you are looking for the print version of the info (available free on  this site, in PDF format).

• Go here if you want the audio (mp3, download on this site).

• Go here if you want to get the book that has subsequently been published and is available on Amazon.com. The name of the book, by the way, is Identity: Who I Really Am (pictured to the right).