Sprinkle Of Jesus Quotes

To be the salt, you also need to be the shaker. To shake the world. Shake the truth. Shake the people. Shake the word. Have it sprinkle, melt and preserve humanity.

We have not shown the world another way of doing life. Christians pretty much live like everybody else, they just sprinkle a little Jesus in along the way.

I saw a banner hanging next to city hall in downtown Philadelphia that read, "Kill them all, and let God sort them out." A bumper sticker read, "God will judge evildoers; we just have to get them to him." I saw a T-shirt on a soldier that said, "US Air Force... we don't die; we just go to hell to regroup." Others were less dramatic- red, white, and blue billboards saying, "God bless our troops." "God Bless America" became a marketing strategy. One store hung an ad in their window that said, "God bless America--$1 burgers." Patriotism was everywhere, including in our altars and church buildings. In the aftermath of September 11th, most Christian bookstores had a section with books on the event, calendars, devotionals, buttons, all decorated in the colors of America, draped in stars and stripes, and sprinkled with golden eagles. This burst of nationalism reveals the deep longing we all have for community, a natural thirst for intimacy... September 11th shattered the self-sufficient, autonomous individual, and we saw a country of broken fragile people who longed for community- for people to cry with, be angry with, to suffer with. People did not want to be alone in their sorrow, rage, and fear. But what happened after September 11th broke my heart. Conservative Christians rallies around the drums of war. Liberal Christian took to the streets. The cross was smothered by the flag and trampled under the feet of angry protesters. The church community was lost, so the many hungry seekers found community in the civic religion of American patriotism. People were hurting and crying out for healing, for salvation in the best sense of the word, as in the salve with which you dress a wound. A people longing for a savior placed their faith in the fragile hands of human logic and military strength, which have always let us down. They have always fallen short of the glory of God. ...The tragedy of the church's reaction to September 11th is not that we rallied around the families in New York and D.C. but that our love simply reflected the borders and allegiances of the world. We mourned the deaths of each soldier, as we should, but we did not feel the same anger and pain for each Iraqi death, or for the folks abused in the Abu Ghraib prison incident. We got farther and farther from Jesus' vision, which extends beyond our rational love and the boundaries we have established. There is no doubt that we must mourn those lives on September 11th. We must mourn the lives of the soldiers. But with the same passion and outrage, we must mourn the lives of every Iraqi who is lost. They are just as precious, no more, no less. In our rebirth, every life lost in Iraq is just as tragic as a life lost in New York or D.C. And the lives of the thirty thousand children who die of starvation each day is like six September 11ths every single day, a silent tsunami that happens every week.

I especially loved the Old Testament. Even as a kid I had a sense of it being slightly illicit. As though someone had slipped an R-rated action movie into a pile of Disney DVDs. For starters Adam and Eve were naked on the first page. I was fascinated by Eve's ability to always stand in the Garden of Eden so that a tree branch or leaf was covering her private areas like some kind of organic bakini. But it was the Bible's murder and mayhem that really got my attention. When I started reading the real Bible I spent most of my time in Genesis Exodus 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings. Talk about violent. Cain killed Abel. The Egyptians fed babies to alligators. Moses killed an Egyptian. God killed thousands of Egyptians in the Red Sea. David killed Goliath and won a girl by bringing a bag of two hundred Philistine foreskins to his future father-in-law. I couldn't believe that Mom was so happy about my spending time each morning reading about gruesome battles prostitutes fratricide murder and adultery. What a way to have a "quiet time." While I grew up with a fairly solid grasp of Bible stories I didn't have a clear idea of how the Bible fit together or what it was all about. I certainly didn't understand how the exciting stories of the Old Testament connected to the rather less-exciting New Testament and the story of Jesus. This concept of the Bible as a bunch of disconnected stories sprinkled with wise advice and capped off with the inspirational life of Jesus seems fairly common among Christians. That is so unfortunate because to see the Bible as one book with one author and all about one main character is to see it in its breathtaking beauty.

God hijacks and bends evil to work peace and healing. If God were only a God of justice, He could punish evil but do no more. Only a God of grace can use our evil to work His good. God’s grace is so much bigger than our sin . Sometimes He’ll let us pursue our idolatry until it kills us. Then He will resurrect us and turn our evil into testimonies of God’s grace. Charis: God's Scandalous Grace for Us (p. 86).

Satan’s strategy is effective because he sprinkles his poisonous brew with just enough veracity that we’ll swallow it.

Because Jesus came to set the captives free, life does not have to be a tireless effort to establish ourselves, justify ourselves, and validate ourselves.

the most visible form of Jesus’s not-of-this-world kingdom is the radical, head-turning love of one’s enemies, even (or especially) when we are suffering at their hands. Peter mentions this cruciform enemy-love no fewer than ten times in five chapters, making it the artery of the letter.

Faith is not simply a private matter, or something we practice once a week at church. Rather, it should have a contagious effect on the broader world. Jesus used these images to illustrate his kingdom: a sprinkle of yeast causing the whole loaf to rise, a pinch of salt preserving a slab of meat, the smallest seed in the garden growing into a great tree in which birds of the air come to nest.

As long as we pray, love, suffer, and herald the good news that Jesus is King, we will continue to see the kingdom of God thunder against the kingdom of Satan. We need to make sure we’re fighting in the right war with the right means.

Jesus came into our world as a man to embody grace. He left us, the church, to be the body of Christ, not a flock of parakeets that repeat Christian jargon but the ongoing in-the-flesh presence of His grace. We are the evidence that God’s grace is more than just words.

We are accepted because of Jesus, and that’s the ground of our security. Now it is our holy privilege to walk worthy of that high calling, drawing near to God in confidence, “with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (Heb. 10:22).

when Jesus tells His followers not to resist evil people, He uses a word that suggests a violent resistance. In fact, New Testament scholar N. T. Wright translated the verse “Don’t use violence to resist evil” to remove all ambiguity.6 Put simply, when Jesus says, “Do not resist the one who is evil,” He specifically prohibits using violence to resist evil.

It’s tough to follow Jesus while clutching on to our rights, our honor, our reputation. This kingdom stuff isn’t for the fainthearted.

From beginning to end, our Christian lives— highs and lows, fasting and fornication— are a tapestry of grace. Charis: God's Scandalous Grace for Us (p. 31).

Jesus planted the first church on earth with a group of hoodlums who wouldn’t be let inside the doors of most churches today.

If you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus. If you want to know what we are like and what we should become, look at Jesus.

The Bible’s primary invitation to every Christian is not to act more like a man or to act more like a woman, but to act more like Jesus.

Old Testament is all about grace, and it forms the rich soil from which Jesus’s gospel of charis blossoms. To understand Jesus, we must soak ourselves in Israel’s story of grace. That’s why we’ll end our adventure in this book by looking at the birth, life, and death of Jesus. Jesus is not just the beginning of the New Testament but also the fitting climax of the Old.

Jesus’s central message was not primarily about how to get to heaven when you die, or about becoming a better person. The central message of Jesus was about the coming of God’s kingdom.

TULLIAN TCHIVIDJIAN   The best definition for grace I know comes from Paul Zahl: Grace is love that seeks you out when you have nothing to give in return. Grace is love coming at you that has nothing to do with you. Grace is being loved when you are unlovable…. The cliché definition of grace is “unconditional love.” It is a true cliché, for it is a good description of the thing.… Let’s go a little further, though. Grace is a love that has nothing to do with you, the beloved. It has everything and only to do with the lover. Grace is irrational in the sense that it has nothing to do with weights and measures. It has nothing to do with my intrinsic qualities or so-called “gifts” (whatever they may be). It reflects a decision on the part of the giver, the one who loves, in relation to the receiver, the one who is loved, that negates any qualifications the receiver may personally hold…. Grace is one-way love.1 Grace doesn’t make demands. It just gives. And from our vantage point, it always gives to the wrong person. We see this over and over again in the Gospels: Jesus is always giving to the wrong people—prostitutes, tax collectors, half-breeds. The most extravagant sinners of Jesus’s day receive His most compassionate welcome. Grace is a divine vulgarity that stands caution on its head.

2 Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.

Some take pains to be biblical, but many [Christian financial teachers, writers, investment counselors, and seminar leaders] simply parrot their secular colleagues. Other than beginning and ending with prayer, mentioning Christ, and sprinkling in some Bible verses, there's no fundamental difference. They reinforce people's materialist attitudes and lifestyles. They suggest a variety of profitable plans in which people can spend or stockpile the bulk of their resources. In short, to borrow a term from Jesus, some Christian financial experts are helping people to be the most successful 'rich fools' they can be.

Grace is more than just leniency and unconditional acceptance. Divine grace is God’s relentless and loving pursuit of His enemies, who are unthankful, unworthy, and unlovable. Grace is not just God’s ability to save sinners, but God’s stubborn delight in His enemies—yes, even the creepy ones. Grace means that despite our filth, despite the sewage running through our veins , despite our odd addiction to food, drink, sex, porn, pride, self, money, comfort, and success, God desires to transform us into real ingredients of divine happiness. Sprinkle, Preston (2014-07-01). Charis: God's Scandalous Grace for Us (p. 24). David C. Cook. Kindle Edition.

FEBRUARY 26 YOU WILL OVERCOME THE DEVIL BY THE BLOOD OF MY SON JUST AS THE blood of a lamb, sprinkled on the doorposts in Egypt by My chosen people, established a covenant of blood with Me and protected them from the destruction that I brought to those who had enslaved them, so too have I established a covenant of blood with you. Through the blood of My dear Son, Jesus, which covers you, I have redeemed you from the curse of sin and have adopted you as My own dear child. I have equipped you with everything good for doing My will, and I will work in you to cause you to do what is pleasing to Me. Through the blood of Christ you can have confidence to come into My presence. In His blood I have given you redemption, forgiveness of sins, and have redeemed you from the power of evil. EXODUS 12; HEBREWS 13:20–21; REVELATION 12:10–11 Prayer Declaration I have eternal redemption through the power of the blood of Christ. I have been raised to new life in Christ so that I may serve the living God. I overcome the devil through the blood of Jesus. Through Him I am made perfect and have the confidence to enter into the presence of God.

We are a generation of lovers who long to be loved. We spend exorbitant amounts of money to compel others to delight in us. We construct our ideal life on Facebook because we are unsatisfied with our real life, which is tainted with boredom, loneliness, insecurity, and a lack of friends and followers . We do not enjoy the person God created us to be or the life God has gifted us with. We think we are overweight, underweight, too pale, too dark, too plain, or just plain boring. Yet we crave to be delighted in by a significant other. So we pursue misguided avenues to make ourselves delightful, to satisfy our craving to be loved. Charis: God's Scandalous Grace for Us (pp. 118-119).

Christians are not solitary individuals called to follow Jesus on our own and demand that others do the same. We’re a community of radical misfits, called into a motley family filled with grace and truth where no one should walk alone.

The most extravagant sinners of Jesus’s day receive His most compassionate welcome. Grace is a divine vulgarity that stands caution on its head. It refuses to play it safe and lay it up. Grace is recklessly generous, uncomfortably promiscuous.

And when Jesus declared, 'It is finished,' He meant it. God’s punishment for our sin was paid for, permanently settled, finished— 100 percent. If you have responded in faith to God’s free pardon through Jesus, then God will never punish you for your sin. It’s finished. No more. If you screw up today or tomorrow (which you will), it’s already been paid for through Jesus. 'There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,' Paul said (Rom. 8: 1). None. God will not and cannot condemn you after He has already condemned Jesus for you. It’s impossible. God will never be angry with you since His anger was poured out on Jesus. All of it. One hundred percent. Charis: God's Scandalous Grace for Us (p. 169).

Jesus is building an upside-down kingdom where outcasts have their feet washed, the marginalized are welcomed, and dehumanized people feel humanized once again. Where truth is upheld, celebrated, and proclaimed. Where those who fall short of that truth are loved.

But correct science and correct theology are pointless if we’re not willing to love and honor, listen to and learn from, care for and be cared for by the trans* people God has gifted us with. Jesus cherishes them and values them. Would they say the same about you?

We obey God not because we are afraid of what He will do to us if we do not. Rather, we obey Him because we are moved by all that He has done for us in Jesus Christ. He has lovingly elected us and sprinkled us with the sin-forgiving, grace-abounding blood of Jesus.

The stony soil of our heart, the rock foundation of our corrupt human nature, need not, therefore, be the basis for judgment upon us. It can be sprinkled with the blood of Jesus, just as the hill of Golgotha was when drops of blood fell upon it and it was transformed from a place of execution to the Rock of Atonement.

In no way should we minimize the psychological difficulties that a person with one of these conditions might experience. These are ripe pastoral opportunities to embody the love and life of Jesus toward people who, for whatever reason, might feel “othered” by society (intentionally or unintentionally) or by their own self-perception of what it means to be a “real” man or woman.

Having the mind of Christ means embracing others—especially our enemies—in humble, reconciling, forgiving love. It means never giving up on them even when they are putting us to death.11 Paul doesn’t leave any wiggle room. He doesn’t say, “Have this mind among yourselves until it gets too hard” or “until your enemy becomes particularly violent.” Jesus’s enemies were plenty violent (ever studied crucifixion?), and yet He was “obedient

The plane banked, and he pressed his face against the cold window. The ocean tilted up to meet him, its dark surface studded with points of light that looked like constellations, fallen stars. The tourist sitting next to him asked him what they were. Nathan explained that the bright lights marked the boundaries of the ocean cemeteries. The lights that were fainter were memory buoys. They were the equivalent of tombstones on land: they marked the actual graves. While he was talking he noticed scratch-marks on the water, hundreds of white gashes, and suddenly the captain's voice, crackling over the intercom, interrupted him. The ships they could see on the right side of the aircraft were returning from a rehearsal for the service of remembrance that was held on the ocean every year. Towards the end of the week, in case they hadn't realised, a unique festival was due to take place in Moon Beach. It was known as the Day of the Dead... ...When he was young, it had been one of the days he most looked forward to. Yvonne would come and stay, and she'd always bring a fish with her, a huge fish freshly caught on the ocean, and she'd gut it on the kitchen table. Fish should be eaten, she'd said, because fish were the guardians of the soul, and she was so powerful in her belief that nobody dared to disagree. He remembered how the fish lay gaping on its bed of newspaper, the flesh dark-red and subtly ribbed where it was split in half, and Yvonne with her sleeves rolled back and her wrists dipped in blood that smelt of tin. It was a day that abounded in peculiar traditions. Pass any candy store in the city and there'd be marzipan skulls and sugar fish and little white chocolate bones for 5 cents each. Pass any bakery and you'd see cakes slathered in blue icing, cakes sprinkled with sea-salt.If you made a Day of the Dead cake at home you always hid a coin in it, and the person who found it was supposed to live forever. Once, when she was four, Georgia had swallowed the coin and almost choked. It was still one of her favourite stories about herself. In the afternoon, there'd be costume parties. You dressed up as Lazarus or Frankenstein, or you went as one of your dead relations. Or, if you couldn't think of anything else, you just wore something blue because that was the colour you went when you were buried at the bottom of the ocean. And everywhere there were bowls of candy and slices of special home-made Day of the Dead cake. Nobody's mother ever got it right. You always had to spit it out and shove it down the back of some chair. Later, when it grew dark, a fleet of ships would set sail for the ocean cemeteries, and the remembrance service would be held. Lying awake in his room, he'd imagine the boats rocking the the priest's voice pushed and pulled by the wind. And then, later still, after the boats had gone, the dead would rise from the ocean bed and walk on the water. They gathered the flowers that had been left as offerings, they blew the floating candles out. Smoke that smelt of churches poured from the wicks, drifted over the slowly heaving ocean, hid their feet. It was a night of strange occurrences. It was the night that everyone was Jesus... ...Thousands drove in for the celebrations. All Friday night the streets would be packed with people dressed head to toe in blue. Sometimes they painted their hands and faces too. Sometimes they dyed their hair. That was what you did in Moon Beach. Turned blue once a year. And then, sooner or later, you turned blue forever.

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

Studying the book of Revelation has been one of the most paradigm-shifting experiences I’ve had in the last ten years. I’ve known that the Bible talks about suffering. But I’ve never seen how godly suffering has such significance in God’s plan of redemption and judgment. This has revolutionized my thinking, because I don’t like to suffer. But if Jesus’s death, resurrection, and ascension mean anything, then I must let my eyes of faith rather than my pain sensors dictate how I process suffering. I must, like the Moravians, follow Jesus wherever He goes.

But our Edenic tent–God doesn’t just want to save us. He actually wants to be with us. He doesn’t just love us. God actually likes us. So God removes His royal robes and steps down from His throne to experience—for the first time—what it is like to be human. God is omniscient, which means that He is all-knowing. There’s nothing in the universe, no piece of information, no fact, no statistic that He doesn’t know. The hairs on your head, the zits on your face—He knows about every one. But until the incarnation, God hadn’t experienced human nature. Since zits aren’t a sin, perhaps Jesus had them too. God knows every hair on your head, but through the incarnation, God knows what it feels like to have hair ripped out. God knows about tiredness, but through the incarnation, He experiences exhaustion. God knows how many molecules it takes to shoot a hunger pain from your stomach to your brain. But through the incarnation, God knows what it feels like to starve to the point of death. Through the incarnation, God has enjoyed the same warm wave of sunlight that splashes across your face on the first day of spring. When you bathe in it, God smiles because He’s bathed in it too. He’s been refreshed by a night’s sleep after a long day of work. Warmed by a toasty bed on a cold winter night. Enjoyed a rich glass of wine while celebrating among friends. God authored creation. But through the incarnation, God experienced creation. And He encountered joy under the bridge. He also experienced pain. Relational, psychological, emotional, and physical agony. God has suffered the misery and brokenness of the same sin-saturated world that oppresses us every day. The pain of being rejected, beaten, abused, unloved, uncared for, mocked, shamed, spat upon, and disrespected as an image bearer of the Creator. Jesus knows all of this. He’s experienced all of this. And He willingly endured it to bring you back to Eden.

Even in “post-Christian” societies the gospel will continue to do its subversive work. Jesus used small things to describe his kingdom: a sprinkling of yeast that causes the whole loaf to rise, a pinch of salt that preserves a slab of meat, the smallest seed in the garden that grows into a great bush in which the birds of the air come to nest. Practices that used to be common—human sacrifice, slavery, duels to the death, child labor, exploitation of women, racial apartheid, debtors’ prisons, the killing of the elderly and incurably ill—have been banned, in large part because of a gospel stream running through cultures influenced by the Christian faith. Once salted and yeasted, society is difficult to un-salt and un-yeast.

Then he took him by the hand, and led him into a very large parlor full of dust, as if it had never been swept. The Interpreter called to a man and told him to sweep. The man grabbed a broom and swept and in so doing stirred a thick cloud of dust into the air. The dust grew so dense it almost choked Christian. The Interpreter then spoke to a woman who stood nearby. “Bring some water here and sprinkle the room.” The woman did as she was told and the entire room was easily swept and cleaned. Christian asked, “What does this mean?” The Interpreter answered, “This parlor is the heart of a man who was never sanctified by the sweet grace of the gospel. The dust is his sin and inward corruption which has defiled the whole man. The one who began to sweep at first is the law, but she who brought water and sprinkled it is the gospel. Interpreter shows Christian the room full of dust “Now while you saw the room fill with the great cloud of dust when first swept, the dust flew about in such a way that the room could not be cleansed and its dust almost choked you. This is to show you that the law, instead of cleansing the heart from sin, does in fact arouse it. (So that without the law I lived for some time; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. – Rom. 7:9) It also gives it greater strength (The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. – 1 Cor. 15:56), and causes sin to flourish in the soul (Moreover the law entered that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. – Rom. 5:20), for even as the law uncovers sin and forbids it, it does not provide the power to subdue it. “In the same way, the woman you saw sprinkle the room with water which made it easy to clean – this is to show you that when the gospel comes with its sweet and precious influences and indwells the heart, just like the dust settled by sprinkling the floor with water, sin is also vanquished and subdued and the soul made clean, through faith. Consequently, the soul becomes a suitable place for the King of Glory to inhabit.” (Now to him that is able to confirm you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which was concealed from times eternal but now is made manifest, and by the writings of the prophets, by the commandment of God eternal, declared unto all the Gentiles, that they might hear and obey by faith. – Rom. 16:25, 26)

APRIL 24 I WILL ABOLISH THE IDOLS IN AMERICA AND THE NATIONS IF MY PEOPLE who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. I will hasten the day when I alone shall be exalted in your land, and everything proud and lofty shall be brought low. The loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and I alone will be exalted in that day. I will utterly abolish any false idols, that the glory of My majesty may be seen. My anger will be kindled against the idols that speak delusion and the diviners who envision lies and tell false dreams. I will bring shame upon all idolatry and will strengthen My faithful servants. 2 CHRONICLES 7:14; ISAIAH 2:11–18; ZECHARIAH 10:5–6 Prayer Declaration Lord, cause our nation to humble itself and to pray and seek Your face and to turn from their wicked ways. Forgive our sins and heal our land. Sprinkle this land with clean water, and cleanse us from all filthiness and idols. Let all false gods and idols be removed from the land in the name of Jesus. Let America renounce her uncleanness and enter back into a covenant with You that she will put no other gods before You, O Lord.

What did you just call him?” “Rufus is a stupid name,” she says with a shrug. I choke on air. “Excuse me?” “You heard me. What even is a Rufus anyway?” “A name,” I answer. “A manly name for a manly dog.” “He looks like vanilla ice cream with chocolate sprinkles. It had to be changed.” “You can’t just change a dog’s name. He’s eight months old. He likes his name. He knows it.” “Does he?” she asks, arching a brow. Jesus, she looks so much like her mother right now it’s almost scary. “Rufus.” I whistle. “Come here boy.” He lets out a whimper, but stays rooted in place, his eyes trained on the girl with the snacks. “Sprinkles, come.” Priss points to the floor. That traitor rises to all fours, looking more regal than Queen Elizabeth herself as he marches to her side. Man’s best friend, my ass. “Good boy,” she says, stuffing another treat into his mouth. “Sprinkles, sit.” He sits. “Shake,” she says, holding out her hand for his paw. “You taught him all of that in less than two hours?” “Uh-huh. Wasn’t hard. I watched some dog training videos.” “Let me guess, YouTube?” She grins. “Well, it worked.” “I see that.” “So…Sprinkles?” She steeples her hands in front of her face, poking out her lip for added drama. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of how my beast of a dog became a pansy.

In a sense the rise of Anabaptism was no surprise. Most revolutionary movements produce a wing of radicals who feel called of God to reform the reformation. And that is what Anabaptism was, a voice calling the moderate reformers to strike even more deeply at the foundations of the old order. Like most counterculture movements, the Anabaptists lacked cohesiveness. No single body of doctrine and no unifying organization prevailed among them. Even the name Anabaptist was pinned on them by their enemies. It meant rebaptizer and was intended to associate the radicals with heretics in the early church and subject them to severe persecution. The move succeeded famously. Actually, the Anabaptists rejected all thoughts of rebaptism because they never considered the ceremonial sprinkling they received in infancy as valid baptism. They much preferred Baptists as a designation. To most of them, however, the fundamental issue was not baptism. It was the nature of the church and its relation to civil governments. They had come to their convictions like most other Protestants: through Scripture. Luther had taught that common people have a right to search the Bible for themselves. It had been his guide to salvation; why not theirs? As a result, little groups of Anabaptist believers gathered about their Bibles. They discovered a different world in the pages of the New Testament. They found no state-church alliance, no Christendom. Instead they discovered that the apostolic churches were companies of committed believers, communities of men and women who had freely and personally chosen to follow Jesus. And for the sixteenth century, that was a revolutionary idea. In spite of Luther’s stress on personal religion, Lutheran churches were established churches. They retained an ordained clergy who considered the whole population of a given territory members of their church. The churches looked to the state for salary and support. Official Protestantism seemed to differ little from official Catholicism. Anabaptists wanted to change all that. Their goal was the “restitution” of apostolic Christianity, a return to churches of true believers. In the early church, they said, men and women who had experienced personal spiritual regeneration were the only fit subjects for baptism. The apostolic churches knew nothing of the practice of baptizing infants. That tradition was simply a convenient device for perpetuating Christendom: nominal but spiritually impotent Christian society. The true church, the radicals insisted, is always a community of saints, dedicated disciples in a wicked world. Like the missionary monks of the Middle Ages, the Anabaptists wanted to shape society by their example of radical discipleship—if necessary, even by death. They steadfastly refused to be a part of worldly power including bearing arms, holding political office, and taking oaths. In the sixteenth century this independence from social and civic society was seen as inflammatory, revolutionary, or even treasonous.

In America a child can no longer visit the place where she was born a shopping mall stands there instead. In America a grownup can no longer see the school where she learned the art of growing sad a freeway goes through there now an overpass her memories of brick turn to glass the suburb goes from white to black and time speeds up so much she has to stay young forever and reset the clock every five minutes just to know where is there and there is everywhere because she lives in time and not in any space! In our country here the future is in ruins before it is built a fact recognized by postmodern architecture that grins at us shyly or demonically as it quoted ruins from other times and places! There are no buildings in America only passageways that connect migratory floods the most permanent architecture being precisely that which moves these floods from one future ruin to another that is to say freeways and skyways and the car is our only shelter the architecture of desire reduced to the womb a womb in transit from one nowhere to another!” Saddened by his own vision and sensing smugness in the audience, Wakefield is revolted by his desire to please the foreigners. He coughs. He is portraying his own country now for the sake of… what? Applause? There isn't any. He veers down another path. “The miracle of America is of motion not regret in New Mexico the has face of Jesus jumped on a tortilla in Plaquermine a Virgin appeared in a tree In Santuari de Chimayo the dirt turned healer a guy in Texas crasahed into a wall when God said Let me take the wheel! And others hear voice all the time telling them to sit under a tree or jump from a cliff or take large baskets of eggs into Blockbuster to throw at the videos the voices of God are everywhere heard loud and clear under the hum of the tickertape and all these miracle and speaking gods are the mysteries left homeless by the Architecture of speed and moving forward onward and ahead!” Wakefield throws his hands into the air as if to sprinkle fairy dust on the room; he is evoking the richness of a place always ready for miracles.

The third and best view takes into account that Jesus chided Nicodemus for his ignorance (John 3:10). So He must be referring to things taught in the Old Testament. It turns out that Jesus' description of the new birth as being by "water and the Spirit" corresponds to God's promise of the new birth in Ezekiel 36:25-27: "I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

When we buy into the American narrative that focuses on “flesh-and-blood enemies,” we are spraying the tip of the flames, not the source of the fire. America could nuke the entire Middle East, and Satan would walk away untouched. China or Iran could conquer America, and God’s kingdom wouldn’t feel a thing. As long as we pray, love, suffer, and herald the good news that Jesus is King, we will continue to see the kingdom of God thunder against the kingdom of Satan. We need to make sure we’re fighting in the right war with the right means.

To be spared God’s tenth plague, the Israelites have to take specific action—anyone failing to apply blood to his doorframe would meet the fate of the Egyptians. Thus, the Passover also teaches that in order to avail oneself of God’s saving work, you have to appropriate it for yourself—you have to smear the blood on your door, metaphorically, by placing your saving faith in Jesus Christ. “The provision must be applied personally,” Dr. Roy Matheson writes. “It is not enough that the provision was made at Calvary for my sins. I must appropriate and apply this provision by trusting Christ in a personal way.”21 This points to God’s requirement that Christ’s blood, in order to effect our individual salvation, must be appropriated by each of us and applied personally by our faith, trusting in Him and His redemptive shedding of blood. The late Pastor Ray Stedman put it well: “The Passover is a beautiful picture of the cross of Christ. . . . But the Israelites—those who, by a simple act of faith, took the blood of a lamb and sprinkled it on the doorposts and lintels of their houses—were perfectly safe. Then and now, salvation is accomplished by the simple act of faith, a trusting response to God’s loving provision of a Savior who has settled our guilt before God. Then and now, the angel of death passes over those who are covered by the blood of the Lamb.”22

Brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus…let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Hebrews 10:19, 22

But the kingdom of God is not commanded to make the kingdom of Rome more moral. Interestingly, whenever Jesus was lured into political debates, He always “transformed these kingdom-of-the-world questions into kingdom-of-God questions and turned them back on His audience (Matt. 22:15–22; Luke 12:13–15).”26 That’s because our mission is not to solve all the world’s problems but to embody and proclaim the kingdom of God as the place where those problems are solved.

We have not shown the world another way of doing life. Christians pretty much live like everybody else; they just sprinkle a little Jesus in along the way. And doctrine is not very attractive, even if it’s true. Few people are interested in a religion that has nothing to say to the world and offers them only life after death, when what people are really wondering is whether there is life before death. As

those who disagree with us are still making arguments from Scripture, from the wisdom of the tradition, from humble, prayerful struggles to follow Jesus faithfully—loving God and neighbor.

We are called to go beyond our imaginations, to be led by God’s Spirit into church practices that are as welcoming of outcasts as Jesus was during his earthly ministry and as implacable in the face of sin as Jesus was then. Conservative

I believe that the Bible advocates nonviolence. I do not believe that Jesus wants Christians to use violence. And if I can be so blunt: I think that a large portion of the American evangelical church has been seduced, whether knowingly or not, by nationalistic militarism. Yet our inspired Word of God aggressively critiques this very thing, as we will see.

Furthermore, the church is set apart by the way they live, called to be holy even as God is holy (1 Peter 1:15–16). In his first epistle, Peter described the church as “elect exiles of the Dispersion” (1:1). This is such an important word for us. The church’s exile status in the world is exactly what will bring glory to God and is exactly what God intends to be the experience of the church in this age. Witness is the central role of the church, and the elect exiles are secure in the purposes of God, “in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood” (v. 2). The exile church, like a light shining in the darkness, is a bright witness in a dark world.

11 ¶ Now when Job’s three a​ ​friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him. 12 And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept; and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven. 13 So they sat down with him upon the ground a​ ​seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that his b​ ​grief was very great.

No diversion can prevent Jesus from making haste to come to your rescue. He is telling us to trust Him. Stop worrying whether He is too busy or distracted to save us from our dilemmas, heartaches, and struggles because He is helping others. He is also demonstrating the limitless nature of his power.

On the morrow, the same woman brought perfumed water to wash the Lord Jesus; and when she had washed him, she preserved the water. 17 And there was a girl there, whose body was white with a leprosy, who being sprinkled with this water, and washed, was instantly cleansed from her leprosy.

When Jesus comes back the second time, he isn’t coming to sprinkle love dust on everyone. He’s coming to make war on sin and rebellion.

In any case, if we see the church as a singular entity—a bride and not a harem—then there might be some relevance for our discussion. Clearly, Jesus’ love toward the church is mirrored in a husband’s love for his wife, and the wife’s submission to her husband is mirrored in the church’s submission to Christ. Since Paul roots marital role distinctions in sexual distinctions, I’m not sure what this would look like in same-sex marriages. The relationship between Christ and the church requires a fundamental difference; a man marrying a man would seem to reflect the church marrying the church or Christ marrying Christ.13 The analogy demands some sort of difference, and it appears that Paul has sexual difference in mind.

For what is more vain or absurd than for men to offer a loathsome stench from the fat of cattle in order to reconcile themselves to God? Or to have recourse to the sprinkling of water and blood to cleanse away their filth? In short, the whole cultus of the law, taken literally and not as shadows and figures corresponding to the truth, will be utterly ridiculous . . . if the forms of the law be separated from its end, one must condemn it as vanity.34

Sitting cross-legged in a small closet, with her hands folded in her lap, Achava put her mind on the things heaven. She liked a quotation that Paul the Apostle used. “I am seated in the heavenlies with Christ.” She pictured Jesus sitting by the Father. His robe and hair were whiter than snow. The band around his waist was shimmering gold. In her mind’s eye, she saw Him hold her in His arms, filling her with His power. She imagined angels around the throne, sprinkling her with powdered diamonds. “I need your will to be done on earth, just as it is in heaven. Your angels are powerful. I need some of that power.” She sat another fifteen minutes soaking in His presence. She felt electricity flow through her body. She knew she had been empowered. God had mercy on her once again.

sprinkles

God the Father knew you long ago and chose you to live holy lives with the Spirit’s help so that you are obedient to Jesus Christ and are sprinkled with his blood. 1 Peter 1:2

To Jesus (mediator of a new covenant), and to the sprinkled blood, which says better things than the blood of Abel. Hebrews 12:24

April 16 MORNING “The precious blood of Christ.” — 1 Peter 1:19 STANDING at the foot of the cross, we see hands, and feet, and side, all distilling crimson streams of precious blood. It is “precious” because of its redeeming and atoning efficacy. By it the sins of Christ’s people are atoned for; they are redeemed from under the law; they are reconciled to God, made one with Him. Christ’s blood is also “precious” in its cleansing power; it “cleanseth from all sin.” “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.” Through Jesus’ blood there is not a spot left upon any believer, no wrinkle nor any such thing remains. O precious blood, which makes us clean, removing the stains of abundant iniquity, and permitting us to stand accepted in the Beloved, notwithstanding the many ways in which we have rebelled against our God. The blood of Christ is likewise “precious” in its preserving power. We are safe from the destroying angel under the sprinkled blood. Remember it is God’s seeing the blood which is the true reason for our being spared. Here is comfort for us when the eye of faith is dim, for God’s eye is still the same. The blood of Christ is “precious” also in its sanctifying influence. The same blood which justifies by taking away sin, does in its after-action, quicken the new nature and lead it onward to subdue sin and to follow out the commands of God. There is no motive for holiness so great as that which streams from the veins of Jesus. And “precious,” unspeakably precious, is this blood, because it has an overcoming power. It is written, “They overcame through the blood of the Lamb.” How could they do otherwise? He who fights with the precious blood of Jesus, fights with a weapon which cannot know defeat. The blood of Jesus! sin dies at its presence, death ceases to be death: heaven’s gates are opened. The blood of Jesus! we shall march on, conquering and to conquer, so long as we can trust its power!

April 19 MORNING “Behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom.” — Matthew 27:51 NO mean miracle was wrought in the rending of so strong and thick a veil; but it was not intended merely as a display of power — many lessons were herein taught us. The old law of ordinances was put away, and like a worn-out vesture, rent and laid aside. When Jesus died, the sacrifices were all finished, because all fulfilled in Him, and therefore the place of their presentation was marked with an evident token of decay. That rent also revealed all the hidden things of the old dispensation: the mercy-seat could now be seen, and the glory of God gleamed forth above it. By the death of our Lord Jesus we have a clear revelation of God, for He was “not as Moses, who put a veil over his face.” Life and immortality are now brought to light, and things which have been hidden since the foundation of the world are manifest in Him. The annual ceremony of atonement was thus abolished. The atoning blood which was once every year sprinkled within the veil, was now offered once for all by the great High Priest, and therefore the place of the symbolical rite was broken up. No blood of bullocks or of lambs is needed now, for Jesus has entered within the veil with his own blood. Hence access to God is now permitted, and is the privilege of every believer in Christ Jesus. There is no small space laid open through which we may peer at the mercy-seat, but the rent reaches from the top to the bottom. We may come with boldness to the throne of the heavenly grace. Shall we err if we say that the opening of the Holy of Holies in this marvellous manner by our Lord’s expiring cry was the type of the opening of the gates of paradise to all the saints by virtue of the Passion? Our bleeding Lord hath the key of heaven; He openeth and no man shutteth; let us enter in with Him into the heavenly places, and sit with Him there till our common enemies shall be made His footstool.

April 17 MORNING “We are come to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.” — Hebrews 12:24 READER, have you come to the blood of sprinkling? The question is not whether you have come to a knowledge of doctrine, or an observance of ceremonies, or to a certain form of experience, but have you come to the blood of Jesus? The blood of Jesus is the life of all vital godliness. If you have truly come to Jesus, we know how you came — the Holy Spirit sweetly brought you there. You came to the blood of sprinkling with no merits of your own. Guilty, lost, and helpless, you came to take that blood, and that blood alone, as your everlasting hope. You came to the cross of Christ, with a trembling and an aching heart; and oh! what a precious sound it was to you to hear the voice of the blood of Jesus! The dropping of His blood is as the music of heaven to the penitent sons of earth. We are full of sin, but the Saviour bids us lift our eyes to Him, and as we gaze upon His streaming wounds, each drop of blood, as it falls, cries, “It is finished; I have made an end of sin; I have brought in everlasting righteousness.” Oh! sweet language of the precious blood of Jesus! If you have come to that blood once, you will come to it constantly. Your life will be “Looking unto Jesus.” Your whole conduct will be epitomized in this — “To whom coming.” Not to whom I have come, but to whom I am always coming. If thou hast ever come to the blood of sprinkling, thou wilt feel thy need of coming to it every day. He who does not desire to wash in it every day, has never washed in it at all. The believer ever feels it to be his joy and privilege that there is still a fountain opened. Past experiences are doubtful food for Christians; a present coming to Christ alone can give us joy and comfort. This morning let us sprinkle our door-post fresh with blood, and then feast upon the Lamb, assured that the destroying angel must pass us by.

We are to submit to the governing bodies, pray for them, and pay our taxes. But the kingdom of God is not commanded to make the kingdom of Rome more moral. Interestingly, whenever Jesus was lured into political debates, He always “transformed these kingdom-of-the-world questions into kingdom-of-God questions and turned them back on His audience (Matt. 22:15–22; Luke 12:13–15).”26 That’s because our mission is not to solve all the world’s problems but to embody and proclaim the kingdom of God as the place where those problems are solved.

Viewed from one angle, Jesus’s entire ministry of peace was a colossal failure. But the resurrection changed everything for Him. And the resurrection changed everything for us. We no longer view the world through the dim mist of justice and reward, but through the bright lens of resurrection, where suffering leads to glory and slaughtered lambs rule the earth. Therefore, even if we fail to bring down dictators, our rock-solid hope is that God will take care of dictators in His own way, and He will carry out perfect vengeance in the end. God can use human agents to carry out His wrath on evil even today (Rom. 13:4), but nowhere in the New Testament does God use the church to be an agent of wrath. We are commanded unequivocally to love our enemies and trust that God will judge the wicked in His own timing.

Jesus used small things to describe his kingdom: a sprinkling of yeast that causes the whole loaf to rise, a pinch of salt that preserves a slab of meat, the smallest seed in the garden that grows into a great bush in which the birds of the air come to nest. Practices that used to be common—human sacrifice, slavery, duels to the death, child labor, exploitation of women, racial apartheid, debtors’ prisons, the killing of the elderly and incurably ill—have been banned, in large part because of a gospel stream running through cultures influenced by the Christian faith. Once salted and yeasted, society is difficult to un-salt and un-yeast. Many

God, give water in the wilderness, and release streams in the desert. I sprinkle America with the blood of Jesus and pray that the leaders of the nation will be under that covering (Isa. 52:12). Let everything under the covering of the blood be judged by it. I pray that Jesus will rule over my nation in righteousness and judgment and that the wicked will be rooted out of our land (Isa. 32:1; Prov. 2:22). Let all plans of terrorism against our country, our leadership, and our

Sometimes our belief in Jesus’s deity clouds our understanding of His humanity. But Jesus is a mathematical conundrum—100 percent God and 100 percent man. Fully God and fully human: a grade A, heart-pumping, excited, sad, energetic, tired, athletic or pudgy, coordinated or clumsy (being cumbersome is not a sin) human. Jesus was not “God in a bod” or some spirit who appeared to be human. He was and is human. Jesus was a real human who felt the dull ache of weakness and never sinned. And He experienced the same limitations we possess as humans.

Consider Jesus’s genealogy in Matthew 1:1–17. In the ancient world, genealogies determined a person’s status—whether you came from an honorable family or a shameful one. A person’s family line says something about that person. Their character, their social status, the types of people they would hang out with. And Jesus’s genealogy says one thing loud and clear: Jesus is right at home with sinners, thugs, and outcasts. Most genealogies list only the male descendants. Remember, the ancient world was patriarchal. Men were more valued than women, so there was no need to list women—thanks for bearing our children, but we’ll take it from here. But Jesus’s genealogy lists five women, most of whom have some shady event attached to their name, all of whom we’ve already met. The first woman is Tamar, the Canaanite woman who dressed up as a prostitute in order to have sex with her father-in-law, Judah. Her plan succeeded, and she became pregnant with Perez, the one whom God would weave into Jesus’s family line. Next is Rahab, Jericho’s down-and-out prostitute, who was the first Canaanite to receive God’s grace. Among all the Canaanite leaders, among all the skilled warriors, Rahab was the only one who savored the majesty of Israel’s God. Then there’s Ruth, the foreign widow burdening a famished society. A social outcast, a perceived stigma of God’s judgment, Ruth was grafted into the messianic line. Then there’s “the wife of Uriah,” Bathsheba, who was entangled in the sinful affair with King David—the man who murdered her husband. Finally, there’s Mary, the teenage girl who got pregnant out of wedlock. Though she would become an icon in church tradition, her name was synonymous with shame and scandal in the beginning of the first century. You thought your family was messed up. All of these women were social outcasts. They belonged under a bridge. Whether it was their gender, ethnicity, or some sort of sexual debacle, they were rejected by society yet were part of Jesus’s genealogy—a tapestry of grace. Not only was God born in a feeding trough to enter our pain, but He chose to be born into a family tree filled with lust, perversion, murder, and deceit. This tells us a lot about the types of people Jesus wants to hang out with. It tells us that Jesus loves Tamars, Judahs, Gomers, and you.

Blasphemy is a remarkably plastic crime. At some times and in some places it was, and maybe in some places it still is, punished by a fine or by simply deciding you will go to hell when you die. At some times and in some places, including right now in some places, being convicted of the crime of blasphemy can get you executed (killed) for blasphemy. Here’s how it works. If you are a Christian, it is blasphemy to say that Jehovah didn’t have a son, i.e. Jesus. People have gotten killed horribly for saying that that god was childless instead of acknowledging that he miraculously made a baby on the unwed body of an underage girl. Fine so far. But if you are a follower of Islam, it is blasphemy to say that Allah had a son or any child of any kind at all. So, pay your money and take your chance. No matter which side you come down on, someone will want to kill you for blasphemy. Some folks in the past, and maybe now, thought anyone should be killed who thought One-True-God was not three separate gods in one god. Others thought anyone who thought some god was more gods than one god should be killed. What for? For blasphemy, of course. In Christianity alone, people have been murdered for whether they believed converts should be baptized by being dunked in water or by having water sprinkled on their heads. And for many other things. And these are only two religions. There are lots more, most containing subgroups within them, each claiming the only truth, and each having their unique catalogue of what constitutes blasphemy.

I think of his eyes again. Specifically, right after he came. I don’t think he noticed I was looking at him, but Jesus fuck, it was captivating. I swear those dark eyes have sprinkles of galaxies inside them, so many layers—lust, confusion, greed—and that’s what does it for me. Silas’ fucking eyes.

Light will beam across our dark world as we love the spouses who don’t love us back, keep our word when it hurts, judge ourselves rather than others, and—most shockingly—love our enemies who are harming us. When we are cursed, we bless. When we are hated, we love. When we are robbed, we give. And when we are struck, we don’t strike back with violence. A person who chooses to love his or her enemies can have no enemies. That person is left only with neighbors.

APRIL 16 MORNING . . . THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF CHRIST. — 1 PETER 1:19 Standing at the foot of the cross, we see hands and feet and side all distilling crimson streams of “precious blood.” It is “precious” because of its redeeming and atoning efficacy. By it the sins of Christ’s people are atoned for; they are redeemed from under the law; they are reconciled to God, made one with Him. Christ’s blood is also “precious” in its cleansing power; it cleanses from all sin. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.”1 Through Jesus’ blood there is not a spot left upon any believer; no wrinkle nor any such thing remains. O precious blood that makes us clean, removing the stains of our iniquity and permitting us to stand accepted in the Beloved despite the many ways in which we have rebelled against our God. The blood of Christ is also “precious” in its preserving power. We are safe from the destroying angel under the sprinkled blood. Remember, it is God’s seeing the blood that is the true reason for our being spared. Here is comfort for us when the eye of faith is dim, for God’s eye is still the same. The blood of Christ is “precious” also in its sanctifying influence. The same blood that justifies by taking away sin also quickens the new nature and leads it onward to subdue sin and to obey the commands of God. There is no greater motive for holiness than that which streams from the veins of Jesus. And “precious,” unspeakably precious, is this blood because it has an overcoming power. It is written, “And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb.”2 How could they do otherwise? He who fights with the precious blood of Jesus fights with a weapon that cannot know defeat. The blood of Jesus! Sin dies at its presence; death ceases to be death: Heaven’s gates are opened. The blood of Jesus! We shall march on, conquering and to conquer, so long as we can trust its power!

Jesse creaked his rocker, scraped the fire from his cigar with his yellowed finger, and made the ash disintegrate and sprinkle off his lap when he stood. He said, “I’m a no good, Bob. I ain’t Jesus.” And he walked into his rented bungalow, leaving behind the young man who had played at capturing Jesse James even as a child.

Shallow answers to complex questions are offensive to our God-given minds and they fail to shape our hearts into being more like Jesus’.

A Hymn in honor of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus[237] Glory be to Jesus! Who in bitter pains Pour'd for me the life-blood From His sacred veins. Grace and life eternal In that Blood I find; Bless'd be His compassion, Infinitely kind! Bless'd through endless ages Be the precious stream, Which from endless torment Doth the world redeem. There the fainting spirit Drinks of life her fill; There, as in a fountain, Laves herself at will. O the Blood of Christ! It soothes the Father's ire; Open the gate of heaven, Quells eternal fire. Abel's blood for vengeance Pleaded to the skies; But the Blood of Jesus For our pardon cries. Oft as it is sprinkled On our guilty hearts, Satan in confusion Terror-struck departs. Oft as earth exulting Wafts its praise on high, Hell with terror trembles, Heaven is filled with joy. Lift ye, then, your voices; Swell the mighty flood; Louder still and louder, Praise the Precious Blood.

I have been chosen according to Your foreknowledge, Father, through sanctification of Your Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling of His blood; grace and peace are mine in abundance. (1 Peter 1:2)

The blood of Jesus, by which He has ransomed and redeemed us (Acts 20:28; Romans 3:24–25; Ephesians 1:7; 1 Peter 1:18–19; Revelation 1:8–9; 5:9), justifies us before God the Father (Romans 5:9), cleanses us from all impurity (Hebrews 9:14; 1 John 1:7), and makes us holy (Hebrews 10:29; 13:12). Jesus gives us that blood to drink in Holy Communion (Matthew 26:27–28). There He sprinkles our hearts, not just our bodies, with His blood so that we are holy through and through (Hebrews 9:13–14; 10:21; 12:24; 1 Peter 1:2). In Communion, His blood speaks a better word to us than the blood of Abel (Hebrews 12:24). Jesus’ blood does not cry out for justice and revenge but for pardon and justification. It contradicts Satan when he condemns us for sinning against God and others for sinning against us; it covers and protects us with Christ’s own righteousness and holiness. By our faithful reception and reliance on His blood in Holy Communion, we stand under the protection of Christ, just as the Israelites were kept safe from the angel of death in Egypt by the blood of the Passover lamb (Exodus 12:21–27; Hebrews 11:28). Thus we overcome the evil one by the blood of Christ, the Lamb of God (Revelation 12:11).

If it will make you a hypocrite for belonging to the Methodist Church and the Baptist Church at the same time—then why? is it because of the good people in it? No. Is it because of the truth or the good they teach? No. Is it because they do a lot of good works? No. What is it then? The conflicting doctrines! The Baptist Church stands for immersion only, impossibility of apostasy and closed communion. The Methodist Church stands for open communion, sprinkling for baptism and the possibility of apostasy—just the opposite. We are told that it is all right for one person to stand for Baptist doctrine, and another person to stand for Methodist doctrine, but it is not all right for one to stand for both the Methodist and Baptist Doctrines at the same time. To do so will bring the charge of hypocrisy or insanity upon you. If it will make me a hypocrite to belong to more than one because of the contradictory doctrines, then answer this question: Is Jesus Christ a member of all churches? Is he? Is Jesus Christ a member of the Baptist Church? If so, is he a member of the Methodist Church, too? Is he a member of both of them tonight—now? Is the Son of God standing for Baptist Doctrine of the impossibility of apostasy now, and at the same time over in the Methodist Church, is he standing for the possibility of apostasy? Is he doing that tonight? And if it will make me a hypocrite to do it, WHAT DOES IT MAKE THE SON OF GOD? IS HE A HYPOCRITE? Does he endorse all conflicting doctrines? Is Jesus Christ a member of the Baptist Church, the Methodist, the Presbyterian, the Episcopal, the Adventists, the Mormons, and all of the different churches? Is he a member of all of them?

Miracles and signs are more potent when sprinkled rather than poured.

Now, this separation from the world is accomplished only by the blood of Jesus. It was when the Israelites were saved by the blood of the lamb that they were separated from Egypt—not before. All the other miracles did nothing for them in that respect—they never brought them out of Egypt . They were not to come out of Egypt before, but after the lamb was slain, and the blood sprinkled. It is only when you know the power of the blood of the Lamb of God that you are able to be separate from the world.

In light especially of Hebrews 9: 20 we can see that the reference to “covenant” (diath  k ) in Jesus’s words of institution do not have a last will and testament as their backdrop but rather the sprinkling of blood in Exodus 24 that enacts or inaugurates a covenant.

If light be pleasant to our eyes, how pleasant is that light of life springing from the Sun of righteousness! Mal. 4:2. If a pardon be sweet to a condemned criminal, how sweet must the sprinkling the blood of Jesus be to the trembling conscience of a law-condemned sinner? If a rescue from a cruel tyrant is sweet to a poor captive, how sweet must it be to the ears of enslaved sinners, to hear the voice of liberty and deliverance proclaimed by Jesus Christ?

Jesus’ sexed embodiment challenges the notion that biology is irrelevant to identity.

Does Jesus accept, affirm, and celebrate godly men who can’t throw a football and who cry while watching Downton Abbey? Absolutely. Jesus values godliness, not gender stereotypes. But does Jesus use the eunuch to show that a person’s internal sense of self is more definitive than their biological sex when there is incongruence between the two? I think this is a bit of a stretch.

the New Testament highlights Jesus’s nonviolent response to violence as a pattern to follow more than any other aspect of His ministry.

. . . elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. – 1 Peter 1:2

...You can enter into a humanity-affirming relationship with gay and lesbian people. A relationship without footnotes. A loving friendship that doesn't begin with "where you stand" on the "issue" of homosexuality, since Jesus didn't take this approach. Take a stand, yes, but take a stand on love. That radical, counter-cultural grace that drew sinners and tax collectors to Jesus. Jesus actually did talk about that.

Evangelical leaders need to stand for truth, and putting homophobia to death is part of standing for truth. Jesus is truth, and Jesus is not adultererphobic, tax-collectorphobic, centurionphobic, and he is certainly not homophobic. Jesus does not have a prejudice against any human being, but if he did, it would be against judgmental, homophobic, religious people. We need to destroy homophobia.

Take note, it wasn't Jesus's stance on extortion that led to Zacchaeus's repentance. It was Zacchaeus's encounter with the other-worldly love of Christ, love without footnotes, that pushed repentance out the other side, and Jesus never had to tell Zacchaeus "where he stood" on the "issue" of tax-collecting.

Jesus's love comes without a background check.

When the early Church of Jerusalem introduced baptism, the connection between repentance and baptism was still clear (Acts ii, 38). There still is an indirect connection between moral purity and the significance of baptism99 in Heb. x, 22: "Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water." The similarity of this language to Josephus' description has already been recognized100; now we must also compare the language used by DSD III, 8-9: "By the submission of his soul to all the statutes of God his flesh will be cleansed, that he may be sprinkled with water for impurity and sanctify himself101 with water of cleanness." The language, not the meaning, is similar in this case, since the author of the Epistle does not really want to say that repentance is necessary for effective baptism, but only makes use of a traditional phrase. Elsewhere in the NT Epistles and Johannine writings the connection between baptism and repentance is entirely lacking, in spite of the great importance which repentance had in Christianity from its very beginning in the teaching of Jesus (Bul. 73-4). In my opinion102 this loss of the element of repentance in Christian baptism can be explained by the increasing importance given to its sacramental aspect, which makes it an opus operatum. It is interesting to note that the Apostolic Fathers, when speaking about repentance and baptism (Barn, xvi, 8-9; Herm. IV Mand. Iii, 1-2), seem to regard repentance as a result of baptism, not as a condition for it.103