All In One

15 A.D.
The priests gather in the temple and they enter through the first curtain to the Holy Place and offer their animal sacrifices to cover their sins. The High Priest has a rope tied to him and bells placed on him because he's about to enter the Most Holy Place where the Ark or the Covenant lay with the mercy seat atop where God is said to dwell as he meets with the High Priest once a year. He enters with blood sacrifices to cover his sins and more sacrifices to cover the unintentional sins of the people.
The bells are on him so the other priests can hear him moving around. The rope is tied to him in case he is overcome by the power of God either by his own impurity or accidentally touches the Ark of the Covenant and dies. The other priests must pull out his body using the rope because only the High Priest is allowed to enter the Most Holy Place. Anyone else would be overcome by the power of God and die.

All this done, once a year, to obtain atonement for all the wrong doings of His people.

The people are living in a time where God is unattainable by all but one man. Even then, that one man can only enter into the presence of God once a year!
And when he does this He has to enter with the blood of a pure animal on him to cover his own sins and even more for the sins of the people. The offering being pure symbolism that something pure had to die to cover the sins of this world. Even then the blood of these pure animals could only cover the sins. Leaving them in the conscience of the people. And to top it all off, the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place are in a temple that not all the people can gain entrance to.

Living this way for so many hundreds of years places the people in a place of waiting. Waiting for redemption as was promised to them!

"How long, Oh God, must we life with this yearly routine until we are free to be with you?"

That's probably something I would have said at that time.

Then one night in an animal house in the feeding troff of the animals there laid a baby who had come to end that systematic redemption.

Little did these waiting people know that that baby had come to be The High Priest who is able to enter all Holy Places, the pure Lamb of God who would sacrifice Himself and not only cover the people with His blood so they would be seen as pure, but would eradicate their sins completely. His body would represent the temple that would be broken down and, more specifically, His flesh would represent the curtain that separated God from the people. And just God resided behind the curtain He resided within the flesh of Christ. When the guards flogged Jesus they ripped His flesh and when Jesus died and It says He yielded up his spirit meaning the gave it away the temple curtain was torn from top to bottom to represent that through Christ the separation between man and God had been joined.

Christ is...
...the High Priest
...the Pure Sacrifice
...the Temple
...the Curtain
...The Living God
Christ is all of The Law fulfilled in One!

Integrity

     When your actions, beliefs, and words reflect each other, that is integrity. It's also a concept that I fight with constantly. It seem that integrity is not a part of human nature. Have you ever done something or said something then thought to yourself, "That's not me" or "I would never say/do something like that".

Scripture tells us in Luke 6:43-45 that our words will always reveal what our heart is.

[43] “For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, [44] for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. [45] The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. 

(Luke 6:43-45 ESV)

     How often do we say "I know what my heart is. What I said earlier is not a true reflection of my heart." I think it's time to accept that the things I say are a direct representation of my heart. As humans we are sinful by nature.

[21] For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, [22] coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 

(Mark 7:21-22 ESV)

     I know in my mind who I want to be, and by the Holy Spirit, through Christ, God reveals who He want's me to be. I can think I am who God wants me to be all I want, but by looking at my actions, by listening to my words, I can see who I really am. my first though is to say "I am no Jesus" but it sounds like I'm saying "I have my moments of holiness, but I mess up." That's wrong. I am a sinner through and through. It is my nature. I am a bad tree. Who am I to say I have done anything good.

     Good is a word associated with God. God is not the example of good He is good. So to say something is good is to say it is "of God". If my nature is to do evil, how am I to say something I do is good(of God) if God cannot commit any actions of evil? If anything done by me is good that tells me that I am not the one who did it, rather God worked through me.

     It almost sounds hopeless. Like I can never meet God's standards no matter how hard I try. Well, that's true.  I cannot do good because I am not good. we see that in the earlier verse

[43] “For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit"

(Luke 6:43 ESV)

So, if God is a "good tree" and man is a "bad tree" then we need some help. 

[23] For the wages of sin is death..."

(Romans 6:23a ESV)

Again, not so hopeful.

[23] "...but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. "

(Romans 6:23b ESV)

There's the hope. 

     What if that "good tree" were to take on all of my "bad fruit"? That tree would not look so appealing anymore. Then that tree gets beaten down and thrown into the fire because of all the bad fruit thats on it? This already happened. Jesus, the "good tree", took on all of the "bad fruit" of humanity and was thrown into the fire for it when it should be us. But He rose again and he tells us, "Hey! I did that for you. I took all your 'bad fruit' upon Myself and paid the price you earned. Now you can either deny what I did, and because you're still a 'bad tree' you will still be thrown into the fire, or you can accept that I did it for you and I will cover you with My 'sap' and when the day comes for the 'forest' to be taken down they will see My 'sap' on you and you will be made into a 'new tree' and 'good tree'."

     I guess, since my natural actions are sinful I need to ask for His help. Biblical integrity is something that is good. It is "of God" and that means, if I want to have biblical integrity I need to look to the One from Whom it comes. God.

Reform!

...I reformed my blog, as you can see, to better represent me.
I am no longer trying to be something I'm not. This should be better than trying to be an intellectual mystery man of psychology. I've been discovering, not only myself, but who God wants me to be. No more hiding behind some "alter ego". Sasha Fierce has died!