God's Meeting Place Series

Title: The Bloodline of a Champion – 3

“God’s Meeting Place”

Text: I Peter 1:18-20

“He who once gave His blood for us will surely, every moment, impart its effectiveness. Trust Him to do this. Trust Him to open your eyes and to give you a deeper spiritual insight. Trust Him to teach you to think about the blood as God thinks about it. Trust Him to impart to you, and to make effective in you, all that He enables you to see.” (Andrew Murray)

At the beginning of this year we spent quite an extensive time talking about the glory of God and what it is and does in our lives. What is the glory? The glory is His manifest presence, His goodness, His mercy, and His compassion. It includes all of the advantages, favour, blessing, wealth, and provision of God. Last week we talked about Adam and Eve being covered with the glory of God. And when the disobeyed, the glory of God lifted off them. We also just touched on the fact that they tried to cover themselves and found out that it was satisfying to God. God had to shed blood and use the skins of the animals to cover them. The whole story of the Bible is the story of how God restores His glory to man. Adam lost that glory and God sends a second Adam to restore the glory and fellowship back to mankind. God reverses what Satan did in Adam and brings restoration through the blood of Jesus Christ.

Romans 3:23-25; “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; 24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;” (KJV)

The Amplified Bible says: (All) are justified and made upright and in right standing with God, freely and gratuitously by His grace (His unmerited favour and mercy), through the redemption which is (provided) in Christ Jesus, Whom God put forward (before the eyes of all) as a mercy seat and propitiation by His blood and cleansing and life-giving sacrifice of atonement and reconciliation, (to be received) through faith.”

The Lovett Translation: “God’s method of justification is to give men His righteousness as a free gift. It is possible for Him to offer it completely by grace, since it comes through the redemptive death of Christ Jesus. God offered Jesus as a public sacrifice that His shed blood might cleanse us from our sins when we put our faith in Him. At the same time, this act vindicated His justice. The sacrifice of Jesus clearly showed why God, in His forbearance, was able to overlook the sins of men in the past.”

Forbearance: “A refraining from the enforcement of something (as a debt, right, or obligation) that is due.”

I love this Scripture! Every one of us have sinned, every one of us have missed the mark, every one of us fallen short, but this Scripture is so uplifting to every one of us. Being justified, that means, just as if I had never sinned. Through the grace of the Almighty God, He has made it through the blood just as if I had never sinned. I am innocent of every claim and accusation brought against me. I am free and free indeed! But in order to be truly free, I must have faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. I must believe that He has made me just as if I had never sinned through His blood. I have to have faith in that fact before I ever experience true forgiveness and victory in my life.

Jesus took the sin of the past and He paid that debt. Then He reached into the future and He paid for the sins of the future. How do we receive that victory or that forgiveness? We receive victory and forgiveness through faith in the blood.

The Bible tells us that we have propitiation through the blood of Jesus. The word propitiation means, “Reconciliation” or “restoration of fellowship, friendship or favour.” There we go again. We have been restored to fellowship and favour with God by faith in the blood. That was the main purpose of the shed blood. It was to restore fellowship with man that Adam lost.

THE MERCY SEAT

Exodus 25:21-22; “And thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee. 22 And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.”