Tag: Nothing but the Blood

Don’t Forget Your Shoes!

We almost never forget to put on our shoes out the door, unless, well, we rush out without them:

Kids come bounding through my door for their music lesson, take off their shoes, and (hopefully) enjoy and learn something new on their instrument of choice, and walk right out to go home without their shoes!

When I put shoes on my bare feet, I think of the protection and freedom they give me as I head out the door.

“Dear Lord, today I take my right shoe and think of Your Word in Psalm 125:

“Those who trust in the LORD Are like Mount Zion, Which cannot be moved but abides forever” Psalm 125:1.

As the mountains surround Jerusalem, So the LORD surrounds His people From this time forth and forever.

“Increase our faith to believe You today. To us who struggle to believe, ‘Help my unbelief! ‘

To trust You is to let go, surrender! It feels like a free fall. Help me understand what all this means.”

Those who trust in the LORD Are like Mount Zion, Which cannot be moved, but abides forever . . .

For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest On the land allotted to the righteous, Lest the righteous reach out their hands to iniquity.

Do good, O LORD, to those who are good, And to those who are upright in their hearts Psalm 125:3,4.

“You, Lord, don’t ‘see the same way people see’ (1 Samuel 16:7), people look at the outside of a person, but You see the heart.

You don’t see good people and bad people. What about the story about the housebuilders? You didn’t talk about good and bad, but about wise and foolish: The wise man built his house on the Rock, the foolish man, upon the sand.

Help us today to take heart in You and the wisdom of Your Word, even when we don’t understand everything in the full depth of meaning at times:

You see the heart, dear Lord. Not good or bad people, but the foundation each stands on. There are those who trust You on a foundation of Rock, and those who don’t . . . on a foundation of sand (Matthew 7:24,27).

The wise and the foolish.

How can we trust You if we don’t know You?

The left shoe is put on in remembrance of You, Your nature, ‘compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in mercy, forgiving . . . ‘ (Exodus 34:6,7).

Every house needs to be built on a good foundation.

Dear Jesus, if there’s anyone who understands to be misunderstood, Lord, it’s You.

Your Word is often twisted to hurt and deny . . . You. You don’t talk of “good” and “bad” people, . . . You created us all good, but then Genesis 3 affected all of humanity.

But to the broken, the hurting, the critical, the rude, the angry, the proud . . . this is all of us (!) (Romans 3).

You alone are Love. You alone never give up on anyone. You alone are Savior, Redeemer, Deliverer:

“For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest On the land of the righteous . . . “

Even though there are many deep layers to this verse, this thought comes to mind (to help me understand how this relates to me, broken, yet standing on You, the Rock as Mt. Zion):

“Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”

Those who are good? Upright in heart? “Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

As for such as turn aside to their crooked ways, The LORD shall lead them away With the workers of iniquity.

Peace be upon Israel! Psalm 125.

You are Peace, Jesus. Come wash us clean and make us new. We’ve put on our shoes. One of trust in You, as to stand on the Rock which is You, and the other shoe to walk in grace through faith,

with each step:

“O precious is the flow that makes me white as snow. No other fount I know, Nothing but the blood of Jesus!”

Nothing can for sin atone,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
Naught of good that I have done,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

This is all my hope and peace,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
This is all my righteousness,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

We remember our hope:

What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

(Nothing but the Blood of Jesus by Robert Lowry, 1876.)

So, today, moving forward through this advent season, I liken the act to put on my shoes, (which are a huge help to my activities,) as to the act to “put my trust in the LORD,” for one, and for two, to rejoice and marvel in His compassion and mercy on me and you.

There is no One like our Lord. He alone is the Rock of our Salvation. Amen!

Those who trust in the LORD are like mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever Psalm 125:1.

God says to the anxious and panic-stricken heart, “Be strong, fear not!” Do I believe Him?


Encourage the exhausted, and make staggering knees firm.

Say to those with an anxious and panic-stricken heart,
“Be strong, fear not!” (Isaiah 34:3,4).

“I don’t feel strong,” we might say.

“Fear not!” The Bible tells us with an exclamation point.

Indeed, your God will come with vengeance [for the ungodly];
The retribution of God will come,
But He will save you.”

The eyes of the blind will be opened
And the ears of the deaf will be unstopped . . .

These are words of hope. The Bible is the Good News to those who believe. But when I look left and right I see chaos and violence. How about you. We must fight to look up and believe God:

A highway will be there, and a roadway;
And it will be called the Holy Way.
The unclean will not travel in it, But it will be for those who walk on the way [the redeemed];
And fools will not wander on it . . . (Is. 34).

How offensive this might sound to the natural ear, mind, and heart. But those who have tasted and seen the goodness and forgiveness of the Lord in His willingness to take all our sin on the cross, we’re reminded time and again,

“This is all my righteousness, nothing but the blood of Jesus.”

But just as winter turns to spring, work must be done:

Sow righteousness for yourselves,
    reap the fruit of unfailing love,
and break up your unplowed ground;
    for it is time to seek the Lord,
until he comes
    and showers his righteousness on you Hosea 10:12.

It’s time to return.

And the ransomed of the LORD will return . . .
They will find joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing will flee away Isaiah 34: 3-5,8, 10, Amplified.

My open Bible changes me. It is true as Psalm 19: 7 proclaims:

The law of the Lord is perfect,
    reviving the soul; (Psalm 19).

I’ve found revival for my weary soul in only a short reminder in God’s Word. Is anyone else being revived in the process of turning to the Lord in His Word for help?

The testimony of the Lord is sure,
    making wise the simple; 

But I wrestle with God. “What about this? How is this going to work out? What am I supposed to do?

Do we wrestle with God? Yes. We’re broken. We have stories and testimonies in our Bible pages of this.

But God never changes. He’s the same, yesterday, and forever. We can grow to trust Him more if we spend time with Him:

The precepts of the Lord are right,
    rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the Lord is pure,
    enlightening the eyes;
the fear of the Lord is clean,
    enduring forever;
the rules of the Lord are true,
    and righteous altogether Psalm 19: 7-9.

If this is what God says will bring rejoicing in my heart, then I will seek Him now, with my whole heart . . .

join me in this need to know Him more?

“Dear Lord, we believe. Help our unbelief!”

Going no-where? At war with my two natures!

There is a war going on with my two natures! Do you ever have a ‘tug of war’ going on in you as well?

So, I went searching for a treasure of a book with a sketch of the struggle, Donald Barnhouse’s “Teaching the Word of Truth”. Pictured was a wagon with a horse hitched to the front of the wagon and a horse hitched to the back, both pulling in opposite directions, with all their strength  – at the same time! The wagon is going no-where!

Then there is a stick figure of a man, on the left the words, ‘old nature’, ‘unhappy Christians’, with some rough words connected to them, like: hatred, wrath, strife and envyings.  On the right,  were the words, “new nature”, happy Christians, and connected with terms like: love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

We begin to think that there are some people that are ‘very’ bad, and there are others that don’t seem bad, like babies or nice people. But God does not see any of our ‘own’ goodness. The Bible says quite strongly that ‘all our righteousness is as filthy rags’, (Isaiah 64:6). God’s word is truth and sometimes the truth is hard: ‘All our righteousness is just as a filthy rag’. This sounds even disgusting. How can that be?

Is there hope? What does God look for? What’s the solution. Well, a very, very ‘good’ man came to Jesus one night. Many of us know the story of ‘Nic at night’. Yes, Nicodemus, a Pharisee, one who even taught the law and a ruler of the Jews ‘came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”  (John 3:2).

Something was missing in ‘Nic’s life. He had to have answers. This man was a ‘good’ man. Wasn’t all his ‘goodness’ enough? What did Jesus say? Jesus gets right to what Nicodemus needed – this good and righteous man needed one thing. “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:3. 

What is Jesus saying?  In order to ‘see’ the kingdom of God, we all have to be born again? Well, then this is VERY important then. Who cares if the media and the world is hung up over ‘vocabulary’! We must be born again in order to ‘see the kingdom of God!

I want to ‘see the kingdom of God, today and everyday, don’t you? Don’t we pray, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Your name, your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6).

We all have an ‘old nature’. Our ‘old nature’ can’t please God, it can’t obey God, and it can’t understand God!  God doesn’t want us to just ‘stay there’! He wants us to be born again of the Spirit that we may have fruit.

 I must first,  believe on Him whom the Father has sent. I must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ!  What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus! What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus! The hymns tell us how!

“Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever, because 

“All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls away, But the word of the LORD endures forever!” (1 Peter 1:22-25, exclamation point mine).

God doesn’t want me to ‘fix up’ my old nature – He wants it dead to make room for the NEW! “And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.

“Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.” (1 John 5:11-15, emphasis, mine).

I’m asking LORD, “Fill me with Your Spirit that I might abound in the fruit of the Spirit, not the outcome of the flesh! My ‘new nature’ is the life of Jesus in me. “Lord, that others might see more of You and less, so much less of …me”” In Jesus Name, Amen.”  “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.” (1 John 5:11-15).

“This is all my righteousness, nothing but the blood of Jesus. This is all my hope and peace, nothing but the blood of Jesus. “Oh precious is the flow, that makes me white as snow. No other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus!