The Life is in the Blood

For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.

Leviticus 17:11

August, the eight month, has indeed been a month of new beginnings.  We have left Perth (and our family) behind to move interstate,  to Melbourne.  By the grace of the Lord, we have settled into a new home, a new office for Fred and the Lord had placed us in a new church family.  We also sense in our spirits that we have stepped into a very new spiritual season, one where we are out of our depth, a season where we have to unlearn some things and quickly learn new ways to engage with the presence and person of God, our Father.

We serve a God Who is from Everlasting to Everlasting, yet we still live our lives so very much on a temporal plane.  But…we are willing and able to learn and we have Holy spirit, Who is altogether a magnificent teacher.  So I am praying for a greater measure, or capacity, to unlearn and relearn.  Yesterday, we were challenged with a message about the Person of God and the pastor made a statement that unlocked something for me.  Not new, but a different perspective, I would say.

As the pastor said “God wants to draw you into Himself”, I saw a mental image of the circulatory system and as I meditated on that image, I realised what a wonderful analogy it is of the way Father wants to encounter us.  Our hearts are organs that work tremendously hard and when it fails, we perish.  The heart pumps oxygenated blood to every organ and cell of the body, in order to preserve life and by doing it this ebb and flow continually takes place in our bodies without our conscious awareness.  Oxygen-rich blood is drawn from the lungs, through the heart and distributed through every single part of the body.  While this is happening, oxygen-deleted blood is drawn back into the heart, to be pumped into the lungs, in order to be re-oxygenated.

The beauty of this process is that it happens without any effort from any cell inside the blood.  All the red blood cells, the white blood cells and the platelets have to do is to stay in the blood.  The moment the blood leaves the body, the cells can no longer sustain its own life and dies.

In this, I see this beautiful picture of our lives as Christians, of members of God’s family and of our purpose and calling as sons and daughters.  Just as there are many different cells in our blood, each with a unique, yet equally important function, we have different members and giftings, yet equally important to make our spiritual family function in a healthy fashion.  The red blood cells are the most common, and their job is to stay in the stream, to be used to distribute oxygen to the rest of the body.  Aren’t we all called to that?  Aren’t we all called to be filled with the spirit and sent by the Lord to deliver what we carry to those most in need of it?  The red blood cells do nothing in and of themselves.  They simply stay in the blood and allow themselves to be transported by the blood, to be pumped by the heart and they simply carry what they have been created to carry.  How easy our lives would be if we understand that Father’s desire is to draw us into Himself, to fill us with everything we need to do what He has designed for us to do and then to send us to simply deposit what He had deposited inside of us.  Imagine a world where healing, deliverance and signs and wonders continuously and effortlessly flowed from us, simply because we have been with Him and we are so saturated with “God-stuff” that it leaks out of us uncontrollably!

Then there are the white blood cells…the little warriors that react to any foreign invasion that might breach the body’s defences by racing through the blood, sacrificing themselves by surrounding the invader and eliminating the threat.  This reminds me of Jesus, who rushed to our aid, Who sacrificed Himself for us and succeeded in eliminating the threat forever. It also speaks to me of the prophets, teachers, missionaries, deliverers of every shape and description –  those members of our family who give themselves selflessly in order to rush to the breach and eliminate the threat.

So also Jesus suffered and died outside the city gates to make his people holy by means of his own blood.     Hebrews 13:12

The platelets remind me of the pastors and every member of the body who operates in the gift of mercy, hospitality and serves continuously.  They recognise where there’s bleeding and they rush to the site of the wound to staunch the flow, in order to preserve the life of the whole body.  Jesus again, is a beautiful example of this.  He saw how sin opened the door for us to be mortally wounded and He gave Himself so that there would be healing and health available for each one of us.

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.        1 John 1:7

Thoughts to ponder:

  • Father’s heart and desire is to draw us deeper into Him, for our mutual enjoyment and to empower us for service
  • We don’t have to do anything, we simply surrender to the ebb and flow…as He breaths in, we are drawn into His presence and as He exhales we are released into the world around us to deliver what we have received from Him in the secret place
  • We each have a unique calling and destiny…He created us and He is the One to reveal our purpose to us
  • We have to stay in the river to sustain our lives. Outside of the body and His presence, we die