My Deliverer

I’ve had this phrase of scripture echoing around inside my spirit for a few months now. It comes to me during worship and during prayer times. This phrase has a life all its own. It feels living and active and loaded with supernatural strength. It feels like someone stands up inside of me, with feet planted on solid ground, and makes a strong statement within me to my body, my soul, and my surroundings. It is the very Person of Jesus Christ Himself, taking His rightful position in me and making a declaration into the atmosphere. He stands strong in me, like a fortress, in the midst of a world full of trouble, He looks right at what’s going on, and says . . .

“We have this Hope/We’ve got this Treasure.”

I’ve been meditating on the book of Hebrews for a few months now. I’ve been digging into it like a treasure hunter, looking for something really precious—a treasure. I drank in the pages of scripture, which poured into me a consistent reminder in every chapter, that I have a hope, and I have an inheritance. Every page seemed to lead me closer to learning about this “pearl” that I was longing to grasp with both hands. My inheritance in Christ.

I read and read and read and then finished the book of Hebrews with a kind of ‘Did I miss something?’ sort of feeling. I remember getting to the end of the book, sitting back in my chair, and exclaiming, “So what is my inheritance??!! What exactly is IT?” I emailed Pastor Pete and asked a load of questions, which he graciously answered, but we both agreed that all these questions and a feeling of “I’m missing something,” was just a sign that I was about to have another encounter Jesus and Him crucified.

The next weekend, our family was sorting through some really dynamic and challenging circumstances. It came on suddenly, from many directions, and we encountered challenge and distress on many levels. There seemed to be pressure on every side of us, kind of like being surrounded by sharks in an open sea. In the thick of this, there was a strong temptation in the midst of crisis to feel helpless, get frustrated, and turn on each other.

I remember getting to church service that night, feeling like I could not bring myself to a place of peace. I could not find it in myself to stop blaming and forgive. I couldn’t find any shred of light in our circumstances. I couldn’t find hope in my knowledge of scripture to ‘rise up’ above it all and enjoy the worship going on around The Throne. I felt weighted down, I felt unable, I felt weak and human, and I felt disqualified to even enjoy Jesus as He was walking among us in this beautiful time of worship.

I tried and tried to focus on Christ. I tried to quote scripture to myself. I tried and tried to preach Truth to myself. I just couldn’t bring myself out of the feeling of being swallowed up by sin and circumstance. So, I fell to my knees and just whispered, “Help me, Jesus. Help me.”

Immediately, a tidal wave of light washed through me and I heard it. I heard a body being broken. On every sensory level I heard and felt and saw The Body of Jesus being broken—like a large grape being popped under tremendous pressure and crushed—and blood and water and grace poured out from the fresh wound in Jesus’ side. It flowed out from His body to me and my whole household. As this blood and water flowed out, I felt the very specific grace provided in Jesus’ death for our family in this moment in history and it was portioned specifically for this moment of circumstance and trial. I felt the provision of salvation and grace poured out 2000 years ago, here, for our family, now in the very moment of distress, and it filled my entire person out with life and peace and love again.

Then Jesus came into our corporate worship service. I saw Him appear, on the platform just a few feet from Shelley on the keyboard. He was standing in Kingly robes, offering a large piece of flesh, sopping with blood and water, from His side to the congregation. There was provision and salvation, being offered from His sacrifice for our now moments of crisis and sinful thinking patterns. The strong arm of the Lord came in and began to destroy patterns of thought to set us all free.

I reached out and took my portion of Jesus’ flesh into my body and I remembered. I remembered the book of Hebrews. I remembered my search for ‘the pearl’ of revelation in my inheritance and hope. I remembered!

Jesus then began declaring the Hope of the ages inside of me. I saw the world, I saw our country, I saw the spirit of the age and its effect on the inhabitants of this world. I saw the depression, I saw the fear, and I saw the hopelessness. In the same moment I saw the condition of the earth, I became very aware of my real condition. Jesus began declaring from within me, my inheritance in Him. He said,

“You are not a people called to deliver yourselves.”

I was overwhelmed with my portion in this simple statement. If I am not called to deliver myself, then that means I have a Deliverer. This is my portion in Jesus.

I felt a sudden and obvious separation from the things and people of this world. I felt the pearl of greatest price. I felt the Great Divide. I felt my name in the Lamb’s book of Life. I felt my place and position in heaven in Jesus. I felt my Father. I felt the Son. I felt the Blood that purchased me from hell and ransomed me out from under the world and sin. I felt the Son of God, entering into the thick of it, in a world full of hopelessness and pulling me out of it all through His own broken body into heavenly realms. I saw that I had been violently ripped out of an earthly existence through the veil of his broken body and I tasted my inheritance. I was experiencing my life in unbroken fellowship with God, through the Son, and I tangibly encountered the HOPE for which I had been reaching as I read the book of Hebrew the previous week.

We have this Hope!!! People without this hope have to deliver themselves! They have to bring their sheep and bulls to offer sacrifice for sin. They have to search out new and better ways to pull themselves out from or avoid calamity, crisis, and failure. They have to toil and pour their sweat into the earth and then eat the fruit born from thistled ground. They have to read advice books and listen to self-help tapes and attend seminars to teach them a better way to hold relationships together. They have to attend conferences on the latest and greatest idea for gathering wealth in storms of economic crisis.

They have to do, they have to go, they have to try. They are offered recycled ways and old formulas with new packages promising success, but are only an end in themselves. They have to stare in the face of ominous generational curses, coming down the line as their inheritance of a previous generation’s investment, and expect the full return in their lives.

They don’t know this Hope. The earth is their home, their portion is toil. They don’t know about the One God sent to Deliver them. They are still dragging their offerings from their own labor to the table trying to atone for something that can never be removed by human hands or ideas. They are still lugging the fruit of their own efforts to the crisis of life and coming up short and empty. This is the life of a person who has to deliver him or herself. Ugh. Can you feel that empty portion? Whew.

HOWEVER, we have this Hope:

But when the proper time came, God sent His son, born of a human mother, and born under the jurisdiction of the Law, that He might redeem those who were under the authority of the Law and lead us into becoming, by adoption, true sons of God. It is because you really are his sons that God has sent the Spirit of His son into your hearts to cry, “Father, dear Father!” You my brother, are not a servant any longer. You are a son. And, if you are a son, then you are certainly an heir of God through Christ. Galatians 4:4-11 Phillips

God didn’t stand aloof from our condition. He didn’t stand far off in heaven and hope for the best as we dragged our bulls and goats to the outer court to atone for sin we couldn’t cure. He sent His very own Son, Jesus and entered full into it. He dove right into the thick of it. He came right into the middle of it and offered Himself as a final sacrifice once and for all for our sinful condition. He drew up into Himself, the very condition of sinfulness in which we walked about contaminated and contaminating the world around us.

Jesus drew up into Himself the very specific circumstances and crisis that cause us distress and He allowed the sacrifice of His own body. A body broken outside of time and inside of history, so that at any given moment, the Truth of this superabundant act of grace and love can break in and deliver us in the new and living way.

We are not a people called to deliver ourselves. We’ve entered into the solution and the salvation through His very body--broken and crushed--so that blood and water and grace could pour out in the moment of crisis and say, “Mercy! There is provision in this Body for this. Here, receive the sacrifice for this one crisis, or ten problems, or 50 issues of distress. There is grace for this, and therefore, receive your deliverance.”

This is our inheritance. So, this is “This Hope” we carry around within us. This hope is that He is our Deliverer, then, now, and forever. We have been given way out through Jesus, our Lord. A God who has entered fully into the thick of it for us, to bring us into right fellowship with Him, in Him. What a gift. What a treasure. What a Father. What a Savior. He is our Deliverer.

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus has already entered on our behalf. . . Hebrews 6:19,20 (Phillips)

Written by Melissa Williams (with a bit of publishing help from Pastor Lisa)