Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.
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A letter from a young sister in the Lord
Pastor John:
There is something that I have been thinking about on and off for some time now. It is something you’ve said many times, but I didn’t understand it completely. I was riding in the car Wednesday thinking about it again. You’ve said: “Watch out for the buildings with crosses on top. It is a Roman tool of torture, and it shows what the people inside the buildings would do to Jesus if he were alive on earth again.”
I have thought about that and just couldn’t take it in. Would people inside Christian places really KILL JESUS if he lived here again? I know that they would definitely say not, but I was already being told that they don’t know themselves, that Satan was in control of that religion, and that he had killed Jesus once using people and would do it again. Wow.
I couldn’t completely make the connection between the sweet, normal people I have known at school, in my jobs, in the mall, etc. and the angry, insane crowd of Jews who cried, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” So I was praying about it again in the car on Wednesday, and I said to God, “I just don’t really see that.” But I really wanted to understand it rightly.
Then the best feeling came in the car, and I had the thought (but not from me), “Every time they quench the Spirit, Christians are showing what they would do to Jesus.”
The whole thing opened up . . . Jesus did all he did on earth so that we could have his Spirit. His Spirit is Jesus! So to kill his spirit is to kill Jesus. Some, if not all, buildings with crosses on top hold services several times a week that quench the holy Ghost, i.e. kill Jesus! Wow. If possible, it now seemed that the people today are worse off than the Jews because of the fact that the holy Ghost is here now.
I really treasure that experience. I don’t know that I can really describe how Jesus helped my thoughts flip-flop so suddenly to see it as he (and you) see it. It is valuable to me. Let me know if what I am thinking isn’t exactly right.
Token E.
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Dear Token:
The only way any of us can know how a person (or ourselves) would treat Jesus if he were here among us is how they react to the holy Ghost. It was, after all, the light of the holy Ghost in Jesus that people really hated when he was here the first time. John said, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men” (Jn. 1:4), “but men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil” (Jn. 3). Paul said, “The Spirit is life” (Rom. 8). It was the Spirit of God shining through Jesus that wicked men hated, and they still hate it when it shines through us.
How a person reacts to the power, wisdom, and goodness of God that comes through the holy Ghost is exactly how he would react to Jesus if he were here. In many, many Christian churches, the holy Ghost is not welcome. That means that Jesus would not be welcome.
Don’t be fooled by the talk of men. The wicked rulers of the Jews who killed Jesus claimed to love God. Judge all things by the Spirit. That is “righteous judgment”, and Jesus warned us to judge all things that way.
Pastor John