JESUS' BLOOD WAS SHED 7 TIMES ON PUPOSE

“And the priest shall dip his finger in some of the blood, and sprinkle it seven times before the Lord” (Lev 4:17). Jesus Christ being the fulfillment of the law shed His blood 7 times for our redemption. The sprinkling of His blood was not haphazard. Each time was to cover for a specific aspect of our lives. Jesus was raised from the dead AFTER he bled out, making the effects of the blood available to us as we accept the risen Christ into our lives.

The first blood was in the garden of Gethsemane. “He kneeled down, and prayed, saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:41). Jesus was willing to do God’s will no matter what. One drop of this blood touching us and all the willpower we’d ever need to choose God’s way is transferred to us.

The next time Jesus bled was when he was beaten and whipped by the Roman soldiers. The Bible uses the word “scourged.” It means to be given 39 lashes with a whip made of several leather thongs, each loaded with jagged pieces of metal or bone that tore and ripped open strips of flesh on His back. As we take this pure blood on us it makes our bodies impenetrable to any sickness or disease and it can heal or restore any missing or broken parts. The application of His blood can change anything physical. This can happen instantaneously (a miracle) or can be a process. The pure qualities of His blood (part of which are white blood cells) are able to wipe out all foreign matter and restore and refresh anything causing disease or malfunctions.

The third place Jesus shed blood was from internal bruises. Isaiah tells us: “He was bruised for our iniquities.” Jesus was mocked and beaten. There was distress and swelling caused by broken capillaries and dislodged blood beneath the surface of the skin. If we receive the significance of this blood, it wipes away any humiliation and deep emotional bruises we’ve carried—the wounds that we don’t let anyone see.

The fourth blood shed was from the crown of thorns jammed into His head. One drop of this blood from His brain applied to our minds and we can think right thoughts, and make wise decisions like He always did.

Next they nailed Jesus’ hands and feet to the cross. The blood from his hands is the fifth place Jesus bled. That blood applied to our hands gives us unique power in our hands. Think about what we do with hands—we touch, write, make things, give things, stop things, clap, lift, and much more. Believing to let the blood from Jesus’ hands pulse in our own can change everything we touch. (See Job 1:10, Deuteronomy 24:19 and Mark 16:18 for more examples.)

Number six is the blood from Jesus’ feet. It changes the path we can walk on. Matthew 7:14 tells us “strait is the gate and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life.” Though narrow, it is the path of dominion like God says in Deuteronomy 11:24 “Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours.” This will only be true when we walk in obedience to the ability the blood of Jesus has given us.

And lastly, number seven. When the soldier came to see if Jesus was really dead he took his spear and pierced him through the side—through His belly, His lungs and His heart—making sure His entire life force bled out. A drop of that blood gives us His life, a life with Him forever. Taking a drop of the blood shed from His belly, lungs and heart we get the life of the Holy Spirit into our bellies, new life in every breath and the ability to give and receive His perfect Love into our hearts.

We can take these seven aspects of Jesus’ shed blood and apply them to our lives now for our total salvation and wholeness. That’s what Easter is all about.

Love, Carolyn

Beneath the Veil no.11 Starts Off Difficult, Ends Up Great

Today was hard. I knew it was going to be a rough one from the get go. The sky was overcast – Las Vegas doesn’t like bad weather. My job at work was to come up with colors, formula and technique for making a primed piece of Masonite look like a beautiful mahogany. I was having trouble with the basecoat—too dull, too brown, not red enough. I worked at it and adjusted my color again and again. I have to match the live sample as closely as possible and it just wasn’t coming together.

Also I’d recently purchased new shoes and I was on a cement floor for 7 ½ hours. My legs hurt, my back hurt and I was worn out. Even the Motrin wasn’t working.

My attitude was as desperate and frayed as  the nerves in my back.  My mind was spiraling, but I knew if I could make it through the day I’d be okay.

It was so hard, but I made it home, had a diet coke and a grilled cheese sandwich and my energy started to revive. I got in the car and went to the coffee house to write. But FIRST I got my Bible out to read some scripture. I badly needed some refreshing and went to Psalm 107:20 “ He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.”

I read further. At verse 26 it started to describe how I started my day:  “They go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble.  They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end.

 Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble.” That was less than an hour into my work.

The next part of the scripture didn’t happen till 7 hours later! “And he bringeth them out of their distresses.  He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.

 Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven” (vss. 28-30).

Some days are just like that and all I can say is I’m glad God got me through it and I’m so glad my stress is finally over.

“Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!” (vs. 31)

Love, Carolyn

PERFECTLY PAID IN ADVANCE

Why didn’t God make it so that there would be no sin? Because God made people in his own image, with the freedom of will to choose. God didn’t want puppets. God has a wonderful life planned for everyone, but He wanted people to choose it, not be forced into it. But people didn’t believe in His goodness and turned away from Him. When the first man and woman sinned, it began to cultivate in the blood. They rebelled and chose to do things against God’s plan of good, and so the results were ungodly too. “For the wages [payment, harvest] of sin is death” (Rom 6:23). These wages came in the form of instant death like the murder of Abel, or in various partial deaths such as a partial death of a healthy mind, partial death in the functioning of various body parts, partial death of right thoughts about prosperity. You get the picture.

God knew that once sin got started, the results would be passed down from generation to generation. Sin brings death into a person’s body, mind, emotions and spirit and if allowed to go on, eventually destroys him entirely. God didn’t want that. What would be the point if every person was destroyed and gone? God would have no family left! He had to have a way for man to escape the results of sin that would kill him. So instead of having to pay with his life for every sin, God said people could pay with something dear to them and the sin would be covered, the debt paid.

In Old Testament times sin was covered with the payment of sheep, wheat, barley and other things that had significance to the people. But God had something better in mind that only He knew the full value of. He planned to give mankind His own son, who people could then take into their lives and hearts. People would then have the one and only perfect payment for all sins—Jesus.

When a person accepts Jesus as their own, then they have the most treasured sacrifice to give. Whether we know it or not, when we first believed in Jesus, we allowed Him to pay off our sin debts for us.

Jesus took the results of all our sin, including death and hell. But since Jesus had committed no sin, even death and hell couldn’t overcome Him; it couldn’t stick to Him. God raised Him up and outsmarted the best the devil had to throw at Him. Jesus Christ rose from the dead as victorious over all adversaries.

If you don’t know Jesus Christ and you want to, then all you need to do is “declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, you will be saved”

(Rom 10:9). Jesus Christ comes into our hearts and all the old sin is washed out. We become new people with the seed of God’s Holy Spirit in us to stay. The Holy Spirit in us rejects sin. So when we sin and rebel and make mistakes (and we all do), God says just admit it, say we’re sorry and we’re forgiven. No more sacrificial payments. Jesus paid it all up front. And no sin or the results of sin can overcome or stick to us either if we don’t want them. We can live in the goodness of God’s plan for a wonderful life now and we get to have it forever.

Love, Carolyn

Beneath the Veil no.10 Pearls Before Swine and Where Did the Double Chocolate Brownies Go?

She walked up to the counter and asked, “Any double chocolate brownies left?” The cashier said, “No, they’re all gone.” I wanted to jump up right there and scold, “No they’re not! I saw you put them away an hour ago.” It may have been wrong for him to put everything away so far before closing but really it wasn’t any of my business.

We sometimes think we are the hall monitors of the world and we stick our nose in where it doesn’t belong. Proverbs 9:7 and 8 tell us if we try to correct the wrong person we’re going to get insulted and hated. “If you correct an evil person, you will get hurt.” It’s not our personal business to be worrying about what other people are doing or not doing. We need to be busy doing what we’re supposed to be doing and let the Holy Spirit and the wisdom of God guide us concerning other people. 

If the Holy Spirit had told me to say something about the missing brownies, I would have, but He didn’t, so I needed to just keep quiet (and quit grumbling under my breath about it too!) I didn’t know the whole story and my butting in was not what God wanted anyway.

Even when we have so much to share, and good advice and great wisdom to talk about, the Bible says, “Cast not your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you (tear you in pieces).” Is that what we want? Of course not! And the Lord doesn’t want that for us either. He’ll let us know when to give advice and when not to. When it comes to reproving or correcting, it’s essential to be led by the spirit of Christ from within. And the motivation has to be the love of God, not the self-righteous scolding of a know-it-all.

Instead of jumping into situations where the Spirit hasn’t led us, we can pray the words Jesus said, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” That way we don’t get hurt and people who want to hear what we have to say will come our way.

Love, Carolyn

Tell the Devil Where to Go

I heard a story where a brother and his sister were riding in the back seat of the family car when all of a sudden the little girl blurted out, “Shut up devil!” Mom turned around and asked, “Why did you say that?” The little girl answered, “Because the devil told me I should break John's leg.”

We all need to do more of what that little girl did and tell the devil to shut up and go back down where he belongs.

When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, Matthew tells us Jesus responded with: “Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve” (Matt 4:10). Notice that Jesus didn't pray about it. He didn't ask God to get Satan away from him. He spoke directly to the spirit and “then the devil leaveth him” (vs.11). Throughout Jesus' walk on the earth we see that He speaks directly to that which is destructive and tells it to stop or depart. We can do the same.

I looked up the Greek translation for “get thee hence” from Matthew 4:10. It is hupago which comes from ago, which is to bring, lead away or go, and hupo which is under, beneath, below, to an inferior position. So hupago is to lead oneself under, i.e. withdraw (as if sinking out of sight). Jesus was commanding Satan to take himself down.

Before I came to this revelation of sending evil deeply under, beneath, and below, I would cast out devil spirits, but I only cast them away, not under. Demanding that evil take itself below is a much stronger image and agrees with many other passages we find in the Bible. For example there is the record of when Jesus cast the devil spirits out of the man of the Gadarenes. The evil spirits went into the pigs. And then what did they do? They jumped from a higher position on the cliffs to the water below and drowned:

And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them. And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea. (Mark 5:12-13 AMP)

When Jesus allowed himself to be crucified, He allowed for every evil that possibly could be inflicted on a man or woman to be inflicted upon himself. That would include any sickness, disease, oppression, worry, guilt, lack, and anything you or I can possibly think of that is destructive to the body, soul, or spirit. Jesus took it all upon Himself. He also was buried with it. And all of that evil and sickness was taken to Hell with Him.

It took tremendous power for God to raise Jesus up out of that filth, every bit of slimy, clawing, insidious evil wanting to pull him back down, or hitch a ride up. The Devil thought he'd destroyed Jesus; he certainly would fight to keep him down there, but he couldn't. When God raised Jesus, all evil was left behind, dropped away, and Jesus was raised as the victorious Christ.

Without oppression, there could be freedom. Without sickness and disease, there could be health. Without the wretchedness of poverty, there could be abundance and generous overflow. Without the claw of addiction there could be the joy of liberty. Without the strain of jealousy, there could be the comfort of love. Jesus took all evil to Hell, left it there and was raised all the way up to Heaven to enjoy the full, unimpaired blessing of God.

The rightful position of believers is above with Christ, and without any of things Jesus took with Him to the grave and to Hell.

Because of “his great love wherewith he loved us,” God “hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph 2:4 and 6), “far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named” (Eph 1: 21).

Romans 6:4 tells us “that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” Truthfully, any of the things that Jesus took to the grave and left deep in Hell, should not be in our lives. If they have deceitfully become a part of our lives, we have the perfect right to send them right back down to where they came from.

God's given us victory and authority in Christ. If devil spirits try to talk us into things that are not the best for us, we can say, like the little girl in the back seat, “Shut up devil!” Or we can say, like Jesus, “Take yourself back below, back under where you belong!

Love, Carolyn

Beneath the Veil no.9 God Loves Us Unconditionally

 

Joyce Meyer was teaching on God’s love. She explained, “God loves us and it’s unconditional. Everyone wants to feel that they matter to someone and you matter to God. He has a wonderful plan for your life.” She concluded her teaching by telling the audience, “I want you to say ‘God loves me unconditionally’ 50 times a day and then watch for His love.’” So I thought I’d try it.

Wow did I have some big surprises. I was doing pretty well until I went out on my patio and started to re-pot a few plants. One of the plants was really heavy and I was very intense on getting it out of the one pot and into the other without hurting myself. Then I was moving everything around and sweeping and working hard. I love doing this, but I realized that I was being so intense that I didn’t think about God much. Then later on at the gym I did the same thing. During those intense times I didn’t even say, “God loves me unconditionally” even one time! Maybe if I’d relaxed a little more and said my quote, I would have enjoyed myself more and not stressed out my shoulder muscles.

The next day I went to work and my project was on a really tight deadline. All day long I was saying “God loves me unconditionally. I matter to you. You have a wonderful plan for my life.” I kept a tally and during work alone I said this or a version of it 75 times. And in spite of the difficulty of my project, I finished it in time and was happy I could do it. It turned out so well.

Try this yourself for a week and see how it works!

Love you, Carolyn

WALK THE RED CARPET WITH THE BOSS

The way to get a job in Las Vegas is to know someone. It works pretty much the same with getting the job done of living a good spiritual life in this crazy world—you need to know someone. We as Christians know someone. His name is Jesus and He’s the Boss!

My friend invited me to a Cirque du Soleil charity event at the Hard Rock Hotel. She’d designed an amazing costume that was chosen to walk the runway in the fashion show that evening. I got in on the VIP treatment, which included getting pictures taken on the red carpet. When I stepped up, a guy asked to see my ID. All I said was, “I’m with her.” He nodded and off I went to enjoy a spectacular evening.

We actually know the Big Boss and He knows us. We don’t have to lower ourselves to listen to or even look at anything against us. Whatever the devil wants to say or do to us is insignificant. He’s not God! The devil was never an equal with God, never on the same level. He was created an angel to serve mankind, not rule over him. Hebrews 1:14 tells us: “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?” However, the devil continues to act like he’s in charge and is relentless in attacking humanity.

When we know that we should be getting God’s VIP treatment and we’re not, it’s time to take a look at what’s blocking us. Does it have to do with our own thinking patterns, negative things we’ve been focusing on? Is it someone the devil is using to try to bring us down? We don’t have to capitulate. We can step up and say, “Wait a minute. This thing doesn’t have to affect me! I know the Boss of the Universe and I’m with Him!”

So let’s get out there in our best outfits and take a lovely stroll on the red carpet runway with our Lord!

Love, Carolyn

FREE SAMPLE

You can get a free sample from the book I published last year. It's on Amazon.com under my name, Carolyn Molica and is called WINGS: A Journey in Faith Sample A - Words

Beneath the Veil no. 8 The Devil Will Never Click the "Like" Button - Beneath the Veil no.8

I went into the Starbucks and sat down to read the Bible and write. I looked up and this creepy guy was staring at me from outside. I tried to ignore him, but every time I looked up, there he was with big googly eyes looking right at me! Yuk. I couldn’t concentrate on what I was doing so I moved out of his line of vision. But then he came inside and sat right in the big easy chair that focused right on me! I couldn’t get a thing done and wasn’t smart enough to just turn my back on him or get out of there. I lost that battle.

The next several times when I went to study and write, similar things happened with different people at different locations. I got wise to what the devil was doing. He always goes too far and I catch him and nail him. The devil is never on our side! And to those of you who are Facebook users, the devil never clicks the “like” button for you. We are in a constant war with him.

In the end we win, but in each battle we need God’s wisdom of what to do. A person in the military or any competitive sport knows that battles get fought and won by different strategies. Our strategy is the wisdom of God. So the next time you get attacked, don’t let it go on for too long like I did, but go to God right away and find out His strategy for the battle. “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us” (Rom 8:37) [Emphasis mine.]

Love, Carolyn
P.S. If you'd like to follow me on Facebook, my page is: Christian writing A Journey in Faith by Carolyn Molica

Prayer Request

I’m really good at jumping right in to pray for people, but not used to asking people to pray for me. Well, that’s changing right now. I know that prayer works, that prayer can loose angels on my behalf and bind the devil spirits and bring favor and revelation and understanding and so many other wonderful things.

I believe that when you pray for me I’m going to see some amazing results so I’m thanking you ahead of time. Maybe the Lord will remind you to pray for me several times a week, or even a couple hours a week if you’re a prayer person who does lots of praying as a regular practice. These are the things I’d be blessed if you pray for:

1.      Wisdom, and especially along the lines of technology, to find the best avenues for getting my books and blog out to more readers, and do it as efficiently as possible.

2.      Mental energy to do the increased writing the Lord wants me to do.

3.      My financial needs to be met well, to cover my living expenses without me having to work so many hours, so I have more time for my writing, publishing and Christian art work.

Wisdom, Energy, Finances. That about does it. Jesus said that if two agree on anything they ask, it absolutely will be done, so thanks so much for praying with me.

Love you, Carolyn