Wednesday, January 25, 2012

EXPOSED!

I am continually amazed at how the Word of God is new every day, how we see things we NEVER saw before even if we've read the passage a hundred times.

That happened to me this week.  We have recently begun a chronological Bible study, His Story, My Story.  We are in Genesis, which I have read many times.  I've read and studied and taught the creation story more times than I can count.      

But as I was reading it this week, there it was.  Something I had never really grasped before, at least not in the way I did as I read this week.

"Then the eyes of them were opened and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves."  Genesis 3: 7

When we read they were "naked", we naturally think of them in the buff, without clothes, suddenly trying to cover up themselves with their hands.  So that not being adequate, they grab the first thing they can find large enough....fig leaves. 

But as I read that this week, it hit me.  Yes, they were PHYSICALLY naked, but more than that, they were EXPOSED.  They had taken of the forbidden fruit and immediately sin entered the picture and their sin was exposed.  They could not hide it, even though they desperately tried.

And though they tried in their humanness to cover their sin, it was not good enough.  An innocent animal had to be slain, blood had to be spilled in order to COVER their exposed sin.  Why?  "Because without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin." Hebrews 9:22

But, all that the sacrifice of the animals could do was to temporarily COVER their sin.  It could not remove it.  "For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.  " Hebrews 10: 4  But when Jesus came, His sacrifice on the cross REMOVED our sin and our guilt once for all.  "By this will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Christ once and for all. And every priest stands daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can NEVER TAKE AWAY SINS.  But this man [JESUS] after he had offered one sacrifice [HIMSELF] for sins FOREVER, sat down on the right hand of God."  Hebrews 10: 10-12. 

HALLELUJAH!!!  What a Savior!! Our sin is no longer covered, but it is removed once and for all, as far as the east is from the west.      Not COVERED and to be remembered and brought up to us again and again, year after year.  But totally and completely REMOVED! 

That precious royal blood did what the blood of bulls and goats never could.  It set us free.  Like the old song said "What can wash my sins away?  Nothing but the blood of Jesus."  I am so thankful for the blood, so thankful for what Jesus has done for me.  What about you?  Have your sins been REMOVED??  Fig leaves may cover, but Jesus' blood will wash you white as snow!

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