I am simple. I will never claim to be intelligent and I will almost always shy away from debates, it’s just simply not in my nature. I am not an expert on anything, and I will generally be open to learning the other side of the story, knowing that what I HAVE learned in the past is ‘just a part’ and that my whole knowledge of something will not be completed until the day I die.
Having said that, there is ONE thing that I will open my mouth to speak about. It is the One thing that I have the Most experience in. I have walked it, talked it, pondered it, seen it, touched it, tasted it, felt it, heard it, and smelled it.
It is called religion.
And religion is the Ultimate War.
Religion became the Battle of satan against God.
And the Prize was mankind.
You and me.
Since satan knew he could not win against God Himself, he would go after us….
The very little that I have read about war and strategies is interesting. The one tactic I have seen portrayed the most in movies is the one where the enemy surrounds and attacks from the front and from the rear. The more sly and convincing the enemy is, the easier it is to lead astray the other side.
The trap is set. And without KNOWING the enemy, and studying what his tactics are and have been in the past, the snare is successful.
The snare to trap mankind, would be to show that God is mad, angry at you and I and we had better behave and become good enough thru either our own workings or our money…….one way or the other we had to Pay.
We had to pay….
~I have often wondered why Jesus came into the world at the exact time and place that he did. All I know is this: It was The Perfect Time.
He entered a world so tightly wound up around religion and rules that the Rule Makers of the day hated Him.
They despised Him.
They went to War against Him. The Ultimate War.
The only thing is they didn’t KNOW His strategy was two-fold.
Jesus strategy was to Love and to Die.
No one knew it. His followers wanted Him to overtake the ruling Roman government and the religious leaders of the day wanted Him dead.
And when He died, his followers scattered and the religious leaders laughed. They believed that their war strategy worked. It went easier than they even expected! When they hurled false accusations at Him He was quiet!!! Perfect. They couldn’t have planned it better if they had tried…….So they chuckled and walked away and sauntered back into town, patting one another on the back, smoothed out their long flowing, expensive robes and entered the temple, where once again they would of course be respected, and obeyed, and this Jesus fellow was gone.
But as soon as they entered the temple there was a flurry going on. It was out of control….maybe it was the earthquake that happened when Jesus gasped His last breath, or maybe it was the complete darkness that overtook the earth. None of that quite shook them like what they saw when they walked into the inner courts.
It was there that they saw it.
The Holy of Holies was exposed. The innermost courts of the temple where they worshipped contained a three foot thick curtain covering the most Holy place in their temple and it was RIPPED in half, from Top. To. Bottom.
The religious leaders form of being superior was gone. Their Ace was played and they no longer were in control of the game.
The enemy of our souls had lost the war, his overlord pawns were stripped of their power, they could no longer control the people….
You have to remember who these guys that the enemy used to strategize against Jesus were….They were the Chief Priests…….not your average run of the mill priests, but the .CHIEF PRIESTS, the ruling authorities of their day.. and they alone had access to the Holy of Holies. They Alone. Now it was exposed and wide open to the average man…….the average woman.
Let me explain what was required during their day. People that wanted forgiveness of their sins had to bring in unblemished animals for their sacrifice and if they didn’t have one, they could go into the temple and buy them.
“Hurry, hurry, step right up folks, get your unblemished sheep over here for only 10 coins!”
“No! No! Look over Here!!! I have a lamb to sell for only 8 coins! They’re not gonna last long, Buy them from me while they last!”
Jesus saw this and it angered Him. The week before Jesus laid down His Life to die, He walked into those same outer courts of the temple, took a concealed weapon out of His robe,~ a whip,~ and drove out those guys preying on the innocent. He made the money changers and the religious leaders very, very angry.
Thats what happens when you mess with someones money, you take away their income.
Tempers simmer and strategies of war begin to form….
They played right into Jesus’ Hands. He wasn’t killed, He laid down His Own Life to Become the ULTIMATE SACRIFICE, so that the precious people scraping up their coins to buy an unblemished animal to atone for their sins no longer had to.
And God approved. God was appeased. The cruelty of sin that man used to assault one another had been paid for by the Absolute Perfect Sacrifice……
This unblemished Lamb that had two goals, to Love and Die, was God Himself, who came down in the form of Jesus.
And he came for the little guy.
He came for you and He came for me.
The snare set up by the enemy in the beginning to trap us was exposed and Jesus Won the Prize He Cherished and Adored.
You and Me.
That Moment of Time was the Defining Moment in all of history.
BC/AD.
The religious leaders of the day tried to sweep up the dust of the confusion, but it didn’t work.
Sleep, I am sure did not come so easily to them that night, when they tried to explain what actually happened at the temple…..
Then on SUNDAY?????? Oh, forget about it! NOW they are saying that Jesus is no longer in the grave, and the Roman soldiers they posted to guard his tomb died and the other soldiers reported that He CAME OUT and IS ALIVE AGAIN??!! This simply can. not. be…
~Now, here we are in 2015 and the enemy is still trying to use his same tactics that he used thousands of years ago.
He is still trying to get us to pay for our own sins, do or pay our own price. He throws upon us sorrow and guilt for not being good enough. He puts in our churches items that we have to buy to pray to and hold onto to assuage our guilt.
Some religions make you buy their jewelry to pray with. They make you buy their candles of their saints to pray to. Their saint in their religion is more compassionate then Jesus and He is the one you need to pray to (for only $9.99 while supplies last)……this particular saint will hear, don’t you know, He will understand better than Jesus…..
Other religions make you wear the undergarments that they sell in their church store (Hurry, hurry, step right up, get your white undergarments for only 8 dollars…) ~This is so that when you die, God will see your white garments and you can pass thru the gates into Heaven.
The seemingly cleverness of the enemy was exposed the very instant Jesus died on the cross for you and me. The very instant the veil in the temple was torn in half, the enemies’ war strategy was exposed.
Yet to this day, the same lie keeps repeating itself over and over and over……
The whispering and sometimes shouting saying “Guilty! Guilty! You must Pay the Price!!!”, is silenced only when we remember what Jesus did for us.
Jesus Paid It All.
Now today as we walk past the temples of the religious leaders of our day, we can smile. We can walk into authentic churches with others and laugh.
It’s because we are Free.
It’s because we don’t have to wear a white garment, or pray to some saint.
It’s because we, the most common and simplest of people, have access to the Holy of Holies, and we are Loved.
The Ultimate War has been Won, we have been purchased with a Great Price and…
We are Loved.
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A Woman's Heart 