PAID IN FULL

UNDERSTANDING AND APPROPRIATING THE

POWER IN THE BLOOD OF JESUS

‘The Life is in the Blood!’

Pastor Tayo Adeyemi

                                                                  Sunday 03 April 2011

Foundation Scriptures: 1 Peter 1: 18-19 & Revelation 12: 11

We begin a new series today, Paid in Full, in which I hope to broaden your understanding of the power in the blood of Jesus and show you how to harness that power to your advantage.

I have come to discover that many believers do not fully understand the power in the blood of Jesus and consequently do not understand how to use that power to their advantage. Many Christians sing about the blood of Jesus, they may even plead the blood of Jesus when they pray, but deep down, very few really understand its significance. Consequently, we are carrying around one of the most potent forces in the universe yet we do not know what to do with it.

Leviticus 17: 11 [NLT] states ‘for the life of the body is in its blood. I have given you the blood on the altar to purify you, making you right with the Lord. It is the blood, given in exchange for a life, that makes purification possible.’ Blood is a very unique entity – a material of distinct quality and incomparable value. From the beginning of time, man has understood that there is something peculiar about blood. For all our scientific and technological advances, there is still a lot we do not know about blood; we cannot manufacture it and day after day we continue to be fascinated by what blood can do.

Down through the ages, humanity has learnt to appreciate the power of blood. In every culture, from the tribes of the Americas, Africa, the pagan tribes of Europe, as far back as the Ancient empires of Rome, Egypt and Persia, the significance of blood has been observed in the rituals that they practiced. Similarly in Asia, whether in India, Tibet or China or Japan or Thailand, they believed that blood was sacred; hence the vegetarian practices of many Hindus and Buddhists. In all these cultures, whether they used the blood in worship or in witchcraft; to bestow blessings or to cast spells, in covenants or in judgements, they all knew that blood is powerful and that there is a connection between blood and life. They had their own primitive way of trying to understand what God had already revealed in his word to His people that the life is in the blood.

For us to truly understand the power of blood, we must go all the way back to the very first time in human history when blood was shed and investigate the reasons why blood ever had to be shed. In order to truly grasp this, we must remind ourselves of two very important attributes of God: (i) God is love and (ii) God is holy.

A Love that Defies Logic!

God is Love. He is the personification of perfect, infinite, unconditional love - And you are the object of His love. God loves you not because of you but despite you. His love is unfailing and unwavering. His love is unaffected by anything that you have done, anything you are doing now or anything you can ever do. It is an unexplained and unqualified love. You don’t deserve it, you didn’t earn it, yet He still loves you. It’s unexplainable, indescribable and uncontainable. It is a love that defies logic – Psalm 8: 4-5 alludes to this; God is mindful of you, that means that His mind is full of you. He can’t stop thinking about you.

The bible in Jeremiah 31: 3 [NLT], describes God’s love for you as everlasting and unfailing. Everlasting love means that God can’t stop loving you because He never started. He has always loved you even when you were not aware of His love for you. Whatever you are going through today, just settle this in your mind: God is crazy about you!

God is Holy. The bible refers to the holiness of God more than any other attribute. This is the only attribute that carries the third degree of repetition: ‘Holy Holy Holy’ (Isaiah 6:3). God is perfect, completely pure. Not even the slightest flaw can be found in Him, not the faintest hint of a blemish. God is so holy, He cannot stand sin. He can even bear to look at it. (See Habakkuk 1: 13; Job: 15:15). God hates sin with a passion; every time he beholds sin, He must judge it. Sin in the presence of God is like paper in the presence of fire; it must be consumed.

The devil hates everything that God loves and loves anything that God hates. This means the devil hates you and loves sin. Recognising how much God hates sin, he put what God hates inside what God loves. He deceived Adam and Eve and caused them to sin and thus when God wants to embrace the man He loves, He sees the sin that He hates and has to pull back. And when God wants to destroy the sin He hates, He sees the man He loves and holds back.

“...Of purer eyes than to behold evil”

Habakkuk 1:13

In order to understand how ugly and terrible sin is, let’s look briefly at three things about sin: (i) You do not need to commit many sins to become unclean before God. Just one sin is sufficient to defile you and render you unclean before God. It was only one sin that caused Adam and Eve to be driven from the presence of God, causing all of humanity to fall with them. Only one sin is sufficient to banish you from God’s holy presence. Such is God’s standard of holiness. (ii) Sin and God’s glory cannot co-exist in the same place. If you want to experience the glory of God in your life, you cannot entertain sin. (iii) Sin always leads to death. Death is the ultimate consequence of sin. Every time sin is committed death ensues. Whether it is obvious or not, whenever you sin, something dies. In the Garden of Eden some animals had to die as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s sin. It was either their lives or the lives of the animals. But look at Genesis 3: 21 and notice how those animals died. God shed the blood of those animals and applied the blood on Adam and Eve, placing the blood-soaked tunics as coverings on them. It was important that the blood of the animals be shed rather than the animals being killed another way because the life is in the blood.

The blood of any creature is its life. If you want to take the life of any creature just take its blood. Likewise a person, a person’s blood is their life. You can tell a lot about a person just by studying their blood.

God’s Answer for all the Problems of Humanity..

God’s ultimate answer for all the problems of humanity is the blood of Jesus. That is why Jesus could not have died by hanging or poisoning. His blood had to be shed. When Jesus shed His blood at Calvary, He poured out His life for you and me. Anything and everything that His life represented was encapsulated within that shed blood because the life is in the blood.

As you go through the bible, you will find that blood is always mentioned in two contexts: (i) the blood shed and (ii) the blood applied.

In Eden, when God made tunics for Adam and Eve, the blood was shed and applied. At the Passover, when the children of Israel killed a Lamb without blemish, the blood was shed and applied. All through all the Old Testament sacrifices, the blood was shed and then applied. It was applied on persons, on the altar and on certain objects in the tabernacle. Until the blood is applied it is of no consequence and of no benefit. Blood that is shed and not applied is wasted blood.

The blood of Jesus has been shed for you and me but we must learn to apply it. Look at how Jesus put it in John 6: 53-57 “Most assuredly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed and my blood is drink indeed.” How, you may wonder, do we eat His flesh and drink His blood? In John 6: 35 Jesus says by coming to Him and by believing in Him. Another way is by partaking of communion.

If you do not remember anything else from this message, I want you to remember this: Whatever sin can do, the blood of Jesus can undo. Whatever can be caused by your sin or another person’s sin, whether poverty, sickness or oppression, any product of sin can be destroyed in your life by the blood of Jesus. I encourage you therefore to apply the blood of Jesus to every contrary situation that you may be facing in the knowledge that as you do, you are introducing the very life of Jesus because the life is in the blood.