Life in the Blood
As the DSM staff gathered throughout Easter to pray for the coming (more Lord!) of the Holy Spirit, we entered Jesus’ merciful heart. Pandemic noise invited us to flee into the folds of His compassion. His wound is love, bleeding yet unimpaired, fiercely beating as to send oxygen-rich Blood throughout His Body so that all might live.
As His Blood enriched ours, we discovered impaired passageways—some blocked—in ourselves and in our ministry. How can we best become merciful members whose very presence permeates what is dying and revives it? Simple: we repent! We allow Him to diagnose hardening arteries; we then welcome His cleansing afresh.
Easy for Him—it’s the purpose of His heart and nature of His Blood—to course through surrendered vessels. Fresh, oxygenated mercy cleanses and revitalizes the heartsick. Now we can hear His command to all the faithful: ‘Summon life from the dead!’
That is good news. Our very lives are merciful, saving agents of His Blood that can well up and heal the most disordered. Of course we can! We are His! And He is Jesus! He lives as the very center of our lives and sends His merciful flood to us and through us with each beat of His heart.
Pentecostal power means that we live to revive the dying. We resound with an invitation for all to welcome His mercy where they are sick. Surrounded by the saints, we help each other refuse silent killers in His merciful, Almighty Name. More than that, we rejoice together in the wholeness we find only in championing others’ dignity over any lustful reduction.
I love my comrades who have come out of life-defying identities—deep divides of soul from which disordered passions emerge—passions that the world applauds and seeks to ignite. We know better! And we live better because One greater lives in us who implores others through us to turn from falsehood and live.
As I write, I see faces of friends throughout the world who infuse churches with their witness of Blood: the life that emanates from Jesus’ Almighty mercy. Life in the Blood now drives and defines previously wounded lives. Their communities are better–cleaner, truer, more merciful—because of them. Deadened tissue from unconfessed sin—from all religious game-playing—is exposed and surrounded by the mercy that wells up from them. Pure, saving joy! Nothing better! We are agents of His Blood whose witness awakens the Bride.
Pentecost has just begun. June is upon us, LGBT+ month. We will be subject to a host of false witnesses. Pray constantly for Jesus’ mercy to rest upon those who don’t know better. Mercy speaks a better word. Jesus’ Blood speaks a better word (Heb. 12: 24). May we who live in the Blood well up and summon life from the dead.
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