“I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy falsely in My name, saying, ‘I had a dream, I had a dream!’ How long? Is there anything in the hearts of the prophets who prophesy falsehood, even these prophets of the deception of their own heart, who intend to make My people forget My name by their dreams which they relate to one another, just as their fathers forgot My name because of Baal? The prophet who has a dream may relate his dream, but let him who has My word speak My word in truth. What does straw have in common with grain?” declares the Lord. “Is not My word like fire?” declares the Lord, “and like a hammer which shatters rock?” Jeremiah 23:25-29.

Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free. Galatians 5:1.

And continuing our 351 Old Testament prophecies, promises of God, fulfilled in Jesus Christ, we come to number 22: A Lamb without blemish. Exodus 12:5: Your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. And, Hebrews 9:14; 1 Peter 1:19: How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? But with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.

The second devotional above was from My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers and I loved this that he shared: “A spiritually minded person will never come to you with the demand – “Believe this and that”; a spiritually minded person will demand that you align your life with the standards of Jesus. We are not asked to believe the Bible, but to believe the One whom the Bible reveals (see John 5:39-40). We are called to present liberty for the conscience of others, not to bring them liberty for their thoughts and opinions. And if we ourselves are free with the liberty of Christ, others will be brought into that same liberty – the liberty that comes from realizing the absolute control and authority of Jesus Christ. Always measure your life solely by the standards of Jesus. Submit yourselves to His yoke, and His alone; and always be careful never to place a yoke on others that is not of Jesus Christ. It takes God a long time to get us to stop thinking that unless everyone sees things exactly as we do, they must be wrong. That is never God’s view. There is only one true liberty – the liberty of Jesus at work in our conscience enabling us to do what is right. Don’t get impatient with others. Remember how God dealt with you – with patience and with gentleness. But never water down the truth of God. Let it have its way and never apologize for it. Jesus said, “Go…and make disciples” (Matthew 28:19), not, “Make converts to your own thoughts and opinions.””

How can any one person grasp the truth of Creator God – Father, Son, Spirit? It is so vast and deep and wide and holy and beautiful. We have Jesus the Son, who came to show us the way and it is with Him. The liberty by which Christ has made us free is the same liberty by which He brought the children of Israel out of the harsh slavery to Egypt = the harsh slavery of sin! Who of us has not been deeply wounded by the sins of others and of ourselves? All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. Isaiah 53:6. Can we sit with that today and really take that in? How can any of us so steeped in the sins of this fallen world grasp the love of Creator God? We can’t without Him. What Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well He tells to all of us, Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know, we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:21-24. The Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him…He is the only One who could bear all of it. He is the only One who can show us the way to the Father by the Spirit of truth.