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Life Around "The Fire"
Life Around "The Fire"
Father, Forgive Them: Understanding Jesus's Words on the Cross
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." These powerful words from Jesus on the cross reveal a profound truth about our human condition - sin numbs us to reality. We create narratives that normalize harmful behaviors, justifying them with the false belief that "everyone does it." Yet this deception leaves us spiritually insensitive, like leprosy patients who injure themselves without feeling pain.
The crucifixion scene presents a striking picture: religious leaders and Roman soldiers mocking the very One dying for their salvation, completely unaware of what they were doing. This spiritual blindness wasn't random but actively fueled by what scripture metaphorically calls "the bulls of Bashan" - demonic influences that surrounded Jesus at Calvary. Today, similar spiritual forces continue influencing human thinking, making discernment critical for believers.
Jesus offers us more than forgiveness - He provides complete freedom from sin's numbing grip. When He tells us to "go and sin no more," He's not imposing an impossible standard but declaring our liberation from sin's cyclical prison. His sacrifice empowers us to walk in genuine holiness. Additionally, when we practice forgiveness toward others, we break destructive patterns that would otherwise make us resemble the very things we resent. Unforgiveness doesn't punish others; it enslaves us. Through Christ's example and power, we can experience true freedom - not just from punishment for sin, but from sin's dominion in our lives.
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Shalom to you and your home.
You know, back in the day, when I was still smoking marijuana, I would, I'd fire up and I mean I wouldn't just puff and pretend to inhale. I was a guy, I would inhale and I would do it a lot right, it was a way of life for me and I also had this mentality that went along with that. And it was this I had the mentality that the majority of people smoke marijuana. They might not say they do, but the majority of people do. And so I would kind of justify what I was doing because I would make it normal. What I was doing seemed normal. Everyone was doing it. So if everyone's doing it, it must be okay. But the truth is, if you take the population of the world, which is in the billions right, less than 150 million people regularly smoke marijuana. That's 2.7% Far from everybody, far from everybody.
Speaker 1:Now there could be an argument as to whether or not smoking marijuana is wrong or if it's sinful. That's not going to be the debate or the topic of this particular podcast episode. What I'm referring to in this particular instance is that there are things that we normalize and kind of make it up to be as though that's the way that things are. So it kind of makes it okay and I'm referring to specifically a portion of this particular podcast episode that we're focusing in on, in fact, the lion's share of this particular podcast episode, in fact, the lion's share of this particular podcast episode we're looking at one statement that Jesus made while he was hanging on the cross and that now, granted, that's a very intense topic when you break it down. Jesus, the perfect man, sinless man, great teacher, great prophet, also God, the Son, the Son of God, was crucified on a wooden cross, a device designed for torture, perfected by the Romans back in the first century AD, and he hung on that cross as a price to be paid to redeem us from the consequences of the sins that we commit as human beings. The forgiveness of sins, the washing away not the covering of, but the washing away, the removal of the remittance of our guilt, of our fear, of our shame, of our sin, of our fear of our shame of our sin, of our missing completely the connection point of relationship with God. Even if we settle for a religious lifestyle, it's still not relationship.
Speaker 1:Relationship and religion are two different things, as we've talked about many times. There are things that we can do religiously that are good and they can stem from our relationship, but religious things don't produce a relationship. I don't have a religion with my wife. I have a relationship with her, and then there are things we do regularly, religiously if you will but we first have relationship.
Speaker 1:Well, jesus made a way for us to have relationship with God. Without him, there is no real relationship, because there's a division created by a condition that we're born with, and the only way for that condition to be taken care of is for it to be addressed by the very power of the blood of Jesus Christ, the redeeming power of his blood, the sacrificial power of his blood, the covenant power of his blood, the relationship provided for by his blood, of his blood, the relationship provided for by his blood. And so, yeah, I mean, thinking about Jesus hanging on the cross is an intense picture, and it should be because it is, and the sheer fact that he would say anything while he was hanging on the cross that was worth recording is amazing, because he was the only man who ever hung on the cross. Thousands upon thousands of people were killed, tortured to death by hanging on a cross, and a lot of things came out of people's mouths, but I can guarantee you what Jesus said. He's the only one who spoke words like that. Those words, and the first words that we're going to look at, are the words Father, forgive them. Words, father, forgive them, for they know not what they do or what they're doing.
Speaker 1:Now, who is he talking about? Well, initially, he's talking about the people that were right there at the time the Romans and the religious leaders and some others in the crowd that would attend crucifixions. The soldiers were there because that was their job. The religious leaders were there because they were intentionally there to mock Jesus, because he embarrassed them In their eyes. He embarrassed them. What he was doing was he was showing them the truth, but the truth was embarrassing them to make them look good, make them look the way they really were, and that was two-faced Hypocrites. But they came to mock him and they all were there, kind of thinking that people felt the same way about what they were doing and in their minds, it was right, because sin, by the very nature of it, has an effect on our internal lives and it begins to numb them to reality.
Speaker 1:And it begins to numb them to reality. That's why leprosy is such a clear visual of what sin is like on the inside of our lives. Leprosy is, by and large, when you lose feeling. You can no longer feel things. So when you grab a door handle, you don't realize that you're squeezing it so hard that it's literally tearing the flesh from your hand. Or if you kick a rock, you don't realize that you kicked it so hard that you broke your toe or gashed it, thus leaving an infectious wound, or at least the potential of it, and so people would have these sores and these lesions, and also limbs would begin to fall off because there was no circulation.
Speaker 1:And that is the effect of sin. It has a numbing effect, but also has this unique effect that it kind of is contagious. Have you ever noticed it? I'm speaking to you as though you have a relationship with God because of your faith in Jesus and you're born again because of the life that he's given to you. As a result of you placing your faith in him and he taking from you that condition and giving you his life, you are now a new species. So I'm addressing you as though you are that person, and if you're not and you're still listening that means you're being drawn into that type of relationship. So just stay tuned. But if you are in that relationship and you now have a view of something that you just do as an individual, yes, you commit it as an individual, but it has a collective effect, thus normalizing it Interesting.
Speaker 1:That's how gossip, slander, being dissentious, being stealing, envy, covetousness, strife, bitterness, adultery, drunkenness, all of those things which would be categorized as sin. They have an effect on our lives. That is a numbing effect. We don't know what we're doing. Sin numbs us to know what we're doing. We just don't know what we're doing. Have you ever noticed that Even now, even in your life? Now, when something is coming at you and you succumb to it, there is some attempt to normalize it by saying, well, I'm not the only one. Or we find then comfort in hanging out with people that do the same thing that we're doing, even if it's wrong, and it gives us a sense that, well, we're not the only one and maybe it's not so bad after all. That whole white lie thing, right? What is a white lie? Is it different than the black lie, a green lie? What's the differentiation there? It's a lie, of course.
Speaker 1:A little sin, a lot of sin. A little sin, a lot of sin, a big sin, one that's not going to lead to death and one that does lead to sin. Sin needs to be forgiven. And Jesus, hanging on the cross, spoke to a group of people who were mocking him, taunting him to come off the cross, even though he was paying for their freedom. It is finished. Might as well be stamped, paid in full.
Speaker 1:Father, forgive them. What would it have been had he said, had he said Father, I curse them, all of them, right, but he didn't. He said forgive them, but he didn't. He said forgive them. And Jesus spoke into that setting and now reverberating throughout the centuries into our lives.
Speaker 1:Father, forgive them, because sin has a way of making us numb to what we're doing. Sin will make you numb to what it is that you're doing, all the while leading you closer toward death, because the wages, the payoff of sin is ultimately death, not life death. It has the appearance of providing life, death. It has the appearance of providing life. It has the deception of providing life energy, but that energy is a demonically infused energy that causes us to become stimulated by that activity and we become somewhat addicted to it because we get stimulated by it. It reaches into that aspect of our life that responds to that the receptors and the responders, the transmitters, and those things that we receive things from Sin and those things that we receive things from Things that are detrimental concerning our relationship with God. Funny how that works, but they provide relationship, if you call it that, with one another.
Speaker 1:The Pharisees had relationship with each other, even though they were mocking the very Son of God. Talk about sin. The soldiers giving up his clothes, rolling the dice to see who he's going to get his robe, mocking him, putting vinegar wine on a stick and popping with it, sinning against him. But it all seemed normal. No wonder we need forgiveness. Some of us might not even realize the things that we're involved in that are damaging our relationship with God and with one another, because we've become numb and we need, because we've become numb and we need to invite Holy Spirit to bring to us the reality of what Jesus paid for on the cross, and that is forgiveness, removal, remittance, washing away, taking theance, washing away, taking the sin and washing it away Not just covering it up and maybe we can go back to it a little bit later, but really taking it away, being delivered from evil.
Speaker 1:Can we really walk free? Can we really walk like Jesus? The answer is absolutely yes. Is it hard? Sometimes it is man, sometimes it's a real battle. Is it hard? Sometimes it is man, sometimes it's a real battle. But Jesus fought that battle on our behalf, while hanging on the cross, talking about an ultimate place of weakness, and yet he defeated the powers of darkness there. He can give us strength now to overcome sin, because we're not in that place of weakness. We might experience weakness, but we're not hanging on a cross, and so we can walk free, clean, pure, holy. We can actually live that way. That's my heart. My heart is to live that way on an ongoing basis, to be holy as God is holy, to have that come from within because I'm free from sin.
Speaker 1:Jesus would say to some individuals go and sin no more. And when you break that down, what he's really saying is go. You're free not to sin. You're free to keep from doing that over and over and over and over and over again. You don't have to be caught up in the cycle of doing that. You're free, I forgive you.
Speaker 1:The power of forgiveness is so magnificent and it's a power that we've been given to forgive one another. It's important for us to forgive one another, because if we don't forgive people, we're ultimately going to become like the very thing that we hold unforgiveness toward. Why? Because there's a principle known as beholding and becoming what you behold. You become like, and if you are locked in on someone's sin, you're beholding their sin. You're going to become like that You're the one who's going to be in bondage. They might go free, but you will be still in bondage to that thing, and that's why forgiveness is such an important, powerful thing, and that's why forgiveness is such an important, powerful thing.
Speaker 1:Holding grudges, holding grudges only hurts yourself, really ultimately. Yes, it hurts other people, of course it does, but really that's what we want. That's our life, that's, we want to live the rest of our lives with grudges, angry, bitter, bitter. We want to live the rest of our life with grudges, angry, bitter. Nah, come on, there's more to life than living in a state of frustration and agitation. We can be free, because one whom the Son has set free is free indeed. And Jesus said to the very people that were infused with the powers of darkness they were literally infused with what the psalmist is talking about in Psalm 22.
Speaker 1:David is giving a prophetic picture of Jesus hanging on the cross. Because David was a prophet, he was a priest and he was a king. He held all three of those offices. He functioned in them just like Jesus. Jesus did it perfectly, but David functioned as prophet, priest and king, and a prophet. He saw things and he talks about the bulls of Bashan encircling him and he's talking about what Jesus experienced on the cross the bowls of Bashan. And Bashan is a place known for its cattle. In fact, there, if a man six foot tall six feet tall would stand next to a bull of Bashan, it would come up to its shoulders. That's how tall a bull of Bashan was. But they represented demonic powers because Bashan was a place also that was known to be a portal. Actually, caesaree Philippi was located in and around Bashan and that is where Jesus said that the gates of hell would not prevail against him establishing his church right there, at the gates of hell. That place was known literally as the gates of hell, caesaree Philippi or Bashan. The bulls of Bashan encircled Jesus. Well, that's what the Pharisees and the soldiers they were encircling Jesus. They were infused with demonic powers, so they didn't know what they were doing because they had opened their lives up to demonic powers.
Speaker 1:Interesting, there are things that infuse certain activities and they are infused by demonic thought transference Big word, but it's true. Demonic thought transference Big word, but it's true. Demonic thought transference, where demonic powers are actually able to project their thoughts upon a person's psyche. That's why it is important for us to have the helmet of salvation on the guarding of knowing that we are a saved. Saved person. We carry that around us like a protection.
Speaker 1:There's a friend of mine who one day, as it was nighttime, was startled because as he was falling asleep, he noticed in the corner of his room that someone was in his room. And he looked and it wasn't someone, it was something. And he looked closer and it was a demonic power. And they were looking at him and they were focusing their thoughts on him, literally just looking at him and trying to project their thoughts upon him demonic thought transference. He rebuked him and said get out of here and, in the name of the Lord, I command you to leave. And they did.
Speaker 1:It's amazing what goes on behind the scenes. I'm saying that there are things that inf important for us to at least be informed of, afraid of. We don't need to be afraid of, but informed to be forewarned, to be forearmed. I'm giving you a heads up that there are some things that are going on behind the scenes that we need to take a little more seriously. And just because other people are doing it doesn't mean that it's okay, or at least for you it's not okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, god has big plans for you. He has a call upon your life and he wants you to see it fulfilled. For your purpose to be fulfilled completely, let's pray, father. Thank you that you heard the words of your son when he said, father, forgive them because they just don't know what they're doing. I confess I acknowledge it's been far too often my case, but thankfully it is becoming more and more frequent that that is not the case and that your life, your quality of life, is overcoming us.
Speaker 1:We are made into overcomers and I thank you that we overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony, and so we apply the blood of Jesus to our lives and teach us how to be forgiving, as Jesus was forgiving, so that we can function like him. Holy Spirit, that's why you were sent and we submit to you and we stand here in the very name of Jesus and we say so be it. Amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen. All right, folks, I love you. If you have any thoughts, questions, concerns, please feel free to drop us a line at liferonthefire, at gmailcom, or type in liferonthefire and look us up on the web. We would love to hear from you. In the meantime, god bless you. Adios amigos.