The Unveiling

We live in a time where being open and transparent is not what most people are. We live in a culture that is very guarded. We don't feel that we can be real, be who we are. We guard our identities and our hearts.

This is not a new thing. Moses felt that he had to veil his face.

Exodus 34:29-35
When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hand, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord. When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant, and they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to them; so Aaron and all the leaders of the community came back to him, and he spoke to them. Afterwards all the Israelites came near him, and he gave them all the commands the Lord had given him on Mount Sinai. When Moses finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face. But whenever he entered the Lord's presence to speak with Him, he removed the veil until he came out. And when he came out and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, they saw that his face was radiant. Then Moses would put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with the Lord.

Because Moses had been in the presence of God, his face began to glow because the glory of God had transformed him. Moses hid his face because his face was scaring the Israelites.

When we submit our lives to Jesus and make Him the authority of our lives, we are transformed. We take on the image and character of Jesus.

When we become more like Jesus, we will offend or scare some people. We will then be tempted to tone it back so that we won't offend or scare others.

Some would say that if we tone back then people won't be so offended or scared. The problem with that idea is that they would not get to see the fullness of Jesus in us. We need to be a display case of God's glory and not allow anything to obstruct from seeing Jesus in us.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is allowing the presence of Jesus to been seen in and through us.

Moses took the veil off when he went to speak with God.

In John 4:23-24 Jesus tells us that we must worship Him in spirit and in truth. When we come into the presence of God, we have to come in complete transparency. God knows us completely and He demands that we be open and honest as we come to Him.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is coming before God completely transparent, being open and honest with God.

The glory of God eventually faded from Moses' face. Moses' transformation was only temporary.

The transformation we undergo from Jesus in our lives is not temporary, it is eternal.

2 Corinthians 3:16-18
But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit if the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into His image with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

The transformation that we undergo is:
with the veil permanently removed
done by the Spirit from the inside out
with the desire to bring us to total freedom
increasing more and more, day by day

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is an ongoing and permanent work of God's Spirit.

Moses kept the veil on after the glory had faded. He didn't want the Israelites to know that the glory had faded.

We should not fell the need to try to be more spiritual than we are.

Following Jesus is not a matter of impressing other people. Following Jesus is about pleasing Him and that is not something you can fake. We can, as Moses did, make our outward appearance look good. Jesus will know the truth.

We don't need to be afraid of letting others see our struggles or even our failures. I have found that when I talk about my struggles and how God is enabling me to overcome them, it really speaks to people and helps them to see hope in their struggle.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is being honest and letting people see our struggles and how God is enabling us to overcome them.

In Matthew 27:51 we are told that at the moment that Jesus died, the curtain in the temple that separated the Holy of Holies, where God's presence was thought to dwell, and the Holy Place was torn in two from top to bottom.

God removed the barrier that separated Him from His people. That meant that through Jesus' death we have complete access to the Father.

Now that we have direct access to God, He wants direct access to us and to use us to show the world who He is.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is letting God use us to show the world who He is.

We are not expected by God to be perfect; He is in us perfecting us.
We are not expected by God to have it all together; He is transforming us to be like Jesus.

God simply wants us to allow Him to remove our veil and be who we were created in Him to be.

Without a Veil Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls
                                           Joe

Finding Real Rest

Genesis 2:1-2

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done.

 

God finished the work of creation and He rested on the seventh day. God’s resting does not mean that He was tired it means that He was finished with creation.

 

This rested on the seventh day was a pattern that God set for His human creation.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is allowing the way God created us direct the way we live.

 

Exodus 35:1-3

Moses assembled the whole Israelite community and said to them, “These are the things the Lord has commanded you to do: For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a day of Sabbath rest to the Lord. Whoever does nay work on it is to be put to death. Do not light a fire in any of your dwellings on the Sabbath day.”

 

God establishes a Sabbath, a day of rest for the people of God. God indicates how important it is to Him that the people do it by establishing death as the penalty for not observing it.

 

God did this to remind us as His human creation that we are dependent on Him by having one day of the week dedicated to worshiping Him. God also created us with a need for rest and so one day out of seven was for us to worship Him and rest.

 

The rhythm of work and rest was built into the way God designed humanity to function and thrive. All believers are to give themselves to meaningful work that cares for and enhances God’s creation in order to give Him honor and glory. It is an act of faith and trust. We show by taking a day focusing on worship and rest our dependence on God and that we find satisfaction in intimacy with our Creator.

 

The hope of the Promised Land served as a picture of Sabbath rest.

 

The Promised Land was the picture of rest for a people who had been in slavery for 400 years and who had been freed but were on a very hard journey. They pictured the Promised Land a place of rest and security. They could dwell there in safety and worship God.

 

The story of the people of Israel proves that such rest was short-lived, at best. The people were never willing to drive out the inhabits of the land completely, thus they were constantly facing the threat of enemy attacks. Their inconsistent obedience meant that the judgment of God was never far off. The hope of rest remained, but it seemed like a long-forgotten dream.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is recognizing that earthly things will never give us true rest.

 

Hebrews 4:6 tells us that there still remains a rest to enter into because the people failed to enter into the rest because of their disobedience.

 

Hebrews 4:8 says that if Joshua would have lead the people into real rest then God would not have spoken of another rest. And Hebrews 4:9 says there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.

 

The question is how do we enter into a Sabbat’s rest?

 

Hebrews 4:9 gives us the answer. It says, “For whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from His.”

 

This time the rest is not found in a day of the week or a location on a map. Instead, the promise of rest is found in a person and by being united to that person. The person is Jesus.

 

John 19:28-30 records the last few moments of Jesus’ earthly life. It says, “After this Jesus, knowing that all was now fulfilled, said (to fulfill the Scripture, ‘I thirst.’ A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to His mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, ‘It is finished!’ and He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.”

 

Jesus work of salvation was finished. Everything that needed to be done to secure our salvation was accomplished by Jesus’ death on the cross.

 

The rest that come from us receiving Jesus’ death on the cross to pay for our sins frees us.

 

It frees us from the impossible process of trying to save ourselves.

It frees us from the futile effort of trying to secure God’s love by means of works.

It frees us from the burden of attempting to secure God’s blessing through being good enough.

 

Since Jesus has fulfilled the law for His people and given us His righteousness through faith, we can rest, knowing that the work is finished and our standing with God is eternally secure.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is coming into a relationship with Jesus and letting Him be our rest.

 

We can rest at any time and at any place by coming into relationship with Jesus and taking is yoke which is easy and receiving His burden which is light.

 

In Jesus, weary souls will find rest and security that will make us whole.     

 

Resting in Jesus and Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls

                                                      Joe   

The Reason for the Resurrection

In Matthew 28:6 the angel said to the women who came to the tomb on Sunday morning, “He is not here; He has risen, just as He said.”

In Mark 16:6 the angel said to the women, “Don’t be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He is risen! He is not here.”

In Luke 24:5-6 the angel said to the women, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; He has risen!”

John doesn’t record the women’s encounter with the angels. It records Mary’s encounter with Jesus at the tomb. She only recognized Jesus when He spoke her name.

Three things are made clear with the Gospel’s accounts of the resurrection.

First, Jesus died.

Jesus was in a tomb for three days. You don’t stay in a tomb for three days unless you are dead.

Jesus had died. In the Mark account it says that Jesus was crucified. The end result of crucifixion is death.

Jesus had died in the view of the women who came to his tomb that day and in the view of His other followers.

Second, Jesus had risen and was alive.

In the Matthew, Mark, and Luke accounts, the angel says Jesus is risen and in the Luke account the angel asks why they were seeking the living among the dead.

In John, Mary was not expecting to see Jesus and at first didn’t recognize Him. When she did, she knew it was Jesus; not His Spirit but Jesus Himself, a real, living person.

Third, the resurrection of Jesus is an essential event.

Only Matthew and Luke record the birth of Jesus. All four Gospels record the death and resurrection of Jesus.

The resurrection of Jesus is a real thing. It is one of the most documented events in the history of the world.

It is a history-changing event.

If the resurrection is not true, then:

Christianity is the greatest hoax in the history of the world.

Jesus is either a lunatic or a liar.

We as humans have no hope.

If the resurrection is true, then:

Christianity is true and there is a way to come to know God.

Jesus is Lord.

We as humans have hope.

I could give you all the Biblical reasons for the resurrection giving us hope, but I want to share with you personal reasons for the resurrection giving me hope.

The resurrection frees me from being fearful of life.

I am not this bold risk-taking person. I am in my human nature a fearful person. The resurrection of Jesus gives me confidence that, no matter what I face in life, Jesus is bigger.

The resurrection frees me to really trust Jesus.

Jesus tells His followers several times that He is going to Jerusalem to be rejected by the religious leaders, be crucified, and rise from the dead. And that is exactly what occurred and exactly what He did. Because of that, I know that I can trust in everything He says in His Word.

The resurrection allows me to give to Jesus those things that are most precious to me.

The most precious things to me are my biological and faith families.

I can trust my biological family to God. I can trust that God loves my son and will take care of him and my daughter-in-law and my grandchildren. I can trust God when He takes my son to South Africa to share Jesus. I can trust God when God has directed my daughter-in-law to go to Puerto Rico after a hurricane has hit the island. I can trust God as I watch my grandchildren grow up and face the issues of life.

I can trust my faith family to God. I can trust that when members of my faith family come to me with spiritual struggles and even doubts that God will enable me help them find the answers they need. I can trust that when my faith family goes through times of loss and sorrow that He will comfort them. I can trust for God to love and grow my faith family.

The resurrection allows me to look forward to all that God has promised to me as His child.

I have an eternal home with God in heaven.

I have the assurance of a resurrection.

I have the reality of an intimate love relationship with Jesus.

I loved the idea of Jesus’ resurrection when I viewed it from a theological viewpoint. Now that I view Jesus’ resurrection from a personal viewpoint, I see it as the one event that has changed my life and given me boldness, freedom, and hope.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is believing in and living in the realness of Jesus’ resurrection.

Because Jesus is Alive, Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls.

                                                Joe

Freedom!

 Do you ever have the experience of reading a passage of scripture and you go, “Ok, that’s nice, but what does that have to do with me?”

Exodus 21:2-4 says, “If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything. If he comes alone, he is to go free alone, but if he has a wife when he comes, she is to go with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free.”

Now, I am not a Hebrew servant and I don’t intent to buy any Hebrew servants. So, I didn’t see that this passage had any meaning to me.

Then I noticed one word in this passage and it changed my thinking about it having no meaning for me. The word is free.

John tells us two essential things about being free in John chapter eight.

Verses 31 and 32 says, “So Jesus said to the Jesus who had believed Him, ‘If you abide in My word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.’”

Jesus says that it is His word that sets us free.

A disciple is someone who sits under the teaching and the authority of another. So, listen to what Jesus is saying. If we sit under Jesus’ teaching, listen to what He says and believe, we will know the truth and that truth will set us free.

Then in verse 36 Jesus says, that if the Son sets you free, you are free indeed.

We are told in culture that many things will set you free. The truth is none of those things will set you free. In fact, those very things that offer us freedom really makes slaves to them. Jesus promises that He will free us and He is always faithful to do what He says He will do.

Why did Jesus have to free us?

Because of what Paul shares with us in Romans 6:20-21. “For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.”

Why did Jesus have to free us? Because we were slaves to sin and that brought shame to us in our earthly life and death to us spiritually. Jesus loves us and does not want us to live in shame and to die spiritually.

The only way to be free is for Jesus to free us, so He did.

How did Jesus free us?

Colossians 2:13-15 says, “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”

Jesus freed us by His death on the cross.

According to what Paul writes in Colossians, Jesus:

Forgave our sins – He freed us from the penalty

Canceled our legal indebtedness – He freed us from what we owed

because of our sin

Overcame our condemnation – He freed us from God’s wrath and turned it

          into God’s favor

Disarmed the powers and authorities – He freed us from the power of

          Satan        

We needed to be free and Jesus did it. He did it because above all else, God loves us.

Jesus wants us free to know Him.

Jesus wants us free to experience His love.

Jesus wants us free us to experience His blessings in our lives.

In Matthew 11:28-30 Jesus says, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and lean from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Jesus intentionally invites us if we are weary and burdened to come to Him so that by being yoked or connected to Him we will find rest (be freed to rest in Jesus).

Freedom comes from:

Acknowledging that we are slaves

Turning to the one who can free us – Jesus

Believing that He has freed us

Living in that freedom

So, when a passage in Exodus about freeing Hebrews servants seems not to have anything to do with me or you, the truth is that it does. It does because the Christ has come and by His grace provides freedom for us and offers it to us.

In the Freedom of Jesus, Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                                   Joe

God Simplifies

There is a spiritual principle that I have known and believed for years. It is that God simplifies and man complicates. This spiritual principle is one that has kept me from trying to make things too complex or complicated. It has also freed me up to simplify my life and help others do the same.

A great example of this is the law that God gave the people of Israel through Moses.

In Exodus 20:1-17 God gives Moses the Ten Commandments. Many people think that was the whole law. The truth is that the law given to Moses by God had over six hundred separate commandments. God summarized those six hundred commandments into ten. Of those ten, four deal with our relationship to God and six deal with our relationship to other humans.

During the years of exile of God’s people in Babylon, the group known in the New Testament as the Pharisees developed. They took the six hundred commandments and decided to interpret them. In interpreting them, they actually expanded them to over three thousand commandments.

Now, I don’t know about you, but to try to remember let alone obey over three thousand commandments is not going to happen. I can’t do that with six hundred commandments. Now, ten commandments are much more doable, but still a stretch.

The law became the focus of God’s people. They began to see the law as an end in itself and not as a means to lead them to the Giver of the law – God.

For decades the people were taught the way to reach God was through obeying the law. The problem was that no one could obey the law perfectly. The fact that there were over three thousand commandments complicated the matter.

The law was given for three reasons:

To reveal to us the character of God

To reveal to us the standards that we are to live by

To reveal to us that we cannot by human effort obey the law

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is allowing God to use the law in our lives for the purpose for which He gave it.

Jesus comes into the world and proclaims a gospel based in grace, not the law.

One way that Jesus does this is by simplifying the three thousand commands. He doesn’t simplify to six hundred or even ten, but to two.

Mark 12:30-31

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.

When Matthew records this saying of Jesus, he adds at the end, “On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

If we love God with all that we are and we love our neighbor as ourselves, we have fulfilled all the law.

Now, I can remember two commands: love God and love other people.

I can remember them but I still have the problem of not being able to do that all the time in my own human effort.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is not depending on the law to deliver us and makes us right with God.

Paul expresses that same frustration in Romans 7 where he says that the things he wants to do he can’t and the things he does not want to do he finds himself doing.

In the last verse of Romans 7, verse 25, Paul says, “Thanks be to God, who delivered me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Jesus is who delivered Paul from the frustration of wanting to obey God but not having the ability to do it.

Jesus does this by dying for our sin on the cross and then sending His Sprit to indwell us with the resurrected life of Jesus.

Paul tells us in Galatians 2:20 that he had been crucified with Jesus and it was not him living but Jesus living in him and that the life he lived was lived by faith in Jesus.

The law inside is good and holy because it is from God.

The law was never intended to be what saves us and makes us righteous.

Grace through faith saves us and gives us the righteous of Jesus.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is depending on grace to save us and make us righteous.

Jesus simplifies the law in two commandments and then sends the Holy Spirit to empower us to obey those two commandments.

Nothing could be simpler. It is not easy, but it is simple.

Simply Through Jesus, Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                                     Joe

Jesus is the Rock

Exodus 17:1-7

The whole Israelite community set out from the Desert of Sin, traveling from place to place as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. So, they quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses replied, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the Lord to the test?” But the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?” Then Moses cried out to the Lord, “What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.” The Lord answered Moses, “Go out in front of the people. Take with you some the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the Lord saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

Water is essential for life. In the desert, water is limited and if you are going to travel in the desert, you have to know where the water is.

The people of Israel are in the desert and they are out of water. They began to grumble against Moses and against God.

God tells Moses to take his staff and go and strike the rock at Horeb. God will make water come out of the rock when Moses strikes it.

Moses did as God commanded him and water came of the rock when Moses struck it.

In Matthew 16 Jesus takes His disciples to Caesarea Philippi. He asks them who the people say that He, Jesus, is. They tell Jesus what the people are saying about Him. Then Jesus asks them who they say He is. Peter says, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus then says, “And I tell you that you are Peter and, on this rock, I will build My church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”

Jesus is saying that the confession that Peter makes, that He, Jesus, is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, is the rock on which He will build the church.

In Matthew 7 Jesus tells a parable about two men who build houses. One built his house on sand and the other built his house on a rock. When a storm came, the house build on sand was destroyed and the house built on the rock stood through the storm.

In Romans 9:33, Paul identities Jesus as the rock of offense; that if we believe in Him, we will not be put to shame.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is experiencing Jesus as our Rock.

When we experience Jesus as our Rock, we will experience:

Protection and Deliverance and Salvation – Psalm 18:2

Redemption – Psalm 19:14

Guidance – Psalm 31:3

Security – Psalm 40:2

Stability – Psalm 62:6

God’s Glory and Might – Psalm 62:7

Righteousness – Psalm 92:15

The Equipping of the Lord – Psalm 144:1

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is letting Jesus as our Rock enable us to follow and be used by Him.

In John 4 Jesus encounters a Samaritan woman at the well at Sychar. Jesus asked the woman for a drink of water. The woman was amazed that Jesus, a Jewish male, would ask her, a Samaritan woman, for a drink.

In John 4:10 Jesus says, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water.”

The woman is confused about where Jesus could possibly get any water, let alone living water.

In John 4:13-14 Jesus says, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is receiving living water.

Not only will we receive living water but living water will well up inside us.

1 Corinthians 10:1-4

For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.

Jesus is the Rock.

The living water that comes from the Rock is our salvation.

God instructed Moses to strike the rock and out came water to save the Israelites.

Jesus was struck and out came blood and that blood brought salvation to all people.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is experience Jesus as our Savior and receiving salvation from Him.

Just as the rock that Moses struck which produced water is through grace, so Jesus’ death for sin that produced our salvation is through grace.

With the Rock, Raising the Roof and Removing Walls,

Joe

Jesus is Our Bread

The reality in our relationship with God is that He always gives us more than what we deserve. In giving us more than we deserve, what He gives us is Himself.

Exodus 16:1-4

The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Eli and Sinai on the fifteen day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow My instructions.”

When the Israelites grumbled against God and His anointed leadership, God did not destroy them or even punish them. He provided what they needed: bread.

God fed His people with bread from heaven. The act of grace was magnified by the fact that God’s people were filled with complaints against God and blaming the leadership that God had provided and He had appointed. They foolishly longed for the days of slavery in Egypt, where they remembered eating pots of meat and all the food they wanted. But they forgot that they lived in slavery.

Now they feared they would stave to death in the wilderness. They were only recently removed from God miraculously delivering them at the Red Sea. This same people who sang and danced to this great victory that God had won now blamed God and mourned their seemingly dire circumstances.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is trusting God in the midst of confusing circumstances.

God now faithfully feeds His faithless children. God’s motive for providing this food is clear – He wanted His people to see His provision for them and to see His power and remember that He was working on their behalf. Each day, they awakened to fresh evidence of God’s gracious generosity.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is looking to and trusting God for our daily provision.

This blessing was personal. It was not just to the nation as a whole but to each person and family in the nation.

Just as Jesus didn’t die for humanity as a whole but for each of us as individuals.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is experiencing the gracious provision of God individually.

Jesus compared His mission on earth to the providing of the heavenly bread called manna. After demonstrating His miraculous power by feeding 5,000 on a hillside and walking on water, Jesus describes Himself as the Bread of Life in John 6:35.

Those who know Jesus discover a source of spiritual nourishment far greater than any physical food can provide. Jesus satisfies the cravings of all those longing for a source of satisfaction in life and hope in the life to come.

Like manna in the wilderness, Jesus provides food for the hungry soul. His provision is sufficient to meet the needs of all those who, by faith, feast on Him. In John 6:53-54 Jesus uses very shocking imagery to communicate the truth that whoever eats His flesh and drinks His blood will have eternal life. Many, upon hearing these words, turned back and no longer followed Jesus.

Raise the Roof and Removing the Walls is trusting in the life and death of Jesus to save us.

On the night Jesus was betrayed, Jesus would show the significance of His words about eating His flesh and drinking His blood. He would break a loaf of bread in the upper room with the Twelve. He would say that this broken loaf of bread represented His body that would soon be broken for our sin.

Jesus told His disciples that every time they ate this broken bread they were to remember His body given for their sin.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is experiencing the grace of God through Jesus as our atoning sacrifice. 

In John 6:35 Jesus says, “I am the Bread of Life.”

Jesus is what brings real satisfaction into our lives.

Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls is finding our true satisfaction in feasting on Jesus and His Word.

The world is looking to many things to bring satisfaction and none of those things will be lasting satisfaction. The things other than Jesus that we look to bring satisfaction will disappoint us and leave us empty. Jesus will fill us and satisfy us and never leave us empty.

With Jesus as the Bread of Life, Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                                 Joe