Monday, May 18, 2009

Startling Tears

Wow. I was quietly working away on the Pour Out a Blessing blog and began reading/researching a passage in 2 Timothy when all of a sudden, I began sobbing! Whoa! This stuff just wipes me out sometimes.

If you read my other blog, you will see this passage happen on May 30, but tonight, I am touched by how God's Spirit moves through scripture.

2 Timothy 4:6 says, "For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure."

Paul is at the end of his life and he knows it. He has given Timothy much information and instruction on how to carry through his ministry and his final words to Timothy are beautiful. But, what I love most about this verse is the implied history that we might miss if we don't spend time going deeper.

The drink offering is found in Numbers 28:4-7. It was an offering that accompanied the sacrifice of a lamb. Everything that Paul has done, everything that he is, is because of his relationship to Jesus Christ. Jesus fills his thoughts, his prayers, his words, his actions. He suffered persecution ... both verbal and physical pain, he was chased out of churches, he saw people do heinous things to each other and yet the thing that he knows as he prepares to face the end is that he is the drink offering poured out to accompany the sacrifice of the Lamb!

John, in his gospel and the Revelation, is the one that always spoke of Jesus as the Lamb of God, yet in this verse, Paul reminds us that the sacrifice Jesus made is the final sacrifice necessary for our redemption and salvation.

He was being poured out as a drink offering which accompanies the sacrifice of the lamb.

Yup, that destroyed me this evening and I'm so thankful for the Word of God which has the power to change our lives and touch my heart.

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