Outside the Camp

Outside the Camp

By Lahry Sibley
Heb 13:12 Therefore Jesus also suffered and died outside the [city's] gate in order that He might purify and consecrate the people through [the shedding of] His own blood and set them apart as holy [for God].
Heb 13:13 Let us then go forth [from all that would prevent us] to Him outside the camp [at Calvary], bearing the contempt and abuse and shame with Him. [Lev. 16:27.]
Heb 13:14 For here we have no permanent city, but we are looking for the one which is to come.
Let us go forth outside the camp to the cross of Calvary. The cross is outside the religious system and it's ways. To get the cross, I must leave the city. Part of me cannot go. I must go completely, or I do not go at all. Leave behind everything and take that one way trip to Jesus via the cross. For we sojourners in the land... alleluia.
Jesus shed His blood that He would consecrate us and make us Holy. Not part of us, all of us. We are either entirely God's or we are nothing at all. The cross is not a partial exercise, but it is one way, final, and complete. Once death is entered into, there is no return until Jesus comes again. It is separated and apart from the city, i.e., the world, religion, the desires of the flesh, and all attempts by man to sanctify or justify Himself. We are dead to it and it is dead to us. The Blood of Jesus renders us holy. But we have to leave the city and go outside the camp for it to benefit us. Glory to God. How powerful is that?
How often we have been duped into believing that we can live in and enjoy the things that excite the flesh and serve a Holy God. Such audacity as I have personally shown before man and God to take God to the places I've taken Him and done before Him what I have done. Oh God please do not run out of mercy before I am cleansed with the blood outside the camp.
Please note also, that one can be outside the camp and not be at Calvary. The Blood was shed at Calvary.
I love the Amish People and so admire them for their steadfastness in holding onto the ordinary and common while rejecting the fads of this world. But that alone cannot save us. We can reject the fads, the greed, and the lust, but if we do not accept Calvary and the shed blood and suffering of Jesus Christ, then we are as lost as the gravest of sinner who makes no pretense to serve the living God. Alleluia.
Saints, it's time for me to rethink my place with God. It's time for me to allow the Holy Spirit to look deep inside and see the compromise and laziness that has been keeping me from running to Calvary. It's the only place where the blood was shed for me. I cannot enter into its life, unless I am first willing to enter into its death. Death to all that is me, so I can become totally and completely alive unto God by the power that is in that shed blood to make me Holy unto God.
I hope that you will join me. I hope that you will stand with me and ask God's forgiveness and mercy for me..and for you. Oh dear saint, the throne of Grace is reached only through death. Death by faith, through unmerited favor of God.
He's outside the gate, beloved. He's waiting for me....and for you.
Oh God! Oh my soul is stirred this morning. I've had riches all around me, true riches, and I have been sitting in sack cloth and ashes, lusting after rocks painted gold and calling it blessing. Oh God, look not upon my heinous sin, but upon the blood of Jesus and have mercy upon me, yet one more time. Welcome me oh Lord, to that cross that I may have strength through that precious blood to willingly give up my life that I may keep it. Save me oh God, or I will be eternally lost.
....the least of all since Paul,
Lahry

Post Script – Feb 26th, 2009, I left this world by faith, took my life to the Cross of Calvary and died, so that I could receive His life, eternal life alleluia. I discarded everything that was toxic to my relationship with God and live for God and God alone. I abide in the True Vine, and He in me. It is joy unspeakable. I now have the ability to rule over the sin that used to so easily beset me. I am a new creation in Christ Jesus, thanks be to God. Alleluia! Yes, I was even baptized in the Little Colorado River. God is so good.

LS