Holy Father, this life is Yours.  I am Yours.  My fingers and the words that are created between my fingers and the keyboard are for You and Your use!  I pray that they would be for Your edification, and for encouragement, learning and the getting of wisdom and understanding from Your lips by Your Holy Spirit.  There is nothing that comes from within me, out of my mind, that can do what Your words do.  Your words hit the mark.  They travel deep into the blood, rejuvenating, filtering, purifying, cleansing and mixing with Your Life.  Your words bring light to the eyes as even our eyes see things we have not noticed before.  With Your light we notice the connections between things we never saw before.  The light of Your words opens our eyes, it shreds the darkness, it gives us courage to believe, and to know that we are more than conquerors because You clothe us in Your Spirit.

You wrap Yourself around us as a divine robe!  You hide us from the enemy because of the blinding brightness of Your Spirit!  There is nothing that can penetrate the blood from which the light and life pulsate; for the Life is in the blood that was shed for all men.  You did not shed Your blood for those that are not of the sons of men, but for all who are of the sons of Adam.

Though the seed of the enemy is everywhere mixing his own seed among the children You have created to be redeemed unto Yourself;  by the shedding of the Divine unstained blood You are, at the same time, putting an end to the kingdom and rule of darkness and death!

Already, the sting is removed from death.  For those that are partakers of the Life only shed their flesh as a grape surrenders its skin in order to be integrated into the  new wine. It is no longer a single grape, easily bruised and separated by its skin and alone, even in the bunch.  Now, with the juice within released through the crushing of the wine press, it is free and truly one with all the other individual grapes who have also thrown off their skins to join in the greatness of the wine of the master. 

Lord Jesus, Your skin was the first to be crushed to release the blood of life back to the Eternal Father.  For You were crushed and bruised and beaten for us!  Now the grace of the blood of the grape that took the wrath for all mankind can be poured out upon all man-kind in order that we too may be crushed and released from the prisons of our individual skins.  Now forever we can be partakers of the whole; the communion with Christ and the saints, and therefore one with the Father as He is One with the Father. 

As we willingly follow the example of our King, we do not fear death!  We gladly throw ourselves at the feet of the cross: At the feet of our Savior!  We desire the release from the bondage to the confines of the tender skin that always seeks to separate us from You.  Our flesh always seeks after its own!  The grape is sensitive to the heat and cold, and the pressure from the surrounding grapes on the bunch!  This one grape is only a single grape among many, many on the bunch, and many bunches on the same vine, and many vines in the vineyard and many vineyards.  Of what importance, in the end could this one little grape make?  

What if the One who created the grape, also became a grape, and by crushing, surrendered His internal life-giving force, to all the grapes in His vineyards to become One with them?  What if as we surrender to the breaking of our flesh to release the life-force in us, we became one with the One and the Only source of Life itself?  Would it not be a victory over all fear of death?  

Alone, we have no power, and actually we have no real identity except as “one of the bunch”.  But when crushed and surrendered into His life, we then are truly partakers in all that He is.  There is no competition anymore between grapes or vineyards, for we are all One with Him.  “He became Sin, who knew no sin, that we might become His righteousness!”  

What does that mean? It means that we are the fruit, the manifestation of His righteousness.  His righteousness was singular to Himself as God and One with the Father; but when He surrendered Himself to the crushing under the mighty hand of God for the covering of us all, His blood, the essence of life from His Holy body became the preservative for all who will come to the  Cross.  There, you are crushed.  Either you will throw yourself upon the Rock and become one with Him as you are infused with all that He is, or you stay as you are and in the end, the Rock will crush you, and your eternal life essence with be without Him forever!   “And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.”—Matthew 21:44 

Let us fall upon the Stone that the builders rejected!  The Stone that Daniel saw, that crushed the kingdoms of the earth to powder, and they were blown away.  There is still time for all nations, tribes and tongues to fall upon Him who is the Rock, the Stone, the Beginning and the End, and  become one with Him, even as He is one with the Father.  

I chose to fall upon the ever lasting mercies of the Rock of Ages.  I choose to become one with the life-giving blood.  I desire to be infused with the new wine that comes from the the drink offering of Christ’s blood poured out upon the Altar for me!   The blood mixed with water that spilled from His heart so that it could birth a family of brothers and sisters in Christ, unto the Father.  Yes, we who are under the fountain of life, the blood, are indeed grafted into the family of God Himself. For that is why He came to us: to bring us back from the dead to be made in the image and likeness of His Son, who is the manifestation of God Himself in flesh. 

—So that in absolute truth the Words spoken by the Eternal in Genesis 1:26 might be made manifest in every way!  “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.  ²⁷  So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them…³¹And God saw every thing that He had made, and behold, it was very good.  And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”  

But the Lord does not ask of us anything that He Himself has not first done!  He must be the for-runner of all things.  He was the first crushed!  He was the first to be slain.  He was the first to suffer for the sins of His children.  He was the first to delight, and the first to grieve, and He is the last to grieve!  He is before and He is the last, the beginning and the end.  The skin that covered the nakedness of Adam and Eve, (nakeness means sin) the coat, was the very covering provided by the Father with the  Lamb, slain before the foundation of the earth.  He is before all things and He is the future of all things! 

I got up today with the understanding that whatever trial you are going through, it is to build up something in you, that will later be tested by the Master.  The one who forges a weapon  does not forge forever.  The athlete does not train without a purpose! He trains to be tested against the competition.  And then he trains harder and with greater demands placed upon himself, and greater trials, for he aims to be the best he is able to become! He does not train for no reason.  The runner trains to win the race.  The warrior trains to defeat the enemies of his Sovereign. The sword is forged to cut through the enemies; to be strong and true. And the Lord forges and trains His children to be warriors, and instruments fit for welding in His hands.  Whatever the trial, it is used to shape and form, refine and mold, and then the work will be tested again and again.  Always the work will be tested!  

I praise You for Your goodness and rightness.  We can indeed praise Him in the storm!  Even the storms on the seas were to show the disciples that He is Lord and Master over all!  He is master over all things. The storms were for the building up of their faith.  What could harm Paul when he was on the seas in the storm?  The Master of the storms was with him in the night.  Paul knew that His God was greater than the storm and could have calmed it at a word, but it was not His will that it should be so… He had a greater testimony of Himself that He was creating in preserving all through the storm.  By having mercy upon the prisoners, that would have been killed, though they may yet perish at the hands of man, they were given the chance to surrender their earthly shells to the Sovereign King and God of all, the One who spoke to Paul and saves forever!