A couple of weeks ago, I had one of those dreams which seemed so real that it felt like I was really there.
In the dream, I was walking along a sidewalk through my neighborhood during an early summer evening. The temperature was perfect and the sky was clear.
As I walked, a pretty daughter of a high school friend approached me. She was wearing an attractive, but conservative blouse and skirt outfit. She stopped and we chatted a bit. I didn’t really think anything was out of the ordinary until she embraced me with her arms. I did the same to her. Our hands groped each others’ bodies in all of the wrong places.
While this was happening, I thought, “What’s happening here? I’m twenty-five years older than her.”
Yes, we were passionately carrying on, out in the open on that sidewalk in front of our neighbors, but that didn’t seem to bother us.
Finally, she said, “I want to go home and change into something more comfortable. Let’s meet at such-and-such place.”
I agreed to meet her there.
When she left, all I could think about was that I was about to commit a sin — a big one!
Next, I began heading toward our meeting place, which happened to be a steep downhill walk for me. I cried out to the Lord as I moved along. “Forgive me, Lord! Pour out Your grace on me! Stop me before I fall into deeper sin! Help me, Lord! Help me! Help me!”
I kept walking. My prayers did not stop me.
I looked ahead and saw the pretty daughter at the bottom of the hill, awaiting me. She looked beautiful, luscious and inviting.
Not knowing what else to do, I began fighting with spiritual warfare prayers. “In Jesus’ name, I command the spirit of sexual immorality to go from me right now! Go in Jesus’ name.”
My spiritual warfare prayers did not help. I kept walking toward her.
I was only a few steps away when I tossed out a last resort prayer. “Lord, I plead the blood of Jesus over me and over this terrible situation.”
Bam!
I was set free and transported by the Spirit out of that seemingly hopeless situation to a place of peace and safety.
And they overcame Satan by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. (Revelation 12:11)
After the Azusa Street Revival, the critics of the early Pentecostals called them “blood obsessed.” Why? Because these early Pentecostals sang about the blood, preached about the blood and pleaded the blood over almost everything in their lives. They had a deep revelation about the power in the blood of Jesus.
For most, that revelation is not so strong in us today.
Pastor Jack Hayford says about pleading the blood of Jesus:
There is no circumstance in life to which the blood of Jesus isn’t key to God’s releasing, protecting, resolving power, whether it’s removing the potential of confusion, overcoming the impact of rebellion, breaking the torment of fear, or the shame of the past. When we “plead the blood,” we are to do so in the understanding sense, with the firepower of the supernatural, and on the basis of the body of evidence that through the blood of Jesus Christ, all hell has been broken in its power, all sin neutralized, the power of death overwhelmed, and every human need paid for once and for all. (See Hayford’s powerful teaching on pleading the blood here.)
Because of my dream, I now plead the blood of Jesus often.
Hey, why not use the “firepower of the supernatural” to help us walk with Jesus?
Larry Who 