Pick the thing you would want to learn to do the most. The thing that makes your heart soar, that thing that when you do it you lose all track of time. Now imagine the person you admire the most in the world and aspire to be like offers to teach you everything they know. Would you turn them down? Would you instead buy the book he or she wrote and try to work out all the diagrams, directions, and terminology all on your own?

But so often, this is what we do to God. He came in the flesh. He died on the cross. He rose from the dead, and He sent His Spirit to come and dwell inside of us. But what do we do? Instead we read histories, anthropology, theology, and commentaries. We listen to teachers and biblical scholars to help us understand how to do everything better, to figure out the formula to be right with God. We keep diets, and feast days, and fast days. We try so hard to not get angry, to not sin, and to not hate others. And so often we fail. These are all works of the flesh.

We have direct access to the King of Kings, His Spirit is coursing through our bodies giving us Life, but we ignore Him, because we are still caught in shame and guilt; we are still believing the lie that we can do something to earn God’s love.

He’s done it all. He has gone before us. He has finished the work necessary for our salvation. He has opened the doors to Paradise. He is calling us into Freedom. All we have to do is say, “YES!”

Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven like the roar of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder. The voice I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps, and they were singing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders. No one could learn that song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. It is these who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins. It is these who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These have been redeemed from mankind as firstfruits for God and the Lamb, and in their mouth no lie was found, for they are blameless.

Rev. 14:1-5