Then after I have poured out my rains again, I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams. Your young men will see visions. In those days, I will pour out my Spirit even on servants, men and women alike…�And anyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved. � Joel 2:28-30
Another dream entry. [For those of you who think that I every dream I has is a deep spiriual epiphany, don’t. Those are just the ones I write down. In fact, last night, after I had the “spiritual” dream, I later had as dream about living next door to Michael Jackson and chasing a fat squirrel around with my dog because he had stolen my thing of chocolate chip cookie dough.]
I have been in this town before in my dreams. It reminds me of Amsterdam in a way, but on a higher hill. Overlooking the river, the city gives way to rolling hills and then steep cliffs. The city itself is definitely New England, with lots of brick row houses and old factories. Anyway, a friend of mine and I were walking down the street and decided to take a journey. We took off for the hills. The day was awesome � sunny and warm. We were just enjoying being alive, talking about life, jumping off rocks, doing stupid stuff. As we got farther out into the mountains, it began to get gloomy.
We came through the woods and came upon this secluded little pond. It was really dark here – kind of murky almost. The water had steam coming off of it, for some reason. I could see fish in the pond as I looked closer. As I stood there watching the fish, a tentacle came out of the water and grabbed me around my neck. From what I could see, it was some sort of a giant black octopus-beast thing with a single glaring eye. The beast was choking me and I vainly struggled to gain my breath. I weakly called out to my friend for help. I saw him take a large branch from the ground and began to beat the thing in the head repeatedly. The beast grabbed my friend with another tentacle and began to smash him against the rocky ground.
After a fierce battle, my friend managed to kill the beast. He was bruised and bloody, but I was alive. I could only say thank you repeatedly for saving my life from this beast.
After I had this dream [while still in that dream state] I heard a voice say to me, That is what I did for you Josh. Sin had a stranglehold on you and I killed it. I put myself in it’s path and took the pain so that you would not have to die. You dont have to keep giving in to it because I have killed it! Again, I could only say thank you Jesus, for taking what I could not bear upon yourself and giving me life.
Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more kindness and forgiveness? Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? Or have you forgotten that when we became Christians and were baptized to become one with Christ Jesus, we died with him? For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised as he was. Our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. And since we died with Christ, we know we will also share his new life. We are sure of this because Christ rose from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. He died once to defeat sin, and now he lives for the glory of God. So you should consider yourselves dead to sin and able to live for the glory of God through Christ Jesus. Do not let sin control the way you live; do not give in to its lustful desires. Do not let any part of your body become a tool of wickedness, to be used for sinning. Instead, give yourselves completely to God since you have been given new life. And use your whole body as a tool to do what is right for the glory of God. Sin is no longer your master, for you are no longer subject to the law, which enslaves you to sin. Instead, you are free by God’s grace. So since God’s grace has set us free from the law, does this mean we can go on sinning? Of course not! Don’t you realize that whatever you choose to obey becomes your master? You can choose sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God and receive his approval. Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you have obeyed with all your heart the new teaching God has given you. Now you are free from sin, your old master, and you have become slaves to your new master, righteousness. I speak this way, using the illustration of slaves and masters, because it is easy to understand. Before, you let yourselves be slaves of impurity and lawlessness. Now you must choose to be slaves of righteousness so that you will become holy. In those days, when you were slaves of sin, you weren’t concerned with doing what was right. And what was the result? It was not good, since now you are ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom.�But now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. � Romans 6