Dorothy, Oz, and the Relational Cycle

I'm reading through the Old Testament, looking at all the scriptures say about Jesus and asking Him to do with me what He did with the disciples on the road: “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.”(Luke 24:27)

Today I read in Leviticus and these two verses caught my eye:


““If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.”
(Leviticus 26:3–4)

“I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you.”
(Leviticus 26:11)

They reminded me of Jesus teachings in John 14:


“Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”” (John 14:21)

“Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” (John 14:23)

When I read something in the Old Testament law that leads me to a teaching of Jesus, I feel like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz when she opens the door from her black and white world and steps into the full color world that is Oz. Jesus brings the full color.


Jesus makes good on God's promise to those who obey - and He does so in an amazing way. He does so, not in a master/servant relationship, but in love. In Leviticus, God the Father promised the Israelites that if they obeyed Him, He would live among them and not abhor them. Jesus said that the person who loves Him will obey Him. Jesus promised that He would love the person who walks in obedience to His commandments and would manifest Himself to that person. He renews the Levitical promise that God (The Father & Jesus) would come to the obedient follower and make their home with that person.
Jesus renewed and fulfilled the Levitical promise in living color.


Obedience as important now as it ever was, but I'm not called upon to obey a set of rules, but a person. As I learn of Christ, I fall more deeply in love with Him (and He loves me right back!). My love for Christ causes me to obey Him. As I do, He reveals Himself to me in even greater ways which causes me to love Him more and more readily obey Him. He loves me and shows Himself to me and before I know it, I'm caught up in the relational cycle of spiritual transformation.

“And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Knowing, loving, obeying, becoming like -- Jesus. That's the relational cycle, and it's in living color. Step through that door into the full color world of Jesus and His Kingdom. It will change your life.