Hebrews 4 has this wonderful section of verses at the end of the chapter. Verse 12 tells us that God's Word is alive, powerful, able to cut us to the quick, to get directly to the heart of every issue in our lives, holding us all accountable for every thought and imagination. Verse 13 carries the theme over to God, stating that nothing can be hidden from Him, not even the deepest, darkest secret we have. It all is open before Him. Then, we get to the last three verses.
You might think that, after reading that both God and His Word are able to see and examine every little thing we do that there is no hope of ever living a life that would be good or pleasing before God. I mean, think about it. Every thought, every secret action. The “real” you that stays locked away deep inside where no one is able to ever see it. It’s so used to being in locked in the dark it’s probably gone permanently blind since it never has light to see by. That part of you. If we’re all honest we all would say that there’s a part of us we see as “ugly,” the part we think if people knew about us they’d run far and fast away from us, never to return. God sees that, and His Word cuts deeply enough into our hearts to reach that area and open it up before Him. Knowing that, some might think that there’s no way we would ever be able to live a life that would be pleasing to God. And, you know what? They’d be right – IF we were living our lives on our own, under our own strength and power. But, we don’t have to.
Verses 14-16 carry wonderful hope and the promise of living fulfilled lives. You see, we don’t have to approach God on our own. Sinful, messed up us attempting to stand before a perfect, holy God. On our own we wouldn’t last a second in the presence of His awesome glory. But we don’t walk into the throne room alone. We have a High Priest that goes before us, Who makes us worthy through the sacrifice of Himself that He offered on our behalf. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is our Priest, and we are exhorted to hold fast to our faith in Him and what He’s done for us. Not just in respect to redemption, although that alone is enough, but Jesus did more than just pay our debt. He came to earth as one of us, lived a life like we live, faced the same issues, fought the same battles against temptation and sin, so He understands where we come from. He knows how hard it is to fight temptation – He fought it Himself. He knows what it’s like to put God’s will first and foremost in His life, even when He personally would have loved to have a different way to get it done – He did God’s will anyway. And, it’s because He faced those same struggles we have this hope: our Priest, Who faced the same trials and temptations as we do, is able to freely enter in to the throne room of God and because He can, we can too. Not only can we enter, we are told to enter with boldness and assuredness, knowing that we are there because we belong there, not as outsiders or outcasts, but as followers of the High Priest and ourselves the children of God. We find mercy freely poured out over our lives and we find the grace we need to make it through the situations in life we find ourselves in. You and I, as children of the King, are able to freely approach God because our High Priest came to this earth, lived our life, understands our struggles, opened Himself up to the unrelenting gaze and powerful examination of the Word of God and passed through the fire unscathed, perfect, to become the sacrifice He as the High Priest offered to God for our reconciliation and redemption.
Approach the throne with boldness. Find the mercy and grace you need to live the life God has called you to live. Worship in wonder and awe in the awesome presence of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
No comments:
Post a Comment