GOD’S WORD FOR APRIL 5 ~ ~ Hebrews 7:24 ~ ~ “Because He remains forever, He holds His priesthood permanently.”

Reading from Nancy DeMoss Wohlgemuth’s book, “Incomparable”

Our Father knows the burden of stress we carry from the uncertainty that never stops swirling around us –confusing, overwhelming, and upsetting us.  And in His mercy and love, He’s chosen to lift this burden from us – not by eliminating change from our lives, but by giving us Jesus as OUR UNCHANGING CONSTANT: “The same yesterday, today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

Jesus is our fixed anchor in a constantly changing world.  But we may think of this mostly in terms of His presence when He was here on the earth – we know that He died on the cross, rose from the grave, and ascended to heaven.  We also know that He promised to return one day in the future to take us to be with Him.  But what is He doing in the meantime?  How is He a constant presence and help in our live right now?

Sadly, any Christians live without conscious recognition of, or dependence on, our living, active Savior.  That means they are missing out on an incredible resource.  In this reading and the next, I want to invite you to meditate with me on how Jesus serves and blesses us today and every day in His role as our faithful and eternal High Priest.

Throughout the Old Testament, the high priest performed two vital roles on behalf of believers:  service TO God and service FROM God.  By carrying the sacrificial blood of an animal into the Holy of Holies –that most sacred place in the temple , where Yahweh’s presence dwelt – the high priest represented the people to God, seeking atonement for their sins.  Then, emerging from that sanctuary, having had the sacrifice accepted, he represented God to the people, offering the divine pardon, peace and blessing.

But powerful and holy as this service was, the high priest’s ministry was inherently limited.  Though bearing the sins of the people, he also bore the guilt of his own sins.  Plus, he could only serve a finite number of years, depending on how long he lived.  Like those he served, he aged and eventually died.  Even in faithfully carrying out his duties, in the end he represented one more unwelcome change in people’s lives.

But not Jesus.  Never Jesus.  He solved each of the inevitable flaws and weaknesses in the priestly system by entering “into heaven itself, so that He may now appear in the presence of God for us.” (Hebrews 9:24).  And, as Hebrews 7:26-28 assures us,

“this is the kind of high priest we need:  holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.  He doesn’t need to offer sacrifices every day, as high priests do – first for their own sins, then for those of the people.  He did this once for all time when He offered Himself.  For the law appoints as high priests men who are weak, but the promise of the oath, which came after the law, appoints a Son, who has been perfected forever.”

So not only did Jesus die on our behalf, becoming the sufficient sacrifice for our sins.  In His ascension He also took that offering into the true Holy of Holies in heaven (Hebrews 9:24).  He presented to the Father His pure, perfect life and the blood that He shed for our sin on Calvary, ending the need for anyone else to perform this service for His people ever again.

We see in Hebrews 9:25-26:

“He did not do this to offer Himself many times, as the high priest enters the sanctuary yearly with the blood of another.  Otherwise, He would have had to suffer many times since the foundation of the world.  But now He has appeared one time at the end of the ages, for the removal of sin by the sacrifice of Himself.”

The constancy of change is an unavoidable reality that each of us has to live with.  But we can find comfort and stability in the fact that:

“We have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens – Jesus the Son of God – for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.  Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need. (Hebrews 4:14-16).

Today and forever, in heaven, He continues to serve us, representing us to the Father when we confess our sins, and representing the Father to us by granting us the mercy and grace we need – all through the sufficient sacrifice He made for us on the cross, once for all.

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