There is no substitute for 20/20 vision whether it is corrected or uncorrected. Everybody wants to be able to see everything. That is true, not just in the physical world, but that is true in the spiritual world. There is nothing like getting “up close and personal” with God and seeing Him in HD and hearing Him in surround-sound. God sent His son to remove every barrier, tear down every wall, bridge every gulf, and unlock every door so that we can get up close and personal with Him anytime we want to. In fact, we can be and should be closer to God than we are to anyone else on this planet. That is not only why Jesus came, but that is also why Jesus left. The Book of Hebrews was written to an audience of Jews who had become followers of Christ, but they still had a lot of questions of how their new Christian life was to affect their old Jewish life. You actually find more quotations of the Old Testament in Hebrews than you do in any other New Testament book. In the 4th Chapter, the author of Hebrews writes something that would have made any religious Jew literally gasp for air. We pick up with verse 14. “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.”(Hebrews 4:14) Everyone knew that the high priest was the only person that was allowed to draw near to God and actually come into His presence and then He could only do it on one day a year (the Day of Atonement) and he could only be in front of the alter in the Holiest of Holies. Now the author is saying that Jesus is the eternal high priest, who has gone before us into heaven. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15) He then recounts to us that this high priest is not an ordinary high priest, but One, who even though He is above us also stands with us, because He too, had skin on at one time. He literally had “skin in the game.” He was a human being and experienced every temptation that we’ve experienced. Then He closes with this unbelievable assertion. “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receivemercy and find grace to help in time of need.”(Hebrews 4:16) Now the tense of the verb “draw near” in the Greek language is present tense which denotes “continuous action.” What He was saying to these Jewish people was that you don’t have to go through a high priest anymore to get to God. You can draw near as often as you want, stay as long as you want, because the door is never locked, it isalways open and you can get up close and personal with God anytime you want to.
Posted on: Tue, 24 Sep 2013 16:20:34 +0000
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