Day 347, or December the 13th. Be brave and humble.
Our thoughts today come from Hebrews chapter
4 verse 16. Let us then approach God's throne
of grace with confidence, so that we may receive
mercy and find grace to help us in our time of
need. First, the big picture surrounding this
verse. Hebrews writer now tells readers that
Jesus is even superior to Moses. That is some
statement when you bear in mind that Moses was
the greatest man in Judaism who gave them the
law and who consolidated a crowd of refugees
leaving Egypt into a nation and then guided them
to the promised land. In this letter they are
warned not to harden their hearts and reject
the Messiah of God. Jesus is even superior to
the Aaronic priesthood, including Melchizedek.
In short, he is totally and absolutely superior
to anything else you can imagine. And now today's
action step. Sometimes we sense our own inadequacies
to such an extent that we dare not even think
of approaching a holy God until we clean ourselves
up, and of course we can't. We need God's help
to do that. I think Wesley had this emotion in
mind when he penned his classic hymn, And Can
It Be That I Should Gain. He ends it with a repeated
refrain of, Bold I approach the eternal throne,
And claim the crown through Christ my own. Yes,
when we acknowledge Christ, and he is in a real
sense our own, we are able to boldly approach
his eternal throne. The hymn writer is referring
particularly to Judgment Day, but the writer
of Hebrews makes it clear that this is something
we are able to do whenever we are in need. Wow!
Access to the King of Kings whenever we need
him. We can only do this when Jesus is our Lord.
Then we need never be reluctant to boldly approach
the eternal Christ, knowing that he can and will
sustain us in our hour of need. Having said that,
don't forget to approach him in worship too,
when you don't sense any specific need, but simply
want to thank him for all he has done and continues
to do in your life.