Ezekiel 14:12-16:41; Hebrews 7:18-28; Psalm 106:1-12; Proverbs 27:4-6
“’And so you were adorned with gold and silver. Your clothes were made of fine linen and were beautifully embroidered. You ate the finest foods—choice flour, honey, and olive oil—and became more beautiful than ever. You looked like a queen, and so you were! Your fame soon spread throughout the world because of your beauty. I dressed you in my splendor and perfected your beauty,’ says the Sovereign Lord. ‘But you thought your fame and beauty were your own.’”
“But because Jesus lives forever, his priesthood lasts forever. Therefore he is able, once and forever, to save those who come to God through him. He lives forever to intercede with God on their behalf. He is the kind of high priest we need because he is holy and blameless, unstained by sin. He has been set apart from sinners and has been given the highest place of honor in heaven. Unlike those other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices every day. They did this for their own sins first and then for the sins of the people. But Jesus did this once for all when he offered himself as the sacrifice for the people’s sins. The law appointed high priests who were limited by human weakness. But after the law was given, God appointed his Son with an oath, and his Son has been made the perfect High Priest forever.”
“Praise the Lord! Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever. Who can list the glorious miracles of the Lord? Who can ever praise him enough? There is joy for those who deal justly with others and always do what is right.”
“Anger is cruel, and wrath is like a flood, but jealousy is even more dangerous. An open rebuke is better than hidden love! Wounds from a sincere friend are better than many kisses from an enemy.”
Y’know, it’s hard enough trying to avoid affirmative sin. To even attempt to keep up with the times we inadvertently turn our backs on God would be a full time job. The problem is, we don’t have to be what humans usually consider as evil to be sinful. We just have to prefer our own ways. Our behavior need not be criminal to fall short of the Lord’s standards. It just has to miss the mark of His perfection. That’s why there is just no profit in trying to be good enough to get into heaven. We have a fatal predisposition to sin. Invariably, we trip ourselves up. Our instinctive preference for self is too automatic for our own good. At the very least, we let our guard down and forget to be as considerate as Christ calls us to be.
I continue to run into this issue, particularly at work. Because I am fairly intense and insist on being full-time productive (or else, I am not at work) when I’m in the office, I have developed a reputation far in excess of what I think I deserve. During this last trial, I was again reminded of the ghosts which haunt my past by my new legal assistant. Once the dust of trial had cleared, we had a chance to do a post-mortem and discuss how we might work together even better in the future. In the course of that discussion, she shared how I intimidated her, largely because of what others had told her about me, and because of my perfectionism and intensity. (Yes, I am something of a mess….) Now, I have an open door policy. One of my requirements of any colleague is that, if they have problems with me, I hear it from them first. But that seldom happens. And it genuinely distresses me now whenever I find out I have inadvertently offended anyone. Even when I don’t intend it, I find to my chagrin that “I have done it again.”
I used to be able to fade that heat pretty well because I had a wonderful secretary who truly knew my heart and considered it one of her professional responsibilities to go around the office telling people my reputation was grossly inflated and that I actually was an OK guy. When her life changed and she left for Oklahoma to return to her family, I was left without a mediator. Because I lost my go-between, in just a short time, I was reminded again of how important having an advocate can be.
That’s just what Jesus does for us before the Father. He seeks out opportunities to remind the Lord of the qualities He put in us which reflect His image, His spiritual DNA. I don’t know that God ever really loses sight of the facts behind our creation and His love for us, but I am certain Christ tirelessly defends us against the charges of the Evil One, regardless. He defends us against the death sentence we so richly deserve, even when we fool ourselves into thinking we’ve been “good.”
The point is, we actually need a full time Priest, one who indefatigably advocates for us before the Father. We need Christ to graciously keep on crediting His sacrifice against our punishment. We need the Son reminding the Creator that our sentences have been fulfilled, our time served, not so much because the Father has forgotten, but so that every one of our sins is clearly dealt with and discharged individually.
This is one of the things that will make heaven heaven. When we come before the Almighty Yahweh, we will likely be quite surprised, appalled and embarrassed by the number of times we have turned away from the Lord when we were not even aware of it (let alone the times we knew exactly what we were doing). We will be overwhelmed by the enormity of what Christ has done for us, the unrecognized grace His sacrifice truly required. But the thing that will finally bring us to our knees will be the ultimate recognition that, when Jesus cried, “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do,” He was really talking about us.
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