Friday, March 16, 2018
So then,
since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God,
let us hold firmly to what we believe. This
High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same
testings we do, yet he did not sin. So
let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will
find grace to help us when we need it most.
Every high priest is a man chosen to represent other people in their
dealings with God. He presents their
gifts to God and offers sacrifices for their sins. And he is able to deal
gently with ignorant and wayward people because he himself is subject to the
same weaknesses. That is why he must
offer sacrifices for his own sins as well as theirs. And no one can become a high priest simply
because he wants such an honor. He must
be called by God for this work, just as Aaron was.
Hebrews 4:14 – 5:4(NLT)
In yesterday’s
devotion we considered the importance of confession in our Lenten journey. Scripture declares over and over that
confession is indeed good for the soul.
To ignore that truth and practice is to trample the grace by which we
are saved. Confession should be quick,
genuine and without reservation; without confession we cannot begin
to have a relationship with God, much less continue.
Today’s passage
leads us to the priest who receives our confession…and, for me, the rub of
ministry leadership. Of course Jesus is THE
High Priest; no ordinary human can fill this role. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross for sin was sufficient;
it was one time – for all time and all persons.
We need no other high priest; Christ IS our
salvation. That being noted, we see also
that God does call humans to serve in a priestly fashion, leading others in
their dealings with God. And
God reserves the selection of these to Himself.
The “rub” – or
place where the rubber encounters the road, when it comes to being
called as a minister (priest, if you will), is whether it is God
doing the calling, or if it is some other voice. This is the struggle-story I’ve heard
countless times. A person senses a pull
towards ministry and then spends, perhaps, years running from it…fearing
answering a call that may not have been a call from God at all. Perhaps it was just a weird stomach cramp
after too much pepperoni on the previous night’s pizza. Or the supposed call was really just a pull
towards getting a little needed attention to boost a poor self-esteem level. (That one is really pathetically-funny
actually…because, if God didn’t call you into ministry, you will have nothing
to sustain you when the actual day-to-day of ministering to people blows your
self-esteem out of the water, and you are left sitting in a corner somewhere
staring at your naval.)
In the end, those
who choose
ministry as a career, rather than respond to God who does the
choosing, will find a hollow emptiness instead of the leading of that still,
small voice. It’s the difference between
the called one who empties himself…and is filled by God with His Spirit and
the fire to preach the Word…as opposed to the one full of himself, who
just enjoys having preeminence in leadership.[2]
That principle is
also just as valid in the pew as it is in the pulpit. If we assume we are Christian by virtue of
anything less than God’s grace and call to forgiveness by repenting of our
sins, we are as foolish as a child playing with toy soldiers in the backyard
thinking he is conducting a war. The
difference is huge, considering one day the child will probably grow up and
understand the difference between play war and the obscenity of
real
war. Not so in pretending to
be a Christian by being good, being obedient, or thinking your way into being
better; a pretend Christian just isn’t.
For You Today
Emptying before God all of who you really are, trusting in Christ alone,
will result in being filled to overflowing with Who He is! That is a terribly flawed English sentence,
but an eternal, life-giving, life-changing truth you cannot live without.
You chew on that as you hit the
Rocky Road; have a blessed day.
