Month: April 2020

JESUS

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OUR GIFT—THE PRIESTHOOD

FATHER, Your Son is my High Priest: “For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf”(Heb 9:24 ESV).

“When our coldness, our old nature, our neglect, our ingratitude, and our backslidings might have prevailed, He [CHRIST] has never entirely and forever withdrawn.  His post is to watch…with a sleepless eye of love…’He withdraweth not his eyes from the righteous’ (Job 36:7)…” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, May 1st, brackets mine).

“It is a personal, an anticipative, and a present intercession.  It embraces all the personal needs of each believer…it bears the saint and his sorrow before the throne.  At a crisis of his history, at a juncture, or perhaps even at the most critical moment in his life when a believer’s heart is oppressed with emotion and cannot breathe a prayer—Jesus is remembering him, sympathizing with him, and interceding for him” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, March 27th).

JESUS is our High Priest who goes before making us priests also.  “…To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever…”(Rev 1:5-6 ESV).

As JESUS is our High Priest, we then, can be priests to others.  “In the kingdom of Christ each individual is a priest.  The priest’s work is not limited to any order of the ministry. All may offer the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving: all have direct access to the holiest through the blood of Jesus: all Christians, as priests, are to minister to one another and to plead for one another” Marvin Vincent (ref#271).

“…the three fundamental functions of the priesthood. Worship—insuring that people exalt God’s greatness. Intercession—insuring that people experience God’s grace.  Blessing—insuring that people enjoy God’s favor”Doug Newton (ref#166, p140).

“If you have believed in God’s decontaminating work in your own life…you are now qualified to function as a priest.  You are now called to use your words to intercede on behalf of people and pronounce over them the blessings of God’s mercy and grace as God directs you” Doug Newton (ref#166, p141).  “God…is saying…If you will make your whole life about bringing the benefits of my presence and grace to others, you will have Me in a way the others never will.  I will be your portion” Doug Newton (ref#166, p141).

JESUS

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CHRIST DOES EVERYTHING

“…Every person the Father gives me eventually comes running to me [JESUS].  And once that person is with me, I hold on and don’t let go….” (John 6:35-38 MSG, brackets mine).

FATHER, You call me into fellowship with JESUS (1 Cor 1:9).  And JESUS employs Himself to my aid.  He enriches me in every way in all speech and all knowledge (1 Cor 1:5).  He maintains me with gifts while I wait for His physical appearance again (1 Cor 1:7).  He also sustains me until the end, guiltless (1 Cor 1:8).  He is my all.

“…the Father has given all power to the Son, that by his hand he may govern, cherish, sustain us, keep us under his guardianship and give assistance to us.  Thus, while we wander far as pilgrims from God, Christ interposes, that he may gradually bring us to full communion with God” John Calvin (ref#113, p321).

“…we have a double need: on the one hand cleansing from defilement, and on the other a new heart with new desires and aspirations….For Christ died to make us clean, and by the inward working of his Holy Spirit he can make us new” John Stott (ref#258, p78-79).

“…many ways Jesus loves his own…visiting them with his gracious presence, instructing and guiding them by his Word and Spirit, preserving them in his providence, strengthening them by his grace, comforting them with his love, and maturing them for his eternal glory” Charles Ross (ref#241, p19).

CHRIST constantly pulls me out of the God-ignoring flames of this earth.  He doesn’t just help me stand every once in a while when I think I need help but constantly rescues me.  O FATHER, I am so thankful.

“…Christ has entered…into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf”(Heb 9:24 ESV).

JESUS

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DELIVERED

FATHER, CHRIST saved me from Your wrath by making me acceptable to You by taking the punishment for my radical, complete, disobedience.  I am redeemed!—by CHRIST’s obedience.  You made the plan; CHRIST made it work (Eph 1:7).

“The cross declares how dire is our condition apart from Jesus.  It announces how deep the sin goes, how profound the rebellion is, how impossible is our plight apart from Help from the outside.  There’s nothing we can do, no effort we can exert, no law we can follow” (by David Mathis, http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/a-reason-to-be-really-offended).

“We need to be delivered from the power of the devil, we need death and the grave to be conquered—and our Lord Jesus Christ has done it all.  And beyond all that, we need a new nature, because we need not only forgiveness of sins, but to be made fit to have communion and fellowship with God” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189, Feb 19th).

“He delivers us also from the power and from the pollution of sin.  His work is such that He takes away our sin in a more vital sense.  We are growing in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord; we are increasingly being made to conform to the image of His Son. We are being delivered—we have been, we are, and we shall be ultimately.  The glorification is coming when He will take away our sin altogether, so that we shall be blameless and faultless and spotless and perfect in His holy presence” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189, Oct 21st).

“’He died that we might be forgiven’; yes, but ‘He died to make us good’ is equally true” Martyn Lloyd Jones (ref#189, Oct 21st).  He “…gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works”(Titus 2:14 ESV).

“…we must never separate sanctification from justification; we must never talk about a kind of series of separate blessings.  It is all one—it all belongs together.  And it is all a matter of this law that condemns us and from which Christ delivers us through the cross and by the gift of new life.  He went to that cruel death on the cross not only so that you and I might have pardon. Thank God, that does come out of it, that is the first thing.  But He did it really to separate, to put aside, a people for Himself as a special treasure and possession who, as Paul puts it, should be ‘zealous of good works,’ who should live a holy life” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189. Oct 21st).