(Psalms 23:4) “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
Troughs, valleys and mountain tops, somewhere along life’s journey we will either be on top of the mountain or in some dark dingy ditch and at times somewhere in-between. Today is a day where music rings sweet to my ears, for this I am thankful Father God. To reach the peaks in life we have to go through the gorges. Yet, we often think we stand alone but this is never true for the Christian, as our Redeemer lives so too does He live for all who have His Spirit. Our great High Priest forever interceding on our behalf, praise His glorious name! How will we ever be able to repay His tender mercies, the truth be told it is an impossible task. And yet He still chose to die for God’s (His Father’s) elect, what mercy is this? It is when I have thoughts like these that I can somehow relate to this statement; “O LORD, what is man that you regard him, or the son of man that you think of him?” (Psalms 144:3)
There are many mysteries in scripture that need seeking out but the Lord Jesus’ role as our high priest in not one of them. Why did the Lord Jesus need to suffer? It will become clear to all who search out this truth. In order for Him to sympathize with our frail human flesh, He also needed to go through hardships to understand what we go through. It was one thing to die in our place for our sins on that cruel Roman cross as He bought us salvation; “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9) - But an entirely different matter that He had to suffer whilst doing it…
It is not as if God our Saviour asked us to put the body under, or give it to be burned and I do not mean literally but rather to make sacrifices. Simply put, not those sacrifices which account to dead works but those which help change us in character; “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” (Romans 12:1) - That which is required from us as Christians is no more than a reasonable requested appeal. Let us not lose sight of why the petition is made by Paul; it is a process we all need in our lives to understand God’s will for our lives, without it we will be left groping in the dark, clutching at straws and always asking the question, Why?
“No gain without pain” is often a phrase coined especially in gyms; it is as true for the athlete as for the Christian. How will we ever be able to sympathize with a street kid if we do not spend a night with him on the streets, or understand what it means to starve if we are constantly eating? All these type of experiences are shallow and makes us fence sitters pretending to understand. Jesus Christ our Lord was no fence sitter when it came to His High Priestly ministry, He suffered like no other, He understands every temptation known to man as He endured them all. He experienced the lot as nothing escaped Him. God the Father so willed it, but why? So that the Lord Jesus would be touch with our weakness, praise His name! “Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.” (Hebrews 12:2-4)
God help us never to forget that even the apparent gutters in life have their intended purpose and they are obstacles in life to help change us into the image of Christ! Our great Saviour learnt what it meant to endure against the temptation of sin; in fact, His experience was so intense that He began to sweat drops of blood. He may have never succumbed to sin of any sort but He surely understood what it meant to fight it off. We will never have to go to the lengths He went to! And yet we have been called to walk as He once walked. How do we achieve this? It is not theoretically complicated; “And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:24-25)
Let us not confuse the “letter of the law” with the freedom we now have to serve God from dead works. It is through the Spirit we have been set free and so let us apply ourselves to Christ’s Spirit and not the letter of the law. It is all about our relationship with Him and not the dos and don’ts of life. We will have to suffer to understand what it meant for Him to die in our place. Let us not kick against the pricks but rather cry out to Him in time of need. He has been touched with the feelings of our struggles; we praise and glorify our Kings glorious name, Amen!
Let us also remember why they wandered in sheepskins, destitute and without food and were willing to lay down their lives even to the point of death in time past. No differently to the Lord Jesus’ example, they understood that they were seeking a city whose builder and maker was God. We now need to reason as they reasoned for it will be worth it all. I pray, God help us today to understand the future of our hope with a brighter prospect that yesterday.
Signing off
Tyrone
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