The Wanderer

By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament. And they truly were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death: But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s: for this he did once, when he offered up himself. For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity; but the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the Son, who is consecrated for evermore.

Hebrews 7:22-28

Great High Priest

Hebrews 7:23 states that the priests of the Old Covenant were not able to continue in their calling because they died. Verse 24 says that Christ is our eternal ever-constant priest. He belongs to an unchangeable priesthood, one of the New Covenant. One that does not need repeated sacrifices or rituals for verse 27 states, “Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s: for this he did once, when he offered up himself.” Instead, Jesus is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than even the heavens. Under His name are all kings and kingdoms. He is the firstborn and under His feet all things are put into subjection (Hebrews 2:8). However, all this would’ve been in vain if there was not one little phrase, “for such an high priest became us,” (Hebrews 7:26). Jesus is not one to leave you in your doubt, fears, and struggling, but the one to walk by you. He does not “get us” as some campaigns and teachers preach. If He got us, then He would’ve sinned too. Instead, He only became flesh to be subjected to the same things: suffering, hunger, poverty, fear, etc. He never sinned in the flesh BECAUSE He was God. (Before you start trying to be the all-perfect Christian, only Christ can lead a perfect life. So stop trying and letting Satan steal your joy.) There is a world of difference between becoming flesh and submitting to the flesh.

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

John 1:14

He transforms us into His likeness just as He became the likeness of us.

For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:

Romans 8:3

Nevertheless, this is not a license to sin. Romans 8:8 says, “So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” That is why God chose the foolishness of this world and sent His Son to do the ultimate sacrificial act: to lay down His life as a Passover Lamb so that we may spread His blood on the doorways of our souls.

But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. ~ Ephesians 2:13

Without the bloodshed, we wouldn’t be saved. He is our Passover Lamb. Just as the lamb had to stay with the Israelites for three days, our Lord stayed with us for three years. Revelation 12:11 says that we can overcome death only by the blood of the Lamb. Speaking of lambs and sacrifices, follow me with this next picture.

He Clothes us

In the very beginning, we see the mercy of God written all over the story of Eden. Adam and Eve were given a command and given the ability to choose. They choose to disobey. So they knew they had become naked: spiritually and physically. In the light of the Law, our sins, or rather our flesh, are exposed. We become naked and ashamed. God punishes us and shows our sinful disobedience while giving us consequences. However, it doesn’t stop there. He sacrificed an animal and clothed them with its skin. Why only the skins? The offerings in the Law required everything: the insides and all the gory organs. Whether you accept it or not, I believe it was a lamb, foreshadowing The Lamb. Just as God clothed Adam and Eve, so too does He clothe us in the Blood and righteousness of the Lamb. He no longer sees us guilty-stained orphan children.

For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. ~ Hebrews 8:12

I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. ~ Isaiah 43:25

As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. ~ Psalm 103:12

And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you. ~ Ephesians 4:32

We are not to hold onto our old man. We have been forgiven of that Identity. We are not Sinners! We are children of God. We also shouldn’t point out and drudge up the past to make our brothers and sisters fall into despair where Satan has his heyday with their minds. We are to lift each other up. We are not to tear them down by remembering something for which The Forgiver forgave them.

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

2 Corinthians 5:17

Jesus had to become flesh in order to pay our debts. He had to be a substitute. Substitution requires time spent doing that thing of concern.

Our Promise and Identity in Christ is now! It is not for the New Jerusalem but for this sin-cursed world full of darkness under Satan’s control. We are to be transformed and to offer our lives as a living sacrifice for Christ. Thanking Him by offering the only thing we have: our bodies, our lives, and our actions.

Foolishness

God chose to save us through the crucifixion of Christ. The world says it is foolish and mocks at the cross. Yet the Kingdom of God is easier to enter as a child with a willing and trusting heart with accepting faith than a man with pride wearing blinders. We have an Advocate and One Mediator. That is Christ Jesus and Him only. We are commanded to go through Him only. He ALONE is the door. Not any other man, dead or alive. That is the Old Covenant, the Law. It is not the New Covenant that Christ brings: Grace.

He has come to destroy the chains of the Law by which we are held down. He is the propitiation (1 John 2:2) not only of our sins but those of the whole world. His offer is to all and anyone and everyone who realizes they can’t do it on their own and believe that He truly is the only One Who can help them. Let’s return to Eden.

After He clothed them, He sent them out. Why? Because He did not want them ETERNALLY LOST! If that is not mercy, I don’t know what is. He drove out the man from the garden so he would not be forever condemned.

So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

Genesis 3:24

God has forgiven us, sacrificed the Lamb, clothed us in His righteousness, and is driving the flesh out of us so we may not be eternally sinful. He is making us into the likeness of His Son. Where the Law finds us dead in our sin, Grace resurrects our soul and redeems us. Just like Adam and Eve, we will have tribulations in this world. We are paying for our consequences and living with the consequences of past generations. We must crucify ourselves daily and sacrificially give our lives to Him who sits on the throne! To Him belongs all praise and worship and adoration.

We cannot serve two masters for the Spirit and the Flesh war against each other. Even the great apostle Paul confessed he too had problems with it. It doesn’t matter how religious (Paul was the top guy in that category) or how long you’ve been redeemed, you will fall short because you are living in the flesh and this world. We are to not lay down in our failings but to get back up and show those scars. Those scars show those who do not believe that they can be redeemed. We are not to have an elitist attitude.

Many will say “Lord, Lord” on judgment day, but He will reply I never knew you. These same people did all the actions hoping that would prove salvation. Good works are by-products of salvation. They are not the source. We cannot have Jesus without the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit seals us for salvation (2 Corinthians 1:22). We may say we are Christians and act like we are different from the world, but if the Spirit is not guiding us, Beloved, we are not His. The sheep know His voice!

But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:

John 10:26-27

Do you know His voice?

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, (…)

Hosea 4:6

Do not ignore His voice. Do not turn away your ears.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

2 Timothy 4:3-4

Many are believing everything they hear whether it be from blogs like this or even from well-known preachers who have a wide audience. We are to test the spirits. We are to search the scriptures to prove if what they say is right. Hell enlarges herself.

Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it.

Isaiah 5:14

Often, it is not the drug addict or the one who sells their body but the religious Christian who sits in a pew adopting the faith of their preacher who learns too late He is not their Lord. This is the tragedy of easy-believism. There are few laborers but the harvest is ready. The King is sending us out to the Highways and Byways. He is actively searching for that lost sheep, that lost coin. We are to actively seek souls and lead them to His feet. Our Kinsman Redeemer is welcoming the outcast to work in His field. He welcomed you and me! Why can we not lead others to His field, like Ruth?

The Law and Grace personified

The book of Ruth is a story of grace and salvation. We are strangers coming into the knowledge of Christ through someone else’s testimony. We, being drawn by the Father, are led into that land. We end up by chance on the field of Grace (Ruth 2:3). The One who took foreknowledge of us!

Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ:

1 Peter 1:2

Then she fell on her face, and bowed herself to the ground, and said unto him, Why have I found grace in thine eyes, that thou shouldest take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger?

Ruth 2:10

Grace invites us to the table, to the very wedding feast.

The Law does not want us. So Grace redeems us. Obed’s name means serving. So too, when we become friends of God (Ruth ~ friendship) and Grace redeems us, we love Him through a servant’s heart. I have good news for you friend.

The time to work is not just in the morning or the afternoon. It is all day. Jesus does not have a time frame in which He seeks the lost. Just as in Matthew 20, the Lord seeks out and hires men in the marketplace of the world to work in His fields for a day’s wages of salvation. He goes out in the third, the sixth, the ninth, and the eleventh hour. Nonetheless, when it came time to pay them in the evening, in the very darkest of days – the tribulation – there is complaining.

Saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day.

Matthew 20:12

Many of those sitting in churches are complaining. They are laughing at the prospect that the scum of society or those who are saved not as long as they were are getting the same treatment. Woe to you who sit in the chiefest of places only to be knocked down further down the table. The first will be the last. The last will be the first. Humble yourselves brother of the Prodigal son.

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The last call

Are you standing by the flame of your self-righteousness? Are you warming yourself at the fire of culture? Peter denied Christ while warming himself. Let us not seek the false fires and warmth of this world, rather let us be pursuing the All-Consuming Fire. Whose are you? Are you standing by your fire? Are you going through your High Priest under His blood or are you relying on yourself to atone for your sins?

And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Revelation 7:13-14

For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth,

Hebrews 12:6

If you have the Holy Spirit in you and if He is leading you, you will have convictions and He will let you know when you are in the wrong. The church people are closing the gate to Heaven by placing their restrictions and rules as checkpoints to go through. Jesus says I am the Door. We must only go through Him. Have you gone through the Door of Life or have you gone through the checkpoints of lies and self-confidence? Instead of opening the door wider, the people who sit in the church are forcing people away from the Kingdom of God into Hell with easy-believism. The Church needs to return to Christ. She has left her first Love. Grace draws us in and cleans our slate. He has planted an incorruptible seed. Jesus is not about rules. He is about repentance. They are two separate things. Rules say you can live however you want just don’t break the rule or don’t tell when you do. Repentance is committing to living for Christ day by day. That means we are to give Him our lives. Our hearts. Not our actions and our words. We are to worship in deed and truth.

Live in Grace. Do not shun Jesus because of the actions of humans. We fail. He doesn’t. He is our High Priest and the only One who can atone for our sin debt. Will you keep trying and running like cartoons, nowhere? Or will you step out of your box into reality and run the race with endurance covered in His skin of righteousness?