Devotions

We live in an era where many people who claim to know God and follow scripture are actually wolves who plant seeds of doubt and look down on those who strive to obey the Bible’s mandate: “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15, ESV).  

For these people, the plain teaching of the gospel isn’t enough. They say things like “Yeah, yeah, we believe in the ‘Jesus saved me’ stuff, but what about this or that?” Trying to ‘add’ things to the gospel actually takes away from the power of the gospel.

Paul said, “For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:17-18).

We subtract from the power of the gospel when we try to add any new revelations or social agenda, anything that takes away from the simplicity of Jesus came to save sinners. He is fully God as the second person of the trinity. He became fully man 2,000 years ago and lived a perfect life. He humbled himself and walked among us so that we might know him. He died a brutal death and rose again because he is God. 

That is the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

That is what all of our lives are hitched to, those of us who truly follow him. The message of the gospel has always been the same. Even before Christ came to earth as a man, it was purposed in the trinity to send him to die for the sins of mankind. We see it in Genesis 3, immediately after Adam and Eve sinned, God foretold the coming Messiah. 

We should take hope in the gospel’s enduring nature. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:1-5). 

^{Joshua West serves as the Pastor's Network Director at World Challenge helping equip and empower pastors all over the world. Joshua’s desire is to raise up ministers who will correctly and boldly preach the word with passion and integrity. The point of all his work and writings is to preach the gospel, glorify God and to teach sound doctrine.}

Many Christians think God delights only in chastising and correcting us. Not so! The Bible tells us he takes no pleasure in disciplining us. On the contrary, Jesus says, “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32, NKJV). He assures us, “I’ll give you everything you need because my heart is set on blessing you!”

Nowhere in the Bible do we find Jesus cursing anyone; the only thing he cursed was a fig tree. No preacher, apostle, prophet or shepherd in history ever blessed people more than Jesus did. He pronounced blessings everywhere he turned.

Consider the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5. Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are you who mourn. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are you if you hunger and thirst after righteousness. Blessed are the merciful, the peacemakers, the persecuted, the reviled.” Everywhere Jesus turned, he pronounced, “Blessed …blessed …blessed.”

Jesus took children into his arms and blessed them. He blessed those who held feasts for the poor, crippled, lame and blind: “He lifted up his hands, and blessed them” (Luke 24:50).

It touches my heart deeply that Jesus’s last words before he left his disciples were words of blessing. Luke says, “And he opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the scriptures” (Luke 24:45). And then “…he blessed them” (verse 51).

At this point, you may be thinking, “I can understand how the Lord would bless children, or new converts, or even Christians in poor countries who need miracles just to have food. I can see how he would bless imprisoned believers in foreign countries, miraculously providing them with glorious revelations of himself. But me? Well, I don’t think I ever live up to the light I have received and I don’t feel worthy of his blessings.”

Beloved, I hope you understand by now that you will never be worthy of God’s blessings. No one earns his blessings. Rather, he comes to us — strictly in his mercy and grace — and bestows on us spiritual blessings beyond our comprehension.

God’s holiness demands that he be angry at sin, but he loves mercy. Now the blood of Jesus has satisfied God’s justice so that he can come out to us through the torn veil, showing mercy and grace.

The Old Testament includes a powerful foreshadowing of our merciful High Priest. In Numbers 16, we see the whole congregation of Israel rising up and murmuring against Moses and Aaron. God had destroyed two hundred and fifty princes because they had rebelled against him, and the people were mad at Moses and Aaron over their deaths. “On the next day all the congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, saying, ‘You have killed the people of the Lord.’” (Numbers 16:41, NKJV).

God appeared in a cloud, telling Moses and Aaron to stand apart from the rest. “Get away from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment” (Numbers 16:45).

Suddenly, a horrible plague broke out among the people. Terrified, Moses told Aaron, the high priest, “Take a censer and put fire in it from the altar, put incense on it, and take it quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them; for wrath has gone out from the Lord. The plague has begun. …And he stood between the dead and the living; so the plague was stopped” (Numbers 16:46, 48).

Aaron is a type of Christ here, and the incense represents Jesus’s prayers for a rebellious people. What an incredible picture of God showing mercy through the prayers of the high priest. We see an image of Jesus running among rebellious sinners, sending up prayers to the Father on their behalf. With each person, he cries, “Father, have mercy!”

An advocate is one who tells the court what is legal, what is right and should be done. Jesus says, “I have fulfilled the law. I have paid the price to fully satisfy God’s justice. The devil can never accuse God of being unjust.” 

Although 14,700 Israelites died of the plague, two or three million others should have fallen. However, God showed mercy! Likewise, you and I should have died long ago because of our sin. The Father, through Jesus’s prayers, has mercifully kept us by his power.

Once a year, the high priest went into the Holy of Holies to make atonement for Israel’s sins. After sanctifying himself by bathing and purifying himself thoroughly, he took with him the blood of a bullock and a golden censer held by three chains. The priest then removed some coals from the altar, put them in the censer, took a handful of incense and went into the Holy of Holies.

Inside the Holy of Holies was an ark. Atop it was the mercy seat, and on either side of the seat were two golden cherubim whose wings spread over it. The mercy seat represented the very presence of God where the Lord sat on his throne.

The high priest took the handful of incense and threw it on the fire in the censer. Suddenly, a beautiful aroma filled the tabernacle. The priest waved the censer in front of the ark until the mercy seat was enshrouded in a cloud of aromatic, sweet incense.

Beloved, this is a perfect illustration of what Jesus has done for us and is doing right now. First, it signifies Jesus’s death and ascension to the heavenly Father as our High Priest. Second, this scene of atonement further signifies the time when Jesus began to pray for us, interceding to the Father on our behalf.

The initial work of Jesus’s intercession was the sprinkling of his blood on every bond and debt we owed. A bond is “a sealed note of debt or obligation that is binding upon the debtor and his heirs.” The devil once laid claim to you because you were dead in trespasses and sins.

There must be a cavern somewhere in the bowels of hell containing a mountain of records that are due, including your note and mine. The notes read, “You must pay with your life, and the price is eternal damnation.” However, Jesus was given the keys to hell’s vault! Our High Priest went down to the very pits into that place of records and opened up the vault. He began flipping through the records and pulled out our notes, all the bonds, debts and obligations of those who believe in him and who will yet believe.

Jesus gathered all those notes and took them to glory. There, in the presence of the Father, he sprinkled his blood over them, announcing, “These debts are paid in full by my own blood.”

Zechariah 3 describes a high priest named Joshua standing before the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him. Also present was an angel, who had to be Christ because angels do not judge.

Joshua was a real man, not just a type of Christ. He was the high priest during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. In Ezra 10:18, it appears that Joshua had married a heathen woman; at that time, the worst way a Jew could defile himself was by marrying a Gentile.

“Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and stood before the angel” (Zechariah 3:3, NKJV). Joshua stands before the throne in his filthy garments, and the devil is at his side, accusing him. Satan argued, “This man has broken your law and sinned against you.” The devil’s accusations were correct; Joshua had sinned, and now Satan claimed Joshua for himself.

Beloved, this is exactly what happens with us. Satan comes before the throne of grace to accuse us. He points at us and says, “You know all things, God, and you see the compromise in this one’s life. If you are just, you must give me his soul.” In Revelation 12:10, Satan is called the accuser of our brethren, and he stands before God right now to oppose you and me, to accuse us of sin.

That is when Jesus, our advocate, steps up and says, “It is true, Father. He has failed, but there is faith in his heart and faith in the power of my blood. I have paid for every sin he has or ever will commit.” Jesus then turns to those standing by. “Take his filthy garments, and put my robe of righteousness upon his shoulders.”

Jesus said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?” (Zechariah 3:2). What a picture! The devil was forced to leave with a sound rebuke, and Joshua walked away with a pardon, a new garment and a crown of righteousness on his head.

“My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1). Jesus has been in glory for these 2,000 years praying for us, and he is still praying for us.