Path to Salvation || Hebrews 7:25 || Manna for the Mind #48

Welcome to Day 48 of my “Manna for the Mind” devotional series! This series takes a passage of scripture (typically 1-3 verses) and builds understanding through its context and connecting scripture. This helps us understand what the Bible truly teaches us.

Hebrews 7:25

25          Therefore he is able, once and forever, to save those who come to God through him. He lives forever to intercede with God on their behalf.

No one can add to what Jesus did to save us. Christ acts as our advocate, a mediator between us and God. He looks after our interests and presents our request to the Father. No single person can add to our lives the impact of what Jesus did for us. There is no single item or experience we can purchase that can add to the impact of our lives on what Jesus did for us. Jesus wants to see the best for us. Through his sacrifice, we were allowed to have a direct relationship with our heavenly Father. It was through Jesus that the curtain was torn.

The Old Testament high priest would go before God once a year to plead for the forgiveness of their nation’s sins. Through Christ, this intercession happens continuously. Jesus’s continuous presence in heaven with the Father assures that our sins have been paid for and forgiven. Imagine going to your pastor to confess your sins, and they would go to God in a specific ritual to ask for your forgiveness once a year. You could confess to things 364 days a year, and you might have to commit some sacrifices to atone for those sins, but you would only receive forgiveness for EVERYTHING on that one day. We can receive this forgiveness daily through what Christ did for you and me. It’s ever-present and continuously active. Instead of consistently committing sacrificial rituals, Christ is our consistent sacrifice. This consistent sacrifice assures that our sins are consistently paid for and forgiven. The thing with that, though, is that you need to acknowledge the need to be forgiven; otherwise, you lose out on the meaning of it. We take it for granted in that circumstance. Still, let’s consistently turn to God after we commit sinful actions and ask for that forgiveness, turn away from the actions that caused us to do them, and believe that God’s forgiveness covers that sinful action. We are embracing what his forgiveness is all about.

This excellent assurance frees us from guilt, the frustration of trying to be perfect, and the fear of failure. You are never too sinful or too far away for Jesus to intercede. This hits me deep in my core. I struggle with guilt for certain things I still wrestle with, knowing that I shouldn’t be doing certain things but still seeing myself do it. (Vague, I know, but it’s personal.) My perfectionism has gotten better, but something that still shows up from time to time. Doing taxes this past season intensified my perfectionism because I was scared about the penalties and consequences that could happen when I messed up. I had to be sure I looked over everything a few times over, recognize that there were things I needed to brush up on, learn about, and find clarity before I committed a grave mistake that hurt the client and myself. Yet, you often don’t know what you need to learn until you make a mistake, which is life-ending if you are a perfectionist because mistakes are the end of the world. Yet, while there still may be consequences in our world, God forgives and forgets. He doesn’t hold our mistakes over my head. God doesn’t want us to be perfect because Jesus was the only perfect one, but God wants us to be like Christ. He doesn’t want us to be Christ but to be Christ-like. Within that example I shared about my tax season, you saw my fear of failure. No one likes to, strives to or sets their goal to fail. Yet failure is a part of life. God’s creation failed all the way back in Genesis 3. God’s creation fails to share his love today. The goal is to stop and learn from failure so that we can bring a better future for the next generations. Failures will happen. Learning from that failure is what will change our future.

Romans 8:34

34          Who then will condemn us? No one- for Christ Jesus died for us and raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.

God has acquitted us and has removed our sin and guilt. It’s Satan who still accuses us. God acquits, Satan accuses. When Satan does that, Jesus, our advocate, sits at God’s right hand to present our case. Satan will do everything in his power to get us to turn away from God and to follow down the paths of darkness, depression, and despair. Jesus, on the other hand, stands at the gates of those paths. Before the gates open, Jesus stops us and stops Satan to present the case that these paths aren’t the right ones for us. There’s no guilt with Jesus. There’s no shame with Jesus. Why would these paths, then, be the healthiest for us? Trick question: they’re not. What paths are you traveling down that aren’t for you?

Father God, thank you for Jesus’s saving grace. Guide us down the paths you choose for us. Please give us the wisdom to take the proper steps, one step at a time. In your name, we pray. Amen.