Sharing Life and Christ

“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord:   I will put my law into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.   And they shall not teach, each one to his neighbor and each one to his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.   For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” Hebrews 8:10-12 (quoted from Jeremiah 31:31-34) I continue to be blessed in my study of the Book of Hebrews.   The author is making the case that Jesus is the only High Priest that we need, that His blood has secured an eternal redemption, and that the covenant He established by His blood proves the old covenant to be merely a shadow and copy with no power to forgive sins.   Chapter 8 is all about proving that Jesus ushers in this New Covenant, and by doi...

For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices, thus it is necessary for this priest (Jesus) also to have something to offer.   Now if He were on earth, He would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law.   They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things… Hebrews 8:3-5a One of the central themes of the book of Hebrews is the comparison of all kinds of people and things with Jesus.   Moses with Jesus.   The Law with Jesus.   The Levitical priesthood with Jesus.   Melchizedek with Jesus.   The gifts and sacrifices of the priests with Jesus’s gifts and sacrifices.   And so on.   What the author concludes each and every time is that “the substance belongs to Christ.”   (Colossians 2:17b)   All of these people and things are mere representations of the ultimate reality of Jesus.   We can see this idea in the passage above.   Priests are a...

Yesterday, I had the privilege of delivering God’s Word to His people for the first time. It’s been an amazing season of growth that led up to yesterday (and continues). I’ve wrestled with the sinful fears of doubt and inadequacy and the type of pride that focuses all the attention on me in a negative way instead of thinking that I’m all that. I’ve wrestled through the righteous fear of not wanting to mishandle the Word of God. God has brought me to a deeper level of belief. Belief in Him and His promises. Belief in the sufficiency of His grace that is in Jesus Christ. Belief in the Gospel as the power of God for salvation. It has been so, so sweet walking through this with Him constantly reminding me of His faithfulness. It is so easy for me to lower God to the level of humans who have disappointed me or deserted me when everything seemed to be going so well. It’s been easy to fear that God would do the same after growing my excitement for preaching over the last three years. ...

It’s Not About What I Can Do What an incredible season of life this is! The past couple of months have been full of evidence that God still uses jars of clay for His purposes. He has delighted to use me to speak truth and be a bold witness at work. He has rejoiced in using me to teach others about the glory of Jesus Christ which is like that of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. And He has graciously given me the privilege and responsibility of undertaking my first effort at preaching the Word of God. But even more than those blessings, God is showing me something so precious that I can hardly believe it. Now, at first glance, it certainly doesn’t appear precious. It is disheartening and crippling and humiliating…until I remember what His Word says. In this season, I’ve often felt like Moses when God first appeared to him in the burning bush with His proposal for Moses to save Israel from oppression in Egypt. We can see the...