Hebrews 10: Part 2 — A ‘Time With God’ Audio Devotion

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But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins… But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool.

Hebrews 10

Transcript

Good Tuesday morning as we head into this day. Let’s start it the best way possible, and that is by spending time with God. I just love reading God’s word, the Bible, every day, and at the start of the day is the best time possible because you kind of set your mind for the day. It focuses your life so that all day these thoughts can be helping you.

Approach life with God’s perspective, and that’s the way to approach life every single day of your life. We’re reading through the book of Hebrews, and we’re in chapter 10 this week. I love the passage that we’re going to read today because of what it says to you about guilt.

Let me read it. He starts off,

Therefore brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, and you remember he’s been talking about the fact that Jesus once for all through His sacrifice of Himself – He took the place of those sacrificial animals that were offered in the Old Testament, those don’t need to be offered anymore because He is the thing that all of those were pointing towards, and that is Jesus died on the cross for you and me to take our place so that we could be forgiven by God.

In the Old Testament temple, there was a most holy place that represented the place of the presence of God. And there was a big curtain separating that from everybody. Only the high priest could go there and only once every year to offer his sacrifice for the sins of the people.

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But no more. When Jesus died on the cross, that curtain, that separating thing in the temple, was ripped in two by God, showing us that that way is open for us.

Therefore, the writer says, since we have confidence to enter the holy places, that is, to come right into the presence of God by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that He opened for us through the curtain, and that is through His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

I love that picture. You’ve been totally prepared to go into the presence of God. You don’t need to come fearfully wondering if God’s going to judge you, wondering what He’s going to do to you. No. Whatever God held against you has been paid in full by what Jesus did at the cross. He not only took your penalty, the Bible says He took your guilt itself.

So when you think of coming to God, if you’ve got this load of guilt that you’ve been dragging around and you think, I can’t go to God, all these things just keep coming up into my mind anytime I think about getting right with God, and I know God doesn’t want to see me.

Well, you need to forget those things because God has forgotten them. Your guilt itself was taken by Jesus, and that’s why he paid your penalty, because He took your guilt.

And that means when God looks at you now, if you’ve put your trust in Jesus and asked God to forgive you on the basis of what Jesus did at the cross, He sees you as clean. He sees you as pure. He sees you as not guilty. He’s so ready for you to draw near to him.

Not near grovelling but near as his dear son, as his dear daughter, to just come right to him, put your arms around him, you see what he says, draw near with a full assurance of faith, with your heart sprinkled clean from an evil conscience. If your conscience is telling you you’re too guilty to go to God, that’s an evil conscience. It’s not right.

And you need to teach your conscience what is true is what God says about me, and that is that He loves me. He’s forgiven me, He sees me as clean and pure, and I can come to Him, close to Him with confidence. Do that right now.

I’m John North.

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