Blood, Not Sweat
Read: Hebrews 10:19-25
Reflect
“Lord, I know I have no right to ask You for anything tonight,” and I proceeded to apologize for being too busy to pray, read the Bible, or witness – too busy to do anything spiritual…
Suddenly it seemed as if the Lord said, “Suppose you had done a lot of ‘spiritual’ things today – suppose you had prayed for four hours, read the Bible for four hours, and led ten people to Christ. Would you feel more confident praying than you do now?” “Yes, I would!”
“Then you are praying in your own name! You think I hear you because of your holiness. You think I am more inclined to listen to you if you have done a lot of good works… If you had prayed for eight hours today and read the Bible for eight hours and led fifty people to Christ, you would have no more right to pray than you do now!”
I looked down at the floor of the throne room and saw that it was sprinkled, not with the sweat of my good works, but with the blood of His sacrifice.
(from Don’t Just Stand There, Pray Something by Ronald Dunn)
I have been guilty of this kind of thinking. But the writer to the Hebrews tells us that our confidence to enter the Most Holy Place is by the blood of Jesus and nothing else. What a profound thing it is to understand that our ability to approach God is not based on our own merit, but is completely based on what Christ has done for us.
“Cleansing” is a wonderful picture for what this feels like: clean, refreshed, exposed but not ashamed, free. And we can draw “near.” We don’t have to hang our heads low in shame, standing at a distance, afraid of our Father. We can come close to the God of the universe. Always.
Not only that, God has given us the freedom and the resources to act on this confidence, namely that we must hold on to the hope we have in Him, and that this hope should be contagious to our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ as we encourage and “spur one another on toward love and good deeds.”
When I try to approach Him or love others with my sweat… well, it stinks, and it’s exhausting. Not that serving God is always easy, but when Christ is the source of our devotion and service to Him, it is fruitful and is not draining.
Let us fix our thoughts on what the blood of Christ has accomplished for us, how it has cleansed us, how He has empowered us to love and encourage each other, and “all the more as you see the Day approaching.”
Jenny Martin
Respond
Pray for elder Keith Hileman, staff Kari Jane Smith, deaconess LaVerne Simon, and last names “W” in our church body.
