Daily Devotional

What an amazing concept that we can approach the throne of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the very creator and ruler of the universe. Understand that in monarchal traditions normal people cannot simply approach the king, very few people have access to the king, because he is set apart. How much more so God Himself? In the days of the temple, only the High Priest had access to go into the Holy of Holies, that place in the temple where the mercy seat was, God’s throne on earth. And even then he could only enter on one day a year, on the day of atonement. He would have to go through many ritual cleansings and even then would have a rope tied around him because if he approached the throne unworthy he would be instantly struck dead!

However Jesus Christ came to remove the barrier between us and God, not because of anything we did or can do, but because of His sacrifice on our behalf on the cross, imparting His righteousness to us. That is the grace of God, the undeserved gift of salvation given to us while we were yet sinners. Jesus has become our great High Priest, and now can mediate for us to God the Father. The large thick veil in the temple that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple was torn from top to bottom when Jesus gave up His life on the cross. Thus symbolizing the separation between us and God was removed and we now can have direct access to God Himself.

Remember that a Holy God cannot tolerate sin, so for us to have access only comes from the covering of our sin by Jesus Christ by His death in our place on the cross. When God looks at us He sees His Son, rather than us in our sin. So knowing all that, not only can we approach the throne of God, but we can do so boldly, confident in our status as children of God, through the work of Jesus Christ. We don’t need a priest to mediate between God and us, we can go directly to Him with our needs, our hurts, our problems, and our cares. The verse just before this one speaks of the fact that we have a Great High Priest in Jesus, who also can sympathize with our weaknesses, because He came and lived as a man, even being tempted and yet without sin. As the commercial says, “Jesus, He gets us.” What a comforting thought to know we can go directly to Jesus with all of our cares.

New King James Version (NKJV)
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.