5 Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said:
“Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but a body you prepared for me;
6 with burnt offerings and sin offerings
you were not pleased.
7 Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll—
I have come to do your will, O God.’”[a]
but a body you prepared for me;
6 with burnt offerings and sin offerings
you were not pleased.
7 Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll—
I have come to do your will, O God.’”[a]
8 First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them” (although the law required them to be made). 9 Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. 10 And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Wow, this passage is so clear and concise and to the point. Sacrifices and offerings were necessary in the meantime, until Christ came, but no more. One ultimate sacrifice paid our penalty and made us holy, by the will of God and the obedience of Jesus.
I've been marveling at that a lot lately. Jesus knew what was required of him, and he came to do it and he DID do it, but as I think of him in the Garden of Gethsemane and the prayer and the blood sweat I realize he must have dreaded it terribly and been in anguish over the prospect when the time was near, but he still said "Here I am, I have come to do your will," and he was obedient. Makes some of the things I struggle to be obedient about seem pretty dumb.
Do you struggle with obedience? Some people feel, or seem to feel, that once they've accepted Christ that's all they need to do. There's no more to it than that. They can go on with their life the way it was, because they were pretty good people anyway, and when they die they'll go to heaven. Accepting Christ as our saviour may be the only way to get to heaven, but it is only the first step of the journey as a living, growing member of the family of God. Jesus said "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." The first step is accepting God's gift of forgiveness and salvation, and there is absolutely nothing we can do to earn it and no way to work our way in, but if that sacrifice that Jesus made for us is worth something to us, and if we truly want to be a shining light for God, we must have a relationship with Him and we must be obedient.
1 comment:
Exactly. In fact, our obedience is the outward sign of a true inward decision. The proof of our salvation.
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