Silas
Beloved of All
Your thanksgiving for the blood of Jesus is beautiful and right, and it reflects exactly what Scripture teaches about how we draw near to God.
God established that relationship with Him rests on blood, because the life is in the blood and it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul. Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. That is why the blood of bulls and goats could only point forward, and why the blood of Christ, who offered Himself without spot through the eternal Spirit, does what those sacrifices never could. It purges the conscience from dead works so that we can serve the living God. The veil that once shut people out of the holiest place was torn from top to bottom when Jesus was crucified, and that tearing was God's own act to show that the way is now open. On that basis you have confidence to enter the holiest place, not by your own works or worthiness, but through the blood of the new covenant and through Jesus as our sympathetic High Priest who lives forever. Because of Him we can come boldly to the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace for help in time of need.
This is also how you can know the love of God without doubting. Fallen nature and feelings cannot prove His love to you, and Scripture does not try to prove it anywhere else except at the cross. Here is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us and sent His Son to be the sacrifice for our sins. God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. When you see what He has done there, your heart can answer back. We love Him because He first loved us. We are responding to grace already given, not trying to earn it. Like a branch receiving sap from the vine, or a child receiving life without striving for it, we simply receive what Christ has poured out and then life and fruit follow naturally. That includes the inheritance He promised through the Holy Spirit, poured out after His death and resurrection and ascension.
The evidence that His Spirit is truly at work in you is the kind of love only He can produce. We cannot manufacture this love on our own. It is a love that keeps His commandments, that holds to simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ, that loves the brethren and seeks to walk in love toward family, friends, and even those who are lost. When God fills the heart, He enables us to love in a way that our natural selves never could, and that love bears witness that we belong to Him. If there is struggle to love someone, the honest path is to tell God plainly about it and ask Him to do in you what you cannot do yourself.
I join your prayers for nearness to God as you draw near to Him, for renewal of first love, for wisdom and revelation to know Him better and to understand His Word, for clarity and order in daily duties, for grace for chores and wisdom for pressing needs, and for fellowship with Him and with others in the work He has given you to do. I also join you in asking for protection from temptation and evil, from stumbling blocks and deception, from fear and lies, and for deliverance from the evil one. May the Lord keep you in the freedom and power of His indwelling Spirit and His Word, grounded in the assurance that you have passed from death to life through the one Mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ, who is our priest forever.
God established that relationship with Him rests on blood, because the life is in the blood and it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul. Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. That is why the blood of bulls and goats could only point forward, and why the blood of Christ, who offered Himself without spot through the eternal Spirit, does what those sacrifices never could. It purges the conscience from dead works so that we can serve the living God. The veil that once shut people out of the holiest place was torn from top to bottom when Jesus was crucified, and that tearing was God's own act to show that the way is now open. On that basis you have confidence to enter the holiest place, not by your own works or worthiness, but through the blood of the new covenant and through Jesus as our sympathetic High Priest who lives forever. Because of Him we can come boldly to the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace for help in time of need.
This is also how you can know the love of God without doubting. Fallen nature and feelings cannot prove His love to you, and Scripture does not try to prove it anywhere else except at the cross. Here is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us and sent His Son to be the sacrifice for our sins. God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. When you see what He has done there, your heart can answer back. We love Him because He first loved us. We are responding to grace already given, not trying to earn it. Like a branch receiving sap from the vine, or a child receiving life without striving for it, we simply receive what Christ has poured out and then life and fruit follow naturally. That includes the inheritance He promised through the Holy Spirit, poured out after His death and resurrection and ascension.
The evidence that His Spirit is truly at work in you is the kind of love only He can produce. We cannot manufacture this love on our own. It is a love that keeps His commandments, that holds to simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ, that loves the brethren and seeks to walk in love toward family, friends, and even those who are lost. When God fills the heart, He enables us to love in a way that our natural selves never could, and that love bears witness that we belong to Him. If there is struggle to love someone, the honest path is to tell God plainly about it and ask Him to do in you what you cannot do yourself.
I join your prayers for nearness to God as you draw near to Him, for renewal of first love, for wisdom and revelation to know Him better and to understand His Word, for clarity and order in daily duties, for grace for chores and wisdom for pressing needs, and for fellowship with Him and with others in the work He has given you to do. I also join you in asking for protection from temptation and evil, from stumbling blocks and deception, from fear and lies, and for deliverance from the evil one. May the Lord keep you in the freedom and power of His indwelling Spirit and His Word, grounded in the assurance that you have passed from death to life through the one Mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ, who is our priest forever.
