access to God | Stray Thoughts

It’s so frustrating to click on a link and then see the message “You do not have permission to view this page.”

Or to forget a password and then have to go through several steps to finally get into your account.

Or to be told you’re not dressed right or you don’t have the proper credentials to enter a venue.

Or to race to a business only to find it closed.

Or to call the doctor’s office at 4 p.m. Friday and hear a recording that their phone lines are closed for the week.

I think in America, especially, we’re so used to our freedoms that our blood boils when we’re denied access to something we think we have a right to.

But the fact remains that we don’t have access to everything. We need the right permissions, passwords, attire, level of security, or timing to get where we need to go.

If you read the first few books of the Old Testament in the Bible, you see that not everyone had access to every part of the temple. Oh, people could pray wherever they were. But God prescribed a detailed sacrificial system. Only certain animals in perfect condition could be brought as sacrifices. The different kinds of sacrifice had different procedures. Only the priests could perform certain functions. Only the high priest could go into the inner part of the temple, the most holy place, or the Holy of Holies, and then only once a year. There was a thick curtain between the Holy Place and Most Holy Place.

Some loved God and wanted to be as close to Him as possible. David, the man after God’s own heart, longed for the courts of the Lord and said he’d rather be a doorkeeper in God’s house than to dwell in tents of wickedness (Psalm 84).

Many people followed the rules and brought whatever sacrifices were required because that was just how things were. Some performed the outer rituals, but lived whatever way they pleased away from the temple.

One king, Uzziah, who presumed to go into the temple to burn incense was struck with leprosy.

The message was loud and clear: You do not have access!

That’s why it was so remarkable that when Jesus died, the thick curtain blocking the way in the Holy of Holies was “torn in two, from top to bottom” (Matthew 27:51).

That would have been utterly shocking to the Jewish people at the time.

What many people missed was that the whole sacrificial system pointed to Christ. He was the perfect sacrifice, the perfect high priest. The book of Hebrews wonderfully shows how everything in the sacrificial system pointed to Christ.

Because He lived a righteous life in our place, because we couldn’t, and He took our sin on Himself, He is the access to being right before God.

The writer of Hebrews says:

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, 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. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful (Hebrews 10:19-23).

Jesus did not create a way to God only for the Jews, but for everyone else as well:

Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God (Ephesians 2:12-19).

That’s why Jesus could say, “I am the door of the sheep. . . . If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture” (John 10:7,9) and “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

Have you gone through that Door? Do you have access to God through Christ? If not, you can today. For more information, read here. Then you can “draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.”

Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me" John 14:6

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)

Here’s the latest thought-provoking reads seen around the Web lately.

In Christ, We Have Direct Access to God, HT to Challies. “Is it inconsistent for the Bible to teach us that God ‘dwells in unapproachable light’ (1 Tim. 6:16), while at the same time exhort us to draw near to him? If God dwells in the white-hot light of his holiness, how can sinners like you and me ever hope to take even one baby step toward him? If God is so pure, so completely undefiled, so sharply separate from sin, how can we approach him? Indeed, it seems, he is unapproachable. Yet the author of Hebrews strongly encourages believers to not only approach God, but to do so with ‘full assurance.'”

Still, HT to Challies. This is beautifully written. “Is it true that the quiet valleys of this world harbour stillness like some treasure to be dug up? Quite possibly. But I’m not convinced that is what the ancient song-writer is calling us to. Rather, it strikes me that there is a tone of command here, a tone better heard if we had sat with the desperate disciples on a wind whipped lake, the night dread gripped their hearts.”

Keys to Knowing God’s Will for Your Life. “Of all the issues related to Christian living, few receive greater attention than knowing God’s will for our lives. Many believers, and especially younger ones, agonize over knowing what God means for them to do and how he means for them to live out their days. Many end up leaning toward a low-grade form of mysticism, longing to receive some kind of a sign from the skies or some kind of a word in their hearts.”

What Makes a “Strong Woman” Strong? HT to Challies. “‘Strong woman’ is a phrase heard often these days, and because I admire both words and women, I’ve been paying attention. It’s used in politics, on campuses, in the media, and even by little girls who know at a very early age to describe themselves as ‘strong.’ It’s made me think about what strong actually means—what is the implication when people say ‘strong woman’?”

We Don’t Need to Rescue Biblical Characters from Themselves, HT to Challies. “If we understand that the Bible is not a book of heroes to emulate, but sinners in the need of Jesus, our outlook changes a bit. We don’t need to rescue the biblical characters from themselves so we can emulate them, we can take comfort in the fact that even our very greatest heroes in the Bible were not perfectly faithful. They, as much as us, needed Jesus. The Biblical characters are not there principally as examples to us to emulate, but as examples to us of God’s grace.”

Two Letters and a Cute Dog Photo, HT to Challies. “My mind turns to the commute home and the evening ahead. Oh, that’s right: tonight is Bible study night. I was already feeling physically and mentally tired, and now I realise I’ve got to get home, do a quick turn around on dinner, then up and out in the cold to head to my home group. Or … I could stay home, get those nagging chores done, quickly watch the next episode of that Netflix series I’ve been enjoying, and get to bed at a time more in keeping with the level of fatigue I’m feeling. I’m sure my group and the leaders will understand. They always do. Here are five quick reasons to intentionally derail that train of thought and go to growth group.”

Not What I Expected, HT to Challies. “One of the most shocking television moments I ever witnessed was on L.A. Law in the 1980s. A character everyone loved to hate, Rosalind, stepped through her law office’s elevator doors mid-sentence and unexpectedly plummeted to her death. That’s kind of how I felt when I became a mom…like I was falling. I stepped forward and the floor wasn’t there. The drastic life change was so much harder than I expected, in ways I didn’t anticipate.”

Teach Us to Number Our Drives, That We May Gain the Hearts of Our Children, HT to Challies. “Even though I know this comes with the territory, I struggle to enjoy it. This season of spending lots of time together in the car is fleeting, and I need to take advantage of having a captive audience. But while I love my kids with all my heart, and I’d jump in front of an oncoming train for them, some days I don’t want to lay my life down to drive them across town.”

And a thought for the day: