God's Glorious Grace

It is easy to take God's grace for granted.  The grace of God is given continually and infinitely it is like the oxygen we draw in with every breath without thinking to satisfy our needs.  Being deprived of oxygen for a short while makes us appreciate the ability to breathe freely again, and even in the season of difficulty God's grace still remains abundant.  How good it is to consider all we have in Jesus Christ and to bless His holy name.

As born again Christians in this marvelous season of grace, the Gospel having been revealed to all through Jesus, reading about the past can open our eyes to better appreciate and celebrate the present.  God's grace, kindness and goodness have been extended to all people from the beginning, yet to everything is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven.  A season of lawlessness preceded that of the Law of Moses, and now Jesus has ushered in a new covenant by which Jew and Gentile alike are united with God as one by faith in Him.  We are most privileged to live in these exciting times where Jesus is the head of the church and each member of the Body of Christ can be comforted, guided and helped by the Holy Spirit.

Last night I was reading for the conditions which used to exist under the Law of Moses in Numbers 3.  The children of Israel were God's chosen people, and He chose the males of the tribe of Levi to serve as priests and Levites unto Him in the service of the tabernacle.  Numbers 3:10 says, "So you shall appoint Aaron and his sons, and they shall attend to their priesthood; but the outsider who comes near shall be put to death."  The word "outsider" is a stranger, a foreigner.  No one but the sons of Aaron were to be appointed to the priesthood, and this excluded a lot of people.  Later in the chapter the charge and warning was repeated in Numbers 3:38:  "Moreover those who were to camp before the tabernacle on the east, before the tabernacle of meeting, were Moses, Aaron, and his sons, keeping charge of the sanctuary, to meet the needs of the children of Israel; but the outsider who came near was to be put to death."  No one but the sons of Aaron could minister unto the LORD as priests, and if a curious stranger even came near they were to be executed.

When Jesus cried out "It is finished!" and laid down His life on Calvary, the veil of the temple which blocked the view into the Holy of Holies in the temple was ripped top to bottom.  To venture or even look into the Holy of Holies was reserved for the high priest alone only on the Day of Atonement.  This divine act revealed the way into the presence of God was not only made possible but all people--Jew and Gentile, male and female, free and slave--were invited to draw near to God through faith in Jesus.  After Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven in the sight of hundreds of eye witnesses, the Holy Spirit was sent to fill believers and empower them to be witnesses for Christ everywhere we go.

In light of the death sentence for strangers who approached the sanctuary, consider the impact of what is written in Hebrews 4:14-16 to all Christians:  "Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. ¹⁵ For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. ¹⁶ Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need."  Foreigners and aliens in the land of Israel could not approach the sanctuary or holy place which contained no throne:  heaven is God's throne and the earth His footstool!  By the grace of God sinners, born again by faith in Jesus, are invited to boldly come to God's throne room of grace themselves to "obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need."

Drink in the grace, my friends, breathe it all in freely with gratitude!  That God would dwell in us and we in Him!  What better passage to emphasise this than Ephesians 2:11-22:  "Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh--who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands--¹² that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. ¹³ But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. ¹⁴ For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, ¹⁵ having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶ and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.

¹⁷ And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. ¹⁸ For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. ¹⁹ Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, ²⁰ having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone, ²¹ in whom the whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, ²² in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit."