Jesus, The Forever Perfect Priest :

So if God’s Big Beautiful Plan involves all of us who want to Know God being able to get in His room, but if we still can’t just waltz in there even though the curtain is ripped… then how are we going to get in there?

Do you remember when God invited all of His Children to come up on Mount Sinai to talk with Him? He told them to get all scrubba dubba cleaned up and wait at the foot of the mountain until He sounded the trumpet; then they could all come up and talk with Him. He told them then that He wanted to make them a Kingdom of Priests, a Holy Nation, His Chosen People.

But, they were so scared they DIDN’T go up the mountain. So God didn’t get a Kingdom of priests. Instead, He just picked a few people to be temporary priests to serve in His House — Aaron and the Levites.

But we also told you that a BETTER solution would come. JESUS is that solution. Because Jesus became not a temporary priest, but a forever, PERFECT Priest.

And Jesus was not a priest who would enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of animals, but He entered by His own blood. And it wasn’t the shadow copy of the Most Holy Place He went into, but it was the the Real One, the Heavenly One.

God’s Big Plan was now making a way for people to be Holy — making a way for people to be close, close, close to Him.

Because “without Holiness no one can see the Lord.”

So for us to be Holy and close, there had to be a way to deal with our sin, our crimes against God. And a scrubba dubba dubba on the outside would never be enough. Humanity needed a way for a scrubba dubba dubba on the inside! And not just a once a year reminder of sin, but an erasing, a washing away of sin, once and for all time.

So the curtain that was ripped was Jesus’ body — His own blood was spilled, once and for all, so that we would all have a chance to be made clean and to go into His Room. So that we could finally be close to God, like He’d always wanted.

When you do something wrong, it hurts inside, doesn’t it? It feels yucky and dirty. Even if you say you’re sorry, the yucky feeling is still sort of there, isn’t it? That’s because you can’t erase what you did.

Maybe you get punished. Maybe your parents or other adults help you to try to fix whatever the problem was. But that doesn’t really erase it, does it? (Like that red stain on the carpet we talked about.)

Did you know?

Hey, and as we’ve told you before as a reminder to you little children: God gives you time to grow and learn when you’re little. He’s not holding your sins against you right now. As you grow older and begin to understand more and more, you’ll know in your insides when you’re knowingly and willingly violating and offending God. Until then, learn and grow and enjoy that Jesus said, “The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to little ones like you.”

And someday — maybe now if you’re awake on the inside, or sometime down the road when you do wake up on the inside — you’re going to want to look Jesus right in the eye and tell Him how sorry you are for your sins, and ask Him if He would wash those all away and come to live inside of you, and then you’re going to want to give yourself to Him to be buried and to rise again in a whole new Life. Someday! What an opportunity!

Our bad hearts and thoughts and impulses and fleshly cravings make us dirty. But Jesus was making a way to erase all our yuckiness so that we could be clean from the inside out!

Do you remember how Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through Me”? Jesus loved His Father. And it was like He was saying, “My Dad is Holy. And you aren’t getting anywhere near My Father or His Room with that dirty heart of yours. If you want to get to My Father, you gotta go through Me. But if you come to Me, I’ll clean you up from the inside out.”

But it wasn’t just about being “clean.” Being empty of all our yuckiness isn’t enough. He wants to fill us with His Spirit, Himself.

And once He does that, it would no longer be a few priests serving in God’s House. But it would be the Beginning of a new Priesthood, in the likeness of Melchizedek. Not priests because of who their parents were. Not priests because someone picked themselves to be. Not priests because some other person picked them to be. But all priests from the least to the greatest because of the Power of an Indestructible Life.

Jesus made a way for us to become that Kingdom of Priests all serving and living and moving and functioning to the Glory of our Father. As One man people standing together and being that Expression of “AS it is in Heaven, SO it is on earth.” A people able to show God to the world not because they’re simply clean on the inside or on the outside, but because they are people Living in the Power of that Indestructible, Unbreakable, Made-to-Last-Forever Jesus Life.

By His Spirit within, the normal for every believer, every Christian can and should be this SuperNatural life flooding out for the whole world to see.

Not just people being good little humans, but people people living a whole new life that Jesus brought to the world — a Way into His Room, so that He could fill us with His Spirit and Flood the nations with His Grace, Truth, and Glory!

Before this point in time, when someone wanted to thank God, or tell Him sorry for something, or tell Him they loved Him — they would bring a sacrifice to the priest, and the priest would offer it to God in just the right way.

But now for all those who Believe, and bow their knee to Jesus, and are washed in His blood, He says, “You got something you want to say to Daddy? You want to come close, close, close to My Father? Okay! Come to Me. Through My blood, I made a way! I will erase your sins, and you can talk to Him yourself. Not because you’re big stuff or because you think you did more good than bad. But you can go to Daddy in My name, by My blood that can erase all your sinful stains. I opened the door for you. So you got something you want to say to Daddy? Good! Get in His room and tell Him yourself!”

Just like John said, the Lamb of God had come to take away the sin of the world. And not just that, but He’d brought a whole new life — a Life on His mountain.

(And we’ll be telling you more about that mountain soon.)