Experiencing and Responding to Christ

The wonderful news is that every Believer can experience the ministry of Christ our High Priest. Comprehending this truth, like so many others, is extremely compelling though. We must now respond to Him accordingly, faithfully, and deeply. When we do so by faith, peace, help, grace, and mercy are communicated into our spiritual experiences. With Christ we can venture on to explore all His designs for us to the glory of God. Are you ready?

Experiencing Christ’s Priestly Ministry

Now that the spiritual needs of Believers have been explored, and the greatness of our High Priest is better understood, our ability to access Christ’s aid must now be considered. First there is the realization and secondly, the appropriation of the realities of Christ’s Priesthood. Just as we can know intellectually that drinking water is refreshing and quenches our thirst, we can only experience that refreshment by actually drinking the water. Understanding this truth regarding Christ’s priesthood is good, but living in the sunlight of this reality is far better! The longing, anxious, peace-deprived, and besieged soul needs “rest” (Heb. 4:8-16). This “rest” is internal tranquility and calm repose based on Christ’s finished work at Calvary and His fully effective work as High Priest. By faith (Heb. 4:3) believers experience the inner peace that comes with a conscious trust in Christ as our fully capable high priest. Regardless of our inadequacies, the magnitude of our challenges, or the lure of temptations, He is able to help and aid as the needs arise. Faith in Him is essential; when we trust our Priest for aid, He in return floods the soul with a calm repose deep within freeing us from anxiety and cutting the sharpness of our stress significantly. While God exercises sovereignty regarding the alteration of our outward circumstances, the trusting soul is certain to realize this inner peace and assurance.

It is a fact that we are scarcely aware of the magnitude of our spiritual need even as Christians. In addition, we are somewhat ignorant of the satisfaction our Priest Jesus can provide. As a result, we take Him for granted and leave His priesthood virtually unexplored. Furthermore Christ is robbed of the honor, adoration, praise, love and appreciation from His people because of His direct contributions to our spiritual welfare.

As previously mentioned, Jesus’ priesthood is scarcely understood by many of us. We seem predisposed to adopt other things to help us cope with sinful failures, deficiencies, inadequacies, fears, and doubts related to life. We do not doubt Christ’s ability to meet our spiritual needs outright…we subconsciously compartmentalize our interests and categorically rule Christ out. We simply supplement our faith with ‘Christian add-ons’ thereby categorically ignoring Him by default. We prop ourselves up with sensationalism, rituals, political causes, formalism, strict adherence to lists, philosophy, creeds, psychology and the list seems endless. The truth is we have been doing this for so long that the supplements are a normal part of the ‘Christian culture.’ Meanwhile the realities and provisions of Christ remain unknown, unexplored, and tragically most are unproven. Only with an intellectual accent do we approve these truths about Christ’s priesthood as fundamental and orthodox theology, but we have little or zero experience of their significance to daily Christian living. The result is a faithless, anxious, anemic, impoverished, particularly ignorant, unfaithful, self-centered, insecure, and weakened brand of Christianity that only remotely resembles the real thing in only a few particulars. I know this sounds harsh, but it is an honest analysis. Praise the Lord there are wonderful exceptions, but far too precious few. My interest here is to be accurate and not sensational or polemic. This does painfully and accurately describe our modern brand of Christianity in some measure.

Because of this weakened state, Christian worship has been reduced to “programs,” “special meetings,” “fellowships,” “a song service,” “sound doctrine,” “a lesson,” “a sermon,” and a few “decisions.” All of these are good, but God intended far more! Christianity has been stripped down to a list of dos and don’ts limping along quite devoid of it essence and potency. Having strong morality is good, but it is not full robust spirituality! The Gospel is still powerful and life changing. Precious few actually expect anything from God and even fewer witness the Presence and power of God in any of their church meetings. Dead (formal, orthodox, or sophisticated) describes far too many ‘worship services.’ The idea of actually entering into the very Presence of God to worship in “spirit and in truth” (John 4:24) has almost been lost. The thought of genuine passionate intimacy with God has become rather foreign and even regarded as a relic of revival meetings. Even then this privilege is supposedly reserved for certain ‘ultra-spiritual’ (actually soulish or sensational) persons who are afforded unique audience with God. Therefore, these are regarded as being ‘on fire for God.’ But, emotional heat is not synonymous with white-hot Spirit filled-passion for the Most High God!

The truth is God invites every believer to worship ‘within the veil’ in the holy of holies—at the throne of His Majesty in Heaven. Christ affords us access to God! Allow yourself to think about the magnitude of such gracious privilege granted to every child of God. You and I can be with God at any time! We are also encouraged to come into the very Presence of God to secure the help and assistance we need as we need it. Access is by faith, enjoyment is through faith, and spiritual peace is perceived and obtained through faith. There remains a rest for God’s people! It is amazing that believers can go through an entire “worship service” and never worship God at all! There is little or no endeavor to approach God in an unrestrained manner because of soaring confidence in our Great High Priest, Jesus Christ. There are precious few that draw near to God with full assurance of hope. Not enough of us experience God’s grace (unmerited favor, strength, help, blessing, and wherewithal) as it is needed and as God promised. How impoverished we are when we live in general ignorance of our Great High Priest Jesus. Again my aim is not to infuriate, but to encourage you to live in the light of Christ’s priesthood. I want the very best God offers for you, not some humanly engineered facsimile.

Responding to Christ as High Priest

With regards to experiencing Christ’s priesthood, we must act on what we believe about Christ as High Priest. Since He is superior to any other priests, two important responsibilities compel believers to act upon them.

The first directive involves holding firmly to our profession of faith in Christ (Heb. 4:14). The word “profession” basically means “confession.” Dr. Wiersbe observed that these Hebrew Christians were tempted to give up their confession of faith in Christ and their confidence in Him (see Heb. 3:6, 14). It was not a matter of giving up their salvation, since salvation through Christ is eternal (Heb. 5:9). It was a matter of their public confession of faith. If Christ is the superior priest, and He abides in the presence of God poised to aid His people, then it makes no sense at all to give up and quit. He can afford every spiritual enablement available to fit us for our challenges and to live in genuine Christian realities. Press on. Do not quit. Do not give up! You can live higher, holier, and more Spirit-filled because of Christ! Hold on to Him because he is holding on to you. Certainly the testing and trials are vicious at times, but our high priest is more than able to provide help. The Lord Jesus can work in your life—no matter how useless it may seem to you—it is not too late for Him. Look to Christ Jesus; place your confidence in Him. The Old Testament system had nothing so comprehensive to offer them, but Christ is offering everything necessary to us under the New Testament. Go on and believe God with every fiber of your being. Difficulties are not ‘good excuses’ to quit on Christ, but opportunities to demonstrate and define the strength of our faith and confidence in Him as the “true and living way.” Do not be ashamed of Christ; confess Him to family, friends, co-workers, constituents, and church family.

The second obligation is to tirelessly come boldly to the “throne of grace” for the help we need. We do not have to quit because we can come confidently into the Presence of God for the required assistance (Heb. 4:16).  We are impressed to come directly into the throne room of God, the real holy of holies, freely and unreservedly expressing ourselves to Him like someone who belongs in His Presence. This is because we actually do belong there! Not because we feels we deserves an audience with God based on personal merit or performance, but because we believe the greatness of our High Priest secures this privilege to us. Even when we have failed miserably, and our hearts condemn us thoroughly, God still insists that we “come.” When our soul is aggravated and flooded with piercing shame because of multiple failures to behave in a godly manner, still the invitation stands. God in affect is saying, “Come on in, you are welcome here in my Presence, because of your High Priest Jesus Christ!” It is always about the credentials of our High Priest, not our performance or failures.

Finally, each of us Believers must decidedly regard the Lord Jesus as our Great High Priest and rely on Him to provide grace, understanding, empathy, and assistance as needed. We must turn to Christ when failing, sinning, and straying. Go to the throne of grace for mercy when we feel guilty and ashamed because of failures. Though He has been gravely disrespected and offended, our holy God still restores believers who have wandered away from Him. Yes, the promise is still true that when we confess our sins, our rottenness and omissions, God is faithful and just to forgive our sins and He will even cleanse us from all manner of unrighteousness (see 1 John 1:9). When we feel inadequate for the challenges before us, know that it is time to approach the “throne for grace” to secure the help we all need. Remember, it is the greatness of our Great High Priest that makes all this possible! Therefore, love Christ, cherish Him as our Great High Priest, and trust Him to minister to you at every point of spiritual need.