One Passage to Strengthen Your Confidence
Hebrews 4 says: 14 Since then 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 is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Holding fast to our confession. There are so many people I’ve seen walk from the darkness into the light of Christ during my time in the ministry, and each time, it is a powerful thing. I never want to give up on reaching the many people that I know are still far from Christ, so I believe in modeling the confession of Jesus as much as possible.
Jesus modeled a confession for all of us; He modeled a confession that God was merciful, loving, compassionate, and not this God of distant wrath and eternal judgment that so many people had come to associate with His name. Jesus’ confession was one of grace, a confession that His life proved with every word and action. We can only hope to model a small fraction of what Jesus, in His perfection, gave to the world.
I continue to marvel at how Jesus, in such intimate contact with His creation, was able to be as compassionate as He was. Yes, He had stern words for certain people, but the patience that He continued to show, continues to keep me in awe. As the sinless Savior, He had to keep everything in submission to the will of the Father, and I know that we understand how hard that is with our failings of humanity. Perhaps it would be helpful to remember how powerful sympathy can be in a situation where we know someone is hurting. Jesus knows the struggle. Jesus felt the struggle. Jesus hates the struggle because it is a reflection of everything that a sinless God is not. And He wishes that in our struggles, we remember the sympathy He has as a kindred spirit knowing pain and suffering. It means that we have a compassionate voice pleading for our grace all the way in Heaven, where there is no suffering and no pain. Jesus is unceasingly communicating with the Father and the Holy Spirit what taking on flesh and experiencing what Heaven is not, so that a judgment of sin is not the end of our story.
I think that is confidence. We know that Heaven has no room for sin and its agony, but the very real memory of what it does to God’s created ones is necessarily the way in which dialogue happens between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It’s not a point of separation, but a point of unification, because it has always been God’s will that we draw close to Him with our confessions of faith and trust that God is dealing with us in a way that is far removed from what we deserve.
Confidence is not something we often think of when it comes to drawing near to God. Instead it’s usually with a sense of understanding our sinful state. We trust that God will forgive us, but we realize that without a knowledge that God holds life and death in His hands, we can’t fully grasp how great a thing as grace is. Confidence usually gives us the image of swagger, but confidence as we draw near to God is the same confidence we think of when we think of the reliability of someone close to us who won’t let us down. It’s the trust that they will help us when no one else will. It’s not the image of the fearless person at the podium commanding the attention of the room, no, it’s the quiet belief that Jesus has helped us when no one else will.
So take your confidence with you, that God will redeem your pain for a greater glory, and even ten thousand years later, He still advocates for the least of His creation. Amen.
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