The Blood of Sprinkling

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. (Hebrews 12:22-24, NKJV).

Now Cain talked with Abel his brother; and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” And He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground. “So now you are cursed from the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. (Genesis 4:8-11, NKJV).

And Moses took half the blood and put it in basins, and half the blood he sprinkled on the altar. (Exodus 24:6, NKJV).

And Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and said, “This is the blood of the covenant which the LORD has made with you according to all these words.” (Exodus 24:8, NKJV).

‘For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.’ (Leviticus 17:11, NKJV).

Abel's blood was shed at the beginning of human history and marked the rapid decline of humanity from perfection to sin. It spoke of condemnation and guilt, crying out a curse upon not only Cain, but all mankind.

Blood is a complex and marvelous liquid organ necessary for life. It is the hallmark of mortality, central to human and animal existence. To denote something as the "lifeblood" of something else is to speak of that something's essence, without which it would not be the thing that it is.

God designed human mortal life so that blood is synonymous with life itself. He then ordained that blood, and blood alone, would atone, or cover over, sin. Without the shedding of blood there is no atonement.

For centuries, ancient Judaism floated upon a sea of sacrificial blood, each sacrifice graphically picturing the horrible consequences of rebellion against the Creator. Each innocent animal slaughtered to pay the temporary price for human sin, from the animal slain to obtain the skins required to cover Adam and Eve's nakedness, to the rituals of the Jewish Law.

All these pointing forward to the ultimate sacrifice of God's own Son that did far more than merely atone for sin. It took away the sin of the whole world.

From that moment forward, no blood sacrifice would ever be required again. For the shedding and sprinkling of Christ's blood on the Cross silenced the cries and curses of Abel's blood, replacing it with the triumphant call of forgiveness and salvation through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The modern world finds these equations primitive expressions of shame and superstition. Many look upon the rituals involved as barbarous and ghastly, congratulating themselves for an enlightened perspective that would never take such transactions with Deity seriously.

How could a God of love, they say, be so heartless and savage and cruel as to require the killing of innocent animals to assuage His tyrannical anger?

But in so thinking, they fail to grasp the incredible mercy these substitutionary deaths entailed. And they fail to comprehend both the authority and holiness of God, Himself. In essence, they deny the very God they presumptuously question, despite any supposed profession of "a belief" in God.

For if God is God, He is who He has revealed Himself to be in Scripture: Creator and Judge. He is the omnipotent Sovereign declaring the end from the beginning, fulfilling the purposes of His will in every aspect of existence. He is, in fact, the very well-spring of existence itself.

The writer of Hebrews reminds us here that rather than demand each sinner's blood to atone (not take away) his or her own sins, God, in unfathomable mercy, grace and love, placed His own beloved and perfect Son on the Cross, to wash clean in His blood an entire planet of rebellious creatures, and to bless, rather than curse. Better things, indeed.

As in most instances, the self-justifying questions the world poses about God and His perfect plan of redemption focuses on the thinnest surface veneer, and not the magnificent substance. God ordained animal slaughter to provide a way for His perfect justice to be satisfied (at least temporarily) without requiring human slaughter. 

The real question is this: How could a God of perfect righteousness and justice allow sinful humanity to continue to exist AT ALL? And the answer lies in His Son, who was the Lamb of God slain before the foundation of the world.

For those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, the judgment of sin has already taken place. The requisite death sentence has already been carried out and the ensuing eternal punishment accomplished on the Cross.

Those who willfully and pridefully reject the Son, will pay the price of their own sin - every thought, word and deed - forever.

Jesus the Mediator

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. (Hebrews 12:22-24, NKJV).

The Biblical definition of mediator is "one who intervenes between two, either in order to make or restore peace and friendship, or form a compact, or for ratifying a covenant." The Lord Christ aligns with this definition perfectly.

He is the Intercessor, the Divine Representative of man to God and God to man. As High Priest, as He who always lives to make intercession for us, He fulfills, and is the epitome of, that ancient priestly role, established by God before the foundation of the world for precisely that purpose.

And He intervenes in the affairs of men and demons, redeeming the first from the influence and captivity of the second.

And He is the sacrificial barrier between the righteous wrath of a holy God, and the inexorable sinfulness of fallen mankind utterly deserving of that wrath.

On the Cross, He reconciled God to humanity, paying the eternal price of sin in propitiation to an eternal God, restoring the broken fellowship between creature and Creator, making peace, and confirming the new contract between God and His creation - the New Covenant based on faith instead of unattainable performance.

And it is to this selfless Mediator that the writer of Hebrews exhorts us to come, not as criminals (though we surely are), not as penitents (for the price has been paid), but boldly, as beloved children, as siblings and coheirs. 

Without His finished work on the Cross, we would be forever hopeless. Thus, coming to Him in faith is the only means of escape from a destiny befitting our intrinsic evil, yet simultaneously beyond comprehension.

The unbelieving world hates Him. It must, for everything about Him convicts the world of sin, and unequivocally demonstrates the existence of a holy God to whom we are accountable; a God who so loved the world that He sacrificed His Son so that we might escape the wrath He himself will pour out on a rebellious world populated by incorrigibly rebellious subjects.

Our Mediator made possible the abrogation of the old contract between mankind and God, filled with impossible clauses of performance-based life and earned blessing, and in its place, ratified that New Covenant, based solely on faith.

Without that we are all doomed forever to an unthinkable place of punishment that never ends. Without that it would be infinitely better never to have been born.

This truth is utterly repugnant to those who reject Christ. The doctrine of Hell is deemed primitive, unhealthy, depressing, and a deletorious remnant of a less-enlightened archetypal history.

But if it is true, and it must be for God to be who He has revealed Himself to be, then faith in Jesus is the only way of escape.

Jesus is the only hope for an existence filled with banal and senseless evil. His coming again is the only thing that will make right all that is, and has been, so terribly, terribly wrong.

He is the only way of salvation. He is the only one that gives meaning and purpose to the horrors of this life, and provides each one of us with the means to attain beauty from ashes, to make our valley of tears an eternally life-giving spring.

Look around. Look into the past. If mankind is your only hope, then in order to experience any joy at all you must either bury your head deeply in the sands of denial, or cast aside all reason and rationality, and trust that we ourselves have the power to make this world a better place - to so transform the hearts and behavior of our fellow citizens that all propensity for evil is eradicated, or at least, prevented.

History, and the likely course of future events, argues against that hope.

But if the Lord Jesus Christ is your hope, the One who demonstrated His love toward us by taking upon Himself the penalty we so richly deserve, even while we were yet sinners, then despite the sometimes impenetrable darkness of earthly existence, there is joy inexpressible and hope unquenchable.

Not because of us, but because of Him.

The Spirits of just Men Made Perfect

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. (Hebrews 12:22-24, NKJV).

Sandwiched between the Judge of All and the Mediator of the new covenant (more on Him in a subsequent post), are the spirits of just men made perfect.

This is fitting in so many ways, and with lyrical precision, the writer of Hebrews places the departed saints awaiting the culmination of all things right where they are the safest and most secure, sheltered between the Judge who has declared them innocent ("just") and the One whose sacrifice made their reprieve possible.

Who are these saints? And how they been made perfect ("complete")? These are every man, woman, and child who has died in faith, believing that Christ is Lord and Savior, and who are abiding in Heaven until the return of the King. They have been forgiven and thus made sinless and righteous (perfect). Their access to God is unencumbered by the old nature, or fleshly life, or the cares of this world. 

They are more alive than ever before and eagerly await the Resurrection when their spiritual forms will once again be clothed in physical bodies, this time glorified, ageless, impervious, and immortal.

What you must guard against here is the cynicism born of life in this often miserable world that says such an outcome is "too good to be true". We know very little of good or truth in this age - only that which has been provided for us by God through His Word and through His Son.

Our conceptions of Heaven are limited and besmirched. The modern church is defective and anemic in so many ways, not the least of which is its general neglect of Heaven.

It is presented as either a vaporous realm of clouds and harps, or an unknowable amorphous arena of pure spirit - neither of which has any resemblance to the truth of this place as revealed in Scripture. 

Undermining Heaven is effective propaganda in the long war against God, but the author of Hebrews has no such erroneous filters. He understands the magnificence of the vibrant, fully-dimensioned life that is the dwelling place of the saints after death.

Think of it as a vast, immeasurable, life and light-filled universe adjacent to our own puny, fallen one, currently invisible to us, but poised to overtake and infinitely renew our own.

The laws which govern this unimaginably good place are as immutable as the laws which govern existence here, but are of an essentially different character. Nothing in this universe, in its un-glorified form, can exist in that one. It must be transformed on a level that transcends the mere molecular, though it includes it, and encompasses the very real but (to us) incorporeal sphere of the moral and spiritual.

To survive for even a nanosecond in Heaven, we must be remade, utterly, completely, irrevocably - so much so that the first step has been described as being "born again" in the Spirit.

Nicodemus, the Teacher of Israel so long ago, was gifted with this truth and reacted as do many thinking beings by asking the simple but profound question of how can a man be reborn? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb?

Jesus gave Him answer, the essence of which explains how the spirits of just men are made perfect. The transformation from sinner to saint, from dead in trespasses and sins to exquisitely, immortally alive, is accomplished through the one named energy of salvation: faith.

But it is not merely faith, nor is it faith in faith, but it is faith in a singular and utterly unique and worthy Person - Jesus Christ, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Savior, Redeemer, and Friend.

This conversion of unbelief (our default condition) to transformative belief, is that which will guarantee our final renovation into beings that can survive this heavenly realm. Without it, we are too fragile, too cumbersome, too weighed down with iniquity to continue our existence in any proximity to the Giver of Life and Love. 

Without it we are fit for only one place once the remaking of our universe is complete - a place as far removed from God as is possible. A place in the outermost darkness, completely immolated in the fierce coldness of ultimate isolation. We call this place Hell.

Hell is Heaven's antithesis in every conceivable way. As we may have difficulty believing in the soaring goodness of heaven, so too we may be unable to fully grasp the crushing, illimitable despair of Hell.

Both are true, regardless of our feelings or intellectual smugness. Both are presented to us by a merciful and living God who loved us so magnificently that He sent His Son to provide a way for us to be conformed into His image, that we may live forever in fellowship with the Source of all that is good.

Otherwise, we will exists as far from Him as can be… forever in torment.

This present earth in this present time is our opportunity to become something unimaginably better - not through our own puny efforts, but through faith in what God has done to redeem us.

We have until we die, or Christ returns.

If we have not appropriated His sacrifice on our behalf by then, our fate will be sealed.

If we have, then we will join the numberless multitude in Heaven and be joyously counted among those who have been made perfect and complete through the blood of the Lamb.

God the Judge of All

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. (Hebrews 12:22-24, NKJV).

Believers are exhorted to come to Mount Zion, to the city of the Living God, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, and now to God the judge of all.

Notice the invitations and the dichotomy between their precursors before Christ. Mount Sinai, the precursor to Mount Zion, was a place of darkness and tempest and death under the Law. To come to it, to even touch it, was to receive summary execution, and to live according to the Law was an impossibility meant to teach our unequivocal need for a Savior.

In contrast, Mount Zion is a place of eternal life in the heavenly Jerusalem where grace, not Law is operative - the grace that comes through faith in Christ's death and Resurrection as Lord and Savior.

Now, we are boldly invited to come to God who is judge of all. This is an invitation fraught with danger and the certainty of punishment, if - and this is the key point - the invitee is guilty. But our guilt has been washed away by Christ's sacrifice. We have been justified - declared innocent - by His death, and the punishment we deserve has been placed on Him in our place. 

Coming to the Judge, then, under these conditions, and among other things, serves to confirm, not our punishment, but our reprieve. When we stand before God, our sins have been imputed to Christ, and paid for on His Cross. In their place, His righteousness has been imputed to us, and we stand guiltless and free before God.

This is an invitation that makes sense only for the believer, for God IS the judge of all, and without Christ, we are all guilty before Him, and will receive eternal punishment.

The world hates such thoughts, and hates God and the true people of God because judgment is to be avoided at all costs, and it is the fear of judgment that motivates every aspect of human behavior without Christ.

This hatred takes many forms, from legalism to fanaticism to hedonism to materialism to naturalism. 

The legalist is so afraid of judgment that he or she lives according to a stringent checklist of do's and don'ts, which must be adhered to at all costs, and which forms the basis of judgment for everyone else not so shackled.

The fanatic religionist desperately attempts to annihilate all other influences and people that are perceived to be displeasing to a divine, graceless tyrant whose every dictate and tenent of doctrine must be absolutely obeyed, while those who refuse to follow suit must be destroyed.

The hedonist rejects all external morality and follows the deadly course of self-gratification, despising all things and people perceived as obstacles to his own pleasure.

The materialist worships not a sovereign Deity but the forces of intellect and so-called science, believing that judgment is an unscientific myth blindly held by lesser intellects.

And the naturalist worships the creature rather than the Creator, able to see the value of the made, without reference or acknowledgement of the Maker, and holding in contempt all who are not likewise enlightened.

Underlying all these antiGod philosophies and lifestyles is a gut wrenching terror of judgment feeding a hatred of all that even hints at such an end.

Divine judgment must be denied or avoided at all costs and the hatred of it makes perfect sense for everyone who WILL NOT accept the forgiveness of guilt offered in Christ.

Vehement rebellion occurs because every human being KNOWS he or she is guilty before God and, in pride and terror, must go to whatever lengths necessary to continue living under the inevitable sentence of eternal death without being paralyzed with fear.

But the writer of Hebrews is extolling in brilliant and concise fashion, a better way, a new and living way, available through Christ and His loving redemptive work.

The contrast between the way of Christ and the way of the world could not be more stark.

It is the "bottom line". Without Jesus Christ all is lost by default. With Him, nothing good is ever lost.

Without Christ, life is worse than futile - it is the gateway into everlasting torment. Thus, He Himself declares it would be better never to have been conceived.

With Christ, no matter what happens in this life, we, as children of God, inherit everything that is Christ's by virtue of our relationship with God the Father through Him.

But first we must recognize our helplessness and hopelessness. We must surrender our broken and perverse will to His, coming in faith to the Cross, knowing it is the only remedy, the only way of reprieve.

For many that is a surrender that is considered far too costly.

Ironically, it is only through such surrender that victory over sin and death is achieved.

Registered in Heaven

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. (Hebrews 12:22-24, NKJV).

Peace can be hard to come by in this life. Not just external peace, that kind where nobody is actively at war with you or engaged in overt hostilities, but internal peace, as well; that peace that enables you to sleep at night without anxiety or fretfulness.

By understanding where Christ has led us by His sacrifice and our faith in Him, the writer of Hebrews is adding layer upon layer of reasons for peace, especially that internal sort. 

We are no longer under the curse of the law, He has led us past Mount Sinai and its integral darkness and tempest and death penalty, we are destined for an eternal dwelling place - the heavenly Jerusalem - the likes of which we can barely imagine, and we are guaranteed fellowship with angels - magnificent and powerful supernatural beings who stand before God and minister to us, His children and the heirs of salvation.

Beyond that, we are part of the general assembly and church of the firstborn, and have, by faith, an irrevocable membership. Whether or not this general assembly refers to the Old Testament faithful who died believing in God's promises, or is something else, it is clear that this group, along with the church of the firstborn - clearly specifying New Testament believers - are registered in heaven.

Think of it as an exclusive reservation, or legal roster, or an indelible census of heaven's inhabitants. However you picture it, it is a list from which, once on it, your name cannot be removed.

By professing Christ as your savior and acknowledging in your deepest heart your dependence on Him to save you from the penalty of sin, you obtain this inviolable citizenship. You can never be deported or disenfranchised. Your true home is someplace you have not yet been, but for which you were born or, more precisely, reborn. And unlike any earthly home, it can never be destroyed or violated or repossessed.

As a lifelong earth dweller, you may find it next to impossible to place your hope and trust in a place and Person you have not seen, but that is exactly what faith asks us to do. No, more than that - it commands us to do. And it is the longing of every human heart.

That is why being anxious is a sin (guilty as charged), as is worrying (guilty) and fretting (guilty). All these are expressions of lack of faith, and, in essence, are lodging complaints against God and His uniquely perfect will for each one of us.

I find living worry-free an exhausting challenge in my own life. To avoid the anxiety, I typically end up taking things in my own hands, not because of a leading from the Lord, but because I just want "it" over with as quickly as possible. This, too, is sin, and an almost certain recipe for exacerbating whatever the situation may be.

There is a fine line (from my faulty perspective) between "waiting on the Lord" and irresponsible inaction. The ONLY solution is to be in such close fellowship with Him, always, that His voice is heard over and above the tumult of our own sinful hearts, and the so-called wisdom of the world.

In turn, this is ONLY possible by determinedly spending time in His word and in prayer, both of which are not obligations, but privileges bestowed upon us by His grace and mercy.

Another stumbling block I find easy to trip over is subsequently condemning myself for my obvious and egregious lack of faith. This is spectacularly unhelpful in that it can initiate a downward spiral: anxiety = condemnation = more anxiety = more condemnation, and so on - a perfect trap guaranteed to prolong the agony.

The good news in this, and in every trial we face, is that the Lord is gracious and knows that while our spirit is willing, our flesh is weak. Jesus, of course, says it best:

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30, NKJV).

We must understand, He implores us to understand, that these are not just words, but divine promises. Our registration in the heavenly realm has been purchased by Christ Himself on the Cross. It was neither easy nor cheap. It cost God dearly, as he considers each of us a pearl beyond price.

It is easy to believe in the sunshine, and a life of ease is an untested life, built upon an untested faith. I suspect that many of us know of those who have fallen away because their profession of belief was based, not on a broken spirit and a contrite heart, but on an unspoken deal-making mentality. 

When they felt that God had not kept up His part of the bargain, because of hardship or loss or dissatisfaction, they turned away from the only true hope available to a hopeless mankind. That is tragic, indeed.

If you are worried or fretful or anxious, hide Paul's loving exhortation to the Philippians in your heart:

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6, 7, NKJV).

An Innumerable Company of Angels

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. (Hebrews 12:22-24, NKJV).

Instead of a mountain that may not be touched, a burden of performance that cannot be met, an assembly of terrified sinners surrounded by blackness and darkness and tempest, and an earthly city which served as the palest shadow of its heavenly counterpart (even in its halcyon days under David and Solomon), the New Covenant brings us to a very different destination to be in fellowship with our God.

Through faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, we come to a mountain filled with glory, majesty, light and life, a city not of this Creation, and, instead of a congregation of unrighteous sinners, an innumerable company of angels.

The Bible says many things about angels. They were created before mankind. They are powerful and immortal. Those who retained their first estate are holy, worshipful and serve the living God with fidelity and fervency. A third of them rebelled, led by the archangel Lucifer, and are forever condemned with no chance of redemption. 

They can appear as beings of light or as human beings. They are messengers and harbingers, warriors and nursemaids, and they look upon human redemption as a marvelous mystery, astounded by the mercy and grace of God our being saved entails.

While not of this world they can be in this world, and have intervened in human history on many occasions. Angels are glorious in power and can instill in mere mortals an urge to worship which must be denied. Neither are they to be prayed to or in any way mistaken for Divine. 

One day, born again Christians will judge them.

Modern skeptics view angels with a kind of condescending dismissal, relegating them to fairy tales or wishful thinking. In their arrogant intellectual superiority, these unbelievers discount any belief in these spiritual beings as symptomatic of mental weakness or faulty character or ignorant superstition. They do the same with Satan.

That is of no matter, for a thing's reality is utterly independent of any opinion any fallen human being may hold.

In the verse above, among other things, this innumerable company of angels serves as a heavenly welcoming throng, celebrating the entrance of even the lowliest saved sinner. 

I picture these magnificent beings as embodying all the characteristics we attribute to noble heroes of old - self-sacrificing, courageous, willfully subservient to their God and King, filled with immeasurable joy on our behalf.

So then, as Christians, not only will we be citizens of the most unimaginable Kingdom, residing in an unimaginably glorious city, but we will also be in joyous company with beings beyond our current ability to fully comprehend. And they will look upon us as treasures.

And that is just the start. There is much more.

The Heavenly Jerusalem

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. (Hebrews 12:22-24, NKJV).

Why Jerusalem? 

Not too long ago, this earthly city commemorated its 3000th year. Did you get that? 3000 years! And I write "commemorated", not "celebrated", because there is little from the human perspective that Jerusalem can celebrate in these troubled times.

In essence, Jerusalem is at the center of a cosmic battle between God and man. It is a small municipality, as far as dimensions go, in a nation the size of New Jersey, and yet - and yet - it is the focus of the three major Monotheistic religions with billions of adherents worldwide. It is the epicenter of rancid hatred and desperate desire. It is all these things precisely, and only, because God has so ordained it from before the foundation of the world.

There is nothing special about Israel or Jerusalem except that God has put His seal upon her. He has called her the "apple of His eye". He has called her the place of His eternal throne, and He has used her as both a symbol and a foreshadowing of the promised heavenly City of Peace, for peace is the fundamental meaning of the city's name.

(If you doubt the perspicacity of Scripture or the very existence of God, look to Jerusalem. She is ground zero of literally thousands of Biblical prophecies, all of which - all of which - have either been fulfilled in the past, or will soon be fulfilled in the present or near future.)

We, who are the Children of God by faith, have come to this city of the Living God, this Heavenly Jerusalem, by His invitation; really by His imploring us to come, so that we can obtain the destiny, and receive the eternal inheritance, that is ours by faith in Christ.

Do not take this for granted. The earthly counterparts to Mount Zion and this heavenly city are fraught with danger and death. When the Law came forth on Mount Sinai, to come near that place, to even touch it, was a capital crime resulting in summary execution, and the earthly Jerusalem is a battle-scarred place bloodily divided by the nations on the world stage. These are places not of peace and invitation, but war and prohibition.

In their symbolizing the eternal promises of God they are shown as stark contrasts to the majesty and security of what Christ's death on the Cross has put freely within our reach. Unlike the Jews of history, and unlike those today who seek salvation by the works of the flesh, relying upon their own righteousness, the entry price into our destiny has been paid in full for us by the Savior Himself. Our reservations are irrevocable; our right of entrance guaranteed. The result is not death, but life.

This is what we have in Christ. This is the refrain of the Book of Hebrews: the superiority of Christ in every conceivable aspect.

Through Him we are guaranteed better promises, a superior High Priest, a perfect relationship with God, and an inconceivable inheritance and destiny.

The heavenly Jerusalem, that city not made with hands, not of this creation is now, and will forever be, our place of rest and life. We are its citizens by rebirth, a citizenship for which we have done nothing, but which is nonetheless freely ours through Christ - forever.

Nothing in this life compares. Nothing. Not health or wealth or success or relationships or travel or luxury or comfort or anything.

All those earthly things we strive to obtain, attain, and keep are worthless piles of dung in contrast.

Whatever we hold onto in this life we are certain to lose.

As has been written: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” 

The City of the Living God

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. (Hebrews 12:22-24, NKJV).

Most of us are stuck.

We are held fast to the world by the things of the world and our perceptions are centered on the world. This is as natural and understandable as can be, but so is sin and death. Understandable does not make something right or beneficial or good.

To a certain extent, of course, our geocentric viewpoint is almost invisible, like the air we breathe and walk through. It is so much a part of our human nature, and so pervasive, that it is almost too difficult to notice and call it a thing.

Again, that doesn't make it right, just harder to change.

The passage above from Hebrews is written to remind us that we Christians inhabit two worlds, and have two natures. We are slowly, but surely, being weaned and transformed from the one, so that we can be full citizens of the other. Sometimes the transformation hurts, and we reflexively resist, but the more we resist, the more painful it becomes.

At other times, the shift in perspective and essential nature is so subtle we don't even notice until suddenly it seems a veil is ripped from our eyes and we see things as they really are, as we KNOW they must really be - without doubt or shadow - and the shock and awe lays us flat on our faces.

In turn, this may lead to a compulsion to repent in dust and ashes, like Job or Peter or Isaiah, when God grants us a view of Himself, as He really is. That is indeed a good, if terrifying, thing.

But be assured, however it happens, we who are Christ's are being conformed to His image by whatever it takes, because He WILL finish that good work He has begun in us, whether kicking and screaming, or in trusting surrender. 

For our citizenship is in Heaven, and the contrast between Heaven and earth is what the text above is emphasizing; that, in fact, all of Hebrews has been emphasizing by extolling and detailing the superiority of Christ to all that has come before and could ever come in the future.

Instead of Mount Sinai, an earthly location where the Law of sin and death was given in fire and darkness, we - through faith in Christ, have come to Mount Zion, a place in an altogether different realm, a realm that makes our present three dimensional existence in time and space a mere shadow, a vapor, in comparison to where we are destined to spend all eternity.

In this life, in the world where Mount Sinai exists, the dwelling places are man-made, mundane, faulty. Our cities are filled with corruption and decay, however deceivingly presentable they may appear on the surface.

There, in the life to come,upon Mount Zion, is the city of the living God; a place fashioned by Him for His glory. The very phrase should send thrills of pleasure and anticipation through the very core of our being.

To be in the loving Presence of the living God is an inbuilt longing in each and every soul, corrupted and disguised by sin, but cleansed and reborn when we come in faith to Christ.  As His children, made alive together with Him, the poignant longing for that something - that someplace - that cannot be adequately described or imagined, fills our hearts with an unspeakable (because there are no words) and holy desire.

This verse in Hebrews at least puts a name to it - the city of the living God, and will provide us with a further glimpse of what that place entails - its glory, perfection, and majesty.

But this one final thought is, for me, the most comforting, the most reassuring, the most astounding.

This city of the living God is our one, true, home.

Fear and Trembling

And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.” (Hebrews 12:21, NKJV).

Whatever else the manifestation of God's Presence on Mount Sinai was, Moses, the sole audience on the mountain itself, summarized his experience in the six words quoted above.

Fear and trembling is the appropriate response.

Yes, God is love. Yes, He is merciful and gracious, and in Christ, forgiving, but the Law and Mount Sinai were all about God's righteousness and judgment. That blazing holiness and raw omnipotence can only engender awe and terror when witnessed by a mere mortal man.

And it is that holiness and omnipotence that will be foremost in that future Day of Judgment coming upon the entire Christ-rejecting world. Men will cry out for the rocks and mountains to fall on them rather than to be subjected to the fierce glory and wrath of the Lamb of God.

So-called modern thinkers, liberated from the "archaic superstitions" of the past via "higher" education, consider such ideas about future judgment to be quaint and just a little bit childish. They take comfort in their condescension and imagined superiority. But that insouciance is an illusion that will be shredded come the reality of that Day. Their vaunted philosophies will offer no refuge or escape.

It should be no surprise that this represents one of the most effective strategies against faith and godliness, and involves lemming-like dismissiveness; a scoffing disregard for what most of the world has believed for most of history.

And the most ironic component of this tactic is that even the most dismissive among its practitioners are haunted by the awareness of an oncoming existential storm. 

They know that a cataclysm is imminent. They know the human race and this planet are headed for doom and disaster, and that knowledge displays itself in hysteria over all the imagined causes: anthropomorphic global warming; religious zealotry; bigotry; overpopulation; a nuclear holocaust; new strains of resistant diseases; and on and on.

Strangely, there appears to be no acknowledgment of the uncanny accord between their "modern" terror, and the ancient ones that have been an inherent part of human thinking since humans began thinking.

What these stubborn and stiff-necked individuals willfully refuse to come to grips with is that the Creator God of the Universe placed this conviction of coming judgement in our very DNA so that the prospect of future upheaval is undeniable.

Make no mistake. However terrifying the anticipated man-made causes of global destruction may be, these are nothing in comparison to the terror of a wrathful omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient Being determined to execute judgement on His rebellious creatures.

That fear and trembling that pervades human society about the future is a goad, an incentive, an unendurable impetus to bring us to Christ.

Resistance is futile, for no matter what is tried in a frenetic attempt to deny the fear - habitual busyness, activism, frantic pursuits of distraction and denial, drug or alcohol induced stupors, rabid hedonism or hatred, greed-soaked acquisitiveness - nothing works for long. And the dread returns with an intensive backlash.

These verses in Hebrews are setting up yet another comparison between Christ and all that came before. For even Moses, a hero of the faith and giver of Divine Law, could not approach his God without fear and trembling.

He was confronted with undeniable evidence of God from the moment he was sent as Deliverer for the Children of Israel. From the burning bush, to the manifold provisions in the wilderness, he knew of God's power and ubiquitous Presence. He knew of his holiness and purity, and he responded as only a sane man would: fear and trembling.

We will see in the next few verses that we who have accepted Christ operate under a much different paradigm, an infinitely better hope, a vastly different future prospect, but before we gloat or feel special, remember this: it is all God.

We have done nothing to deserve other than that same fearsome judgment except the one and only thing that makes a difference. We have believed in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as Lord and Savior.

And even that belief is a gift of faith from the Giver of All Good Gifts.

Enduring the Presence of God

(For they could not endure what was commanded: “And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.” And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.”) (Hebrews 12:20-21, NKJV).

The Children of Israel begged that the Word spoken from Mount Sinai cease. This was not only the word of the Law, but the warning above - that this place where Yaweh made His Presence known so powerfully was holy and sanctified. So much so that to come near was a death sentence for either man or beast.

Moses, the Lawgiver himself, confessed to a soul-deep terror at the sight of the Presence. It literally shook him to his very core.

How does this reconcile with the earlier exhortation in Hebrews to "come boldly to the throne of grace"? To take advantage of our more perfect access?

The answer is part of the overarching theme of this book in its continuing comparison of what we now have IN Christ, and how superior it is to whatever came before.

Because of Christ, whose death took away our sin, we have been cleansed and sanctified. We are, in Him, holy. We will see shortly that, through Him, we have not come to that mountain that could be touched, but we have obtained entry to an infinitely better place.

Unlike the Children of Israel, who could only approach God's Presence at a distance, and only at a specific time and place, we who believe in Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior, are granted free and open access, always and forever. We need no appointment nor human intercessor nor representative. We come as beloved sons and daughters of the King.

There is no comparison.

The world mistakenly believes that Christians think themselves superior. That is not the case, though undoubtedly many who claim to be Christians come across as feeling superior, and perhaps believe it to be true.

No, it is not the follower who is something, but the One he or she follows who has rightful claim to that superiority. It is the Shepard, not the flock.

Hebrews clarifies the restrictions and prohibitions of the divine/human relationship of the past by contrasting it in graphic terms with that available in the present through the Son of God.

Our position with God IS superior, but again, not because of anything about us, but because of what Christ has done on our behalf. And that superior position comes only through humble acceptance of our helpless and hopeless state, mired in sin and sentenced to death.

The world HATES that we have received pardon, partly because the world hates that pardon is necessary, but mostly because the world HATES Christ, just as He declared it would.

I have found that the hatred is often the most intense from those who consider themselves decent and loving people, who have a view of themselves as having lived in such a way that they are by no means worthy of condemnation.

These people are often the ones who can endure the Presence of God the least. It is an offense to their own carefully nurtured self-image. 

As it has ever been, it is the self-righteous to whom divine forgiveness is a threat rather than a blessing. Their fragile pride, so essential to being able to cope with daily life, cannot tolerate the thought that they are less than they must think themselves.

That is why a broken and contrite heart is needed. That is why those who are forgiven much, love much. That is why a comprehensive picture of the holiness of God and the unholiness of sinful man is essential.

For without recognition and confession of sin, without the repentance that comes from understanding that we are sinners who need saving, without comprehending the infinite cost of that salvation freely paid on our behalf by Christ, without that fear and trembling at our core when confronted with a holy and righteous all-powerful Being, we will never come to the end of ourselves.

Without that, the gossamer foundation of our mortal existence can never tolerate a single moment, let alone endure for all eternity the Presence of God. 

For as we shall also see, our God is a consuming fire.

The Presence of God

For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. (Hebrews 12:18-19, NKJV).

When God reveals Himself the very foundation of the universe trembles. When He steps into time and space, His Presence and power and authority are unmistakable and undeniable. So much so that there will come a day when: “As I live, says the LORD, Every knee shall bow to Me, And every tongue shall confess to God.” (Romans 14:11, NKJV).

Precursors of that day are recorded in the ancient books of Scripture, with God choosing to reveal His glory to humanity to mark significant developments in redemptive history, as in the event alluded to in the verse above, the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai. 

His august Presence blackened the mountain with fire, and His Words rumbled through the cosmos in unapproachable power, with roiling blackness and darkness and tempest .

For their own protection the Children of Israel were strictly prohibited from approaching too closely or casually - they were to understand the sheer majesty of the raw creative Power whose words spoke existence into being.

And the sound of that voice crescendoing over even the clarion trumpet call of the heavenly honor guard accompanying Him proved intolerable for the mere humans for whose benefit the Divine Appearance was manifest.

They begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore, for it overwhelmed them and gave them a glimpse of the true nature of the One they followed, and in whose hands they had put their very lives and souls.

While we may see that reaction as less than courageous, in the very least it was an acknowledgement of who God is - the sovereign Lord of Lords and King of Kings - and it is far more appropriate than the casual, almost nonchalant attitude some today hold toward our Maker and Redeemer, it they admit to His existence at all.

He is, most emphatically, not the genial, grandfatherly figure portrayed in popular culture, nor "the man upstairs", nor is He accessible by any means other than through faith in His Son, Jesus. To believe or think otherwise is blasphemy of the most arrogant form, transforming He who lives in unapproachable light - whose glory fills the heavens - into a mere figment of limited human imagination.

This majesty, sovereignty, authority, glory and power clothed Himself in human form and came to us as Christ Jesus, born of a virgin, under the Law. His flesh was a veil that protected us from the obliterating impact of His true Presence, and was also the means by which He revealed Himself more comprehensibly to the human mind. It was also the form needed to BE that sacrifice that would take away the sin of the world.

But make no mistake, Christ is all the fullness of the godhead bodily. In His resurrected and glorified form, His glory still fills the heavens, and His voice is as devastatingly overwhelming as that from Mount Sinai.

The difference, though, between now and then is yet another aspect of the superiority of Christ to all that can be conceived of in the past, present, or future - in every aspect. Rather than prohibition we have complete access - we can boldly come to a place far more significant than the Mount of the Law. We have, in fact, unencumbered access to the very Throne of Grace itself.

This is not to imply that the power and majesty that blackened that mountain and caused all of Creation to tremble is in any way lessened or mitigated. If anything, through God's selfless act of redemption through His Son, that revelation of ultimate power is clarified by the revelation of ultimate love.

The words spoken from Heaven now are no less than the words spoken to ancient Israel then. If anything their message is more significant, since they are augmented by the supreme act of sacrifice on the Cross.

For those who have sincere faith in Christ, there is no need to beg that His word not be spoken anymore, for its burning provisions of judgment under the Law have been satisfied by the Son of God Himself. 

The Word to His followers now conveys forgiveness and salvation and eternal life in the Savior - judgment has been satisfied.

That Presence of unimaginable majesty is unchanged, but that consuming fire, rather than a source of terror, is the only true source of warmth and light and life to those who call upon the Name of the Lord.

When Man Rules

Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled; lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears. (Hebrews 12:14-17, NKJV).

In a mere 50 years we have come so far and fallen so low in regard to Western sexual mores that what was once considered shameful is now the accepted norm. This is precisely what has happened throughout human history when human authority and judgment supplants the divine.

Take God out of the picture and all you have left is man. Nothing could be more dismal and hopeless. Nothing could be more antithetical to all that is good, except perhaps Hell itself.

This is the issue of sovereignty; the question of who has authority and who can rightly demand or enforce submission. If it is the eternal transcendent God - omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent - then the absolute standards He establishes are reflections of His character. Since He is good and just and merciful, so too are His laws.

But what of the ruthlessness recounted in the Old Testament? What about an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? 

The answer is simple. Divine judgment based on an all-knowing God can determine rightly what constitutes fitting punishment. Human judgment, steeped in sin, self-will, woefully limited knowledge, and cultivated in the hotbed of intense emotion, can not. 

When God commanded that whole city-states be exterminated by the Children of Israel, men, women and children, it was not only fitting retribution but a necessary lesson for His Chosen People. 

Left to flourish, those ancient people groups would have further contaminated the culture and era in which God had ordained that Abraham and his descendants would live, making them unfit to receive His revelation, and thus depriving the world of its most important asset: knowledge of God.

Using Israel as His instrument of judgment was a graphic and dramatic illustration for them of what it meant to fall under God's righteous wrath.

These horrendous events are often used as an argument against the goodness and love of God, but this is a specious argument for two very good reasons.

The first is founded on the assumption of human innocence, and prefaced by the arrogant, whining, and self-serving question of "How could a God of love do X or Y or Z?" 

To exterminate evil is not only good and loving, but a moral necessity. To promulgate an environment for good to flourish is also loving. Both those things were accomplished by the Old Testament judgments. Had these been initiated by man, that would not have been the case, but commanded by God it would have to be the case, since God is just.

Unless of course, and this leads to the second specious argument, mankind is, and knows "better" than God.

The assumed innocence and goodness of mankind is belied by history. Godless human authority, from Nimrod to Ghengis Khan to Hitler to Pol Pot to Kim Jung Ill, has not only resulted in miscarriages of justice, but in genocide. In reality, the limiting principle of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" is a soothing lullaby  in comparison. 

The idea that humans know better and would rule better if only we put aside all those things that make us quintessentially human in our fallenness is simply delusional. We are incapable of justice or mercy or love for more than a moment in and of ourselves. Without God, we are minions of the devil by default.

Every single instance of a society ruled by men without God has quickly devolved into an unmitigated disaster. Just look at the atrocities of the French and Communist Revolutions, both founded on rabid atheism. Look at the slow death and decay of whole cultures that sought only human rule.

Logically, if those nations founded ostensibly in faith toward God, like the United States, are rampantly imperfect and fall far short of expectations, how could any that emphatically rejects Him hope to be any better?

The answer is that it can't.

When man is the sole source of authority, moral values become relative. What is "good" and "proper" for some are profoundly evil for others. This is where we find ourselves today.

Vile evil is propagandized as tolerance and choice. Insistence on absolutes is deemed the only true evil, unless of course the "absolutes" originate from those paternalistically deemed as "backward" or "primitive", then these are viewed as quaint sensibilities that must be respected by the more enlightened.

The equation is damningly inevitable. When man rules chaos results.

Only when those in authority acknowledge and rely upon a Supreme Being, can there be any hope of justice or mercy in human society. To believe otherwise is sheer fantasy and a denial of the raw facts of history.

Aside from the devil himself, a human being without God is profoundly evil, and that evil manifests itself primarily in the buying and selling of justice or benefit or privilege or position or power.

When the pricelessness of righteousness is assigned a crass material value, every other virtue is rendered worthless.

Look at Esau, who for one morsel of food, sold his God-given birthright. In effect, he cast aside divine goodness and authority for a meal; to satisfy the momentary lusts of his belly. When he realized the self-defeating stupidity of his transaction, he repented, not of his motives or heart, but of the deal he had struck - momentary gratification at the expense of lasting blessing.

And that is the deal we all face in this life.

When we discard God from our thoughts, words and actions, man takes His place. We exchange delusional momentary benefit, "the passing pleasures of sin", for eternal blessing. Eventually, every evil becomes justifiable under the auspices of tolerance and enlightenment, or business, or survival of the fittest. Fairly soon, even the attempt at justification falls by the wayside.

The end is suffering, injustice, exploitation, chaos and death.

Look around.

Bitter Roots

Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled; lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears. (Hebrews 12:14-17, NKJV).

This is a truthful saying worthy of contemplation and repetition: you reap what you sow.

Sometimes the outcome is slow to break ground, at other times it comes with sudden and surprising intensity, but in the end, whatever the result, it emerges into the light for all to see; either goodness or defilement.

Ultimately, nothing will be hidden. The Word of God guarantees that all will be made known about every word and deed of man, woman and child. No escape. No shelter. No cover-ups.

Bitterness in the human heart, no matter how well disguised day-to-day, will manifest itself one way or another. And the more that bitter root is nurtured and coddled, fed and watered, focused upon and cared for, the deeper that root will penetrate until only radical and transformative spiritual surgery can excise it (always painful).

Or the resulting corruption and defilement will take permanent residence, becoming eternally fatal.

The fecund soil of bitterness is pride; stinking, decay-promoting, selfish, and self-focusing pride.

The only effective balm is sweetly reasonable humility - the certain knowledge that you deserve nothing but judgment and continue to exist (indeed, exist at all) only by the loving grace of an almighty God who desires, above all else, that you seek forgiveness in His Son.

Bitterness is a foot-stamping, breath-holding temper tantrum directed at the cold, cruel world, and is an indictment not of the Universe, or your circumstances, but of you yourself.

Believe me. I know. From tedious personal experience.

Bitterness cannot ever be contained. It will ALWAYS leak out, like pus from an infected sore.

If, when it begins to take root, you do not remind yourself of who you are in reality (and not in your own delusional self-image), it WILL grow. Like a weed. Or fungus that thrives in the dampened darkness.

When that happens, and the effects externalize, others in your life are particularly vulnerable to the contagion. Bitterness is as communicable as pride in that regard.

Again, the only workable defense is inoculation with humility before the outbreak occurs.

The equation is simple and devastating, like the cascading implosion of fissionable material. Thwarted pride leads to bitterness which leads to defilement of self and others.

How much Christian witness has been rendered moot by backbiting and conceit? How many Christian relationships have decayed and rotted because of offenses, real and imaginary, that just cannot be put aside?

How many opportunities to serve God are willfully bypassed simply because of bitterly wounded pride?

In the family of God especially, these things should not be.

Bitterness will come, like all temptation, but it can be conquered through Christ within you, the hope of glory.

“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you." (Matthew 6:14, NKJV).

Falling Short

Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled; lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears. (Hebrews 12:14-17, NKJV).

I am constantly amazed at what the modern world, versus the Bible, expects from each of us.

In this era and culture, at least, the world expects men to be almost androgynous, women to be powerful, and children to be unbridled containers of impulses and cascading hormones who are uncontrollable by any traditional means. Rather than abstinence based on morality, free contraceptives. Instead of self-control, prescription drugs.

When men fall short of this expectation and display inherent masculinity, protectiveness, and leadership they are deemed insensitive, Neandertalic, paternalistic, and oppressive.

When women value their inherent femininity, devote themselves to managing the home and raising children, serving God and their families sacrificially, and opposing barbaric reproductive rights, the world decries them as not real women, gender traitors, and brain-washed pawns of the patriarchal tyrants who rule the world.

Likewise, children who respect parental and civil authority, desire to obey, are self-controlled, moral, and seek the things above rather than the ephemeral goals of this world, are looked upon as hapless victims, throwbacks and damaged goods needing repair. Repressed. Brain-washed. Weird.

The world hates Christ and Christians, and whereas before this antipathy was largely covert, it is becoming increasingly open, contemptuous and bitter, culturally acceptable, widespread, and a hallmark of social "edginess" and popularity.

Condemn a Christian in a public, media influenced venue and you are a hero. Defend one, or worse yet, be vociferous in your own Christianity, and you are a villain. Or worse.

When not vilifying people of faith in films, books, and television, the idea-generators focus on the evils of capitalism, corporatism, and business as a whole, while the inhabitants of those profit-making spheres themselves expect undying effort on the part of their employees, ruthless dedication to success and income, and a devotion to the enterprise that leaves no room for anything else, including family and religious pursuits.

That is one summation of what the current version of the world expects.

Expectations in Scripture are nothing like that. Nothing like that at all.

For instance, it is often said that "God helps those who help themselves." Where this came from is a mystery, since nowhere in the tens of thousands of verses in the Bible are those word even remotely strung together.

In fact, the Bible proclaims the opposite - sinful humans are incapable of doing anything of value in and of themselves. We require a Savior of, well, Biblical proportions. We are so broken and ineffectual that to improve we need to be regenerated and become new creations with new hearts and renewed minds. None of that is DIY ("do it yourself"). 

It is all "of God" and comes not when we strive for self-improvement (as the world insists in various forms), but when we strive to enter His rest.

There is none good. No not one.That is the unequivocal proclamation of the Bible in regard to humanity. 

And without Christ, that depravity is eternally fatal.

So the Bible expects something very different than the world. It expects surrender, not conquest. It expects reliance on Christ, not self-reliance. It expects an acknowledgement, soul-deep, of our helplessly broken and sinful state so that we seek the only cure available - salvation through faith in Christ.

From Scripture's perspective, a Christian falls short not by not succeeding in worldly terms, but by rejecting the grace of God given to him or her through faith in Christ.

To understand what this means, two concepts need further discussion: grace, and being in Christ.

Technically, grace is unmerited favor, and the opposite of mercy, in that grace is being given those good things underserved, while mercy is reprieve from those bad things we do deserve.

Grace has been couched in the acronym God's-Riches-At-Christ's-Expense, and that is true, but hardly exhaustive. In reality, grace is an expression of God's love in seeing us not as we are now in time and space, but as we are in His precious Son. He looks at us in our vile brokenness and chooses by His grace to see us in the same light He sees Christ, with all the perfect fellowship and love that perspective entails.

He sees us as we are guaranteed to ultimately become, for He who has begun a good work in us will complete it.

Grace is that aspect of divine behavior that rewards even the slightest holiness with riches beyond conception. For a glass of water given to someone in need, we are given the entire Universe in return. For the slightest inkling of true faith mountains are moved, the world rearranged, eternal life in a new Heavens and a new Earth is bestowed.

Despite these pictures, the grace of God is beyond our ability to grasp because it is so…huge. All of Creation cannot contain it. Our finite minds would explode if shown its true extent, yet its benefits are promised for all eternity by a Creator who sacrificed His Son on our behalf to demonstrate the surety of His guarantee.

Grace is the foundation of forgiveness. It is the receiving of life when death would be more than just. It is light and love where darkness and hatred abound.

Consequently, failure in the eyes of God - the only failure that counts eternally, is to fall short of the grace of God. To continually and willfully ignore the goodness of God, to deliberately overlook, rather than looking carefully.

Now to be lawful recipients of that grace has one prerequisite: to be in Christ.

In turn, being in Christ  has one prerequisite, faith, even as small as a mustard seed. Faith that Christ is the Son of God who died as a sacrifice in your place and on your behalf, and rose again on the third day.

Faith that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Falling short of this grace is catastrophic. It is an irremediable act of stubborn, gritted-teeth, foot-stomping self-centeredness that denies the existence and goodness of God and in its place substitutes self-reliance.

And self-reliance, given who and what we are, is like attempting to circumnavigate the oceans of this planet without a vessel, chained to an anchor. 

There is NO chance of succeeding.

The world demands success on it own fallen terms that are largely antithetical to God.

The world's motto is "what have you done for me lately?"

In utter contrast, God implores us to seek His face and help and mercy in time of need. That is the access we are provided by faith through His inestimable grace.

‘Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’ (Jeremiah 33:3, NKJV).

As in all things regarding Christ our Lord and Savior, there is no comparison.