Hebrews 4:12-16 JBP – For the Word that God speaks is alive and active; it cuts more keenly than any two-edged sword: it strikes through to the place where soul and spirit meet, to the innermost intimacies of a man’s being: it exposes the very thoughts and motives of a man’s heart. No creature has any cover from the sight of God; everything lies naked and exposed before the eyes of him with whom we have to do. 14-15 Seeing that we have a great High Priest who has entered the inmost Heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to our faith. For we have no superhuman High Priest to whom our weaknesses are unintelligible—he himself has shared fully in all our experience of temptation, except that he never sinned. 16 Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with fullest confidence, that we may receive mercy for our failures and grace to help in the hour of need.
Hebrews 4:12-16 MSG 12-13 God means what he says. What he says goes. His powerful Word is sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel, cutting through everything, whether doubt or defense, laying us open to listen and obey. Nothing and no one can resist God’s Word. We can’t get away from it—no matter what. 14-16 Now that we know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God—let’s not let it slip through our fingers. We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So, let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.
Observation
“No creature has any cover from the sight of God; everything lies naked and exposed before the eyes of him with whom we have to do.”. We forget this! We think there are motives and thoughts hidden within us that God cannot see and continue unrepentant in those areas either from arrogance or shame. Nothing is hidden from God and it is foolish to think we can hide anything from Him. Arrogance misses the mercy and grace because it cannot admit failure and the need for help; shame misses it because of fear that our value to God is so small that the offense is too great and was not covered by the Cross. We have an Advocate, One Who is on our side in the Throne Room – Jesus, our great High Priest (“a priest who is [not] out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all.”). Because of Jesus, we are welcome at the throne of grace.
Jesus stands ready to provide us the “mercy for our failures and grace to help in the hour of need” – fully cognizant of our sin condition, our past, our rebellions, our arrogance, our shame. Because of Jesus, God embraces us in our repentant state and releases us restored and redeemed to wholeness – forever changed by the contact and, hopefully, hungry for a increasingly deeper, more intimate, relationship, seeking opportunities to bring joy to the heart of our God, alive with gratitude and love for our Redeemer, and searching for ways to respond to that love so other’s will come to trust in and receive that same grace-filled embrace.
Impact on Me
Before I received Jesus as Lord and Savior, I had many locked rooms inside me – hiding places for my shame, anger, failures, wounds and all those things I didn’t want exposed for fear of rejection. I had a firm grip on the keys to all those rooms. No one was ever going to enter them. Those keys and the contents of the rooms held me captive. Over the years, as I allowed His Word, His grace, His redemption to work in me (cut away with His Word), I learned to trust one key after another in the hands of the Holy Spirit. He could clean out those rooms because He already knew what each room contained. He knows my “place where soul and spirit meet, … the innermost intimacies of a man’s being….” He was waiting for me to trust Him with my darkest secrets, my most painful moments, my deepest wounds. I came to know by experience that His Word, when allowed freedom to work in me, “exposes the very thoughts and motives of a man’s heart” and, yet, gives grace, redemption, healing and freedom for the evil, hurt and failure that previously held me captive.
So, as I continue to submit to and conform to His Word, the Holy Spirit performs surgery on my soul – “For the Word that God speaks is alive and active; it cuts more keenly than any two-edged sword.” This surgery to remove “diseased parts” hurts until healing does its work to leave only a scar as a reminder. Allowing His Word to do its surgery will sometimes bring embarrassment, pain and sorrow as it exposes our shame, sins and failures, but submitting to the knife of the Word of God will expose His grace and mercy, bringing healing which allows me to embrace a deeper relationship with Him.
Prayer
Lord God, Great Surgeon, Merciful Father, Fountain of Grace, I am so grateful that I can be sure of grace and mercy as I come in repentance to bow before You in praise and worship. Use that sword of Your Word on me to cut away fear, shame and all the unlovely, unproductive, worldly motives, desires, words and actions. I desire to please You – first, foremost and always. May I be everyday more like Jesus, living and walking as He did on this earth – confident in His relationship with You, a humble, obedient and bold servant and, when necessary, a sacrifice. May I be focused only on fulfilling Your will and purpose no matter what the cost to me. In Jesus’ name, make it so.
Pressing On In His Footsteps 