Wednesday September 21, 2016

His Acceptable Sacrifice

-HEBREWS 9:11-23

Key Verse:

"How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" (Hebrews 9:14).

David Livingstone, a great missionary to African, attempted to compare the effort he put into preaching the gospel in Africa with the sacrifice Jesus made to redeem mankind from eternal damnation and concluded that there was no ground for comparison. He said, "People thought of the sacrifice I made in spending most of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which simply paid back a small part of the great debt owed to our God, which we can never fully repay? Is that sacrifice which brings its own reward of the consciences of doing good, peace of mind and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with such thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. It's rather a privilege: I never made a sacrifice. Of this, we ought not talk when we remember the great sacrifice He made when He left His Father's Throne to give Himself for us". The sacrifice of Jesus Christ cannot be better explained. He paid the final and ever efficacious price for the redemption of mankind without spot or any sinful stain in His life. By implication, His blood is sufficient to purge the conscience from dead works. It reaches the soul and conscience. The blood is also sufficient to enable us serve the living God, not only by purging that guilt which separates God and the sinner, but in sanctifying and renewing the soul through the gracious influences of the Holy Spirit. Conclusively, Christ became the mediator of the New Testament which is anchored in His shed blood. This brought about the universal atonement that redeemed mankind from their transgressions. It also qualifies those who are effectually called to receive the promise of eternal inheritance.

Thought for the day: Christ is the qualifier of the unqualified.

Bible Reading in one Year:PROVERBS 15 - 17