Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
When people ask, "What is Jesus doing now?" the standard answer is, "I go to prepare a place for you. ... that where I am, there you may be also" (John 14:2, 3). Nailing boards and laying brick to build "houses" for us? He must have something more meaningful to do.
He is working 24 hours a day seven days a week as our great High Priest. But what does that mean? A priest's job is to go between sinful people and God; so is Jesus a Lawyer "fixing" our tickets with the Judge? "I know how sinful you are; you can't help it, so just go on sinning. Trust Me as your Lawyer; I'll get you through the wrath of God"? But that may be immature.
Jesus Christ has no mind for make-believe. Not now on this cosmic Day of Atonement, His final work just before He returns personally. A living people must be prepared to meet Him face to face, to look in His eyes with no shelter in between. Since His personal presence "is a consuming fire" to sin (Heb. 12:29), it makes sense that He is "cleansing" a people of all sin.
Cherishing sin deep in the heart is lethal! Zechariah 13:1 has the idea--a "fountain shall be opened ... for sin and for uncleanness" from all the selfish filth stashed away in the closet of our minds and hearts. Through Christ's true Vicar on earth, His Holy Spirit, He is working to "convict," to make His people aware of what is hidden unknown in the heart (see Jer. 17:9), so it can be confessed and renounced. It's a joyous work motivated not by craven fear, but by a heart appreciation of His much more abounding grace. Zechariah understood it: that "grace" opens our blinded eyes to see Him on His cross as One whom we have "pierced" (12:10). Sin deeper than we have ever imagined!
The result? A total heart-reconciliation with Him, the "final atonement." Let's not miss out on what He is doing.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: October 29, 2001.
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