It is very encouraging and comforting to know that Christ is our great High Priest caring for us today; however, even though Christ’s care for us may not be what we expect, His heart and care for us are always positive.
Our Christ is a great High Priest – He is great in His person (He is both God and man), in His work (He did so many things in His incarnation, death, and resurrection), and in His attainments (He accomplished so much).
Our High Priest is great, yet at the same time, since He was tempted in all respects like us – yet without sin, He is touched with the feeling of our weaknesses. He is so High, so Great, so Glorious, and yet He is so near, so available, so able to empathize with us, being touched with the feeling of our infirmities.
Christ as our great High Priest bears us before God in the Holy of Holies – our names and our being is on His shoulder of strength and on His breast of love.
When we feel that we just can’t go on anymore, that we have no more strength to fight, or that we want to give up, we are always being reminded that Christ, our great High Priest, still bears us before God in love and strength.
How we thank Him that He always lives to intercede for us, and He knows what we need – therefore He ministers to us according to what we need. He is our merciful, faithful, and great High Priest, and we are on His shoulders (His bearing strength) and on His heart (His love).
As Christ ministers to God in the Holy of Holies, He bears us before God, and at the same time He ministers the processed and consummated Triune God into our being.
How can we respond to such a One, and how can we enjoy His ministry as a great High Priest? It is by coming forward with boldness to the throne of grace, that is, by coming to the Lord in our spirit again and again.
Our spirit is mingled with the divine Spirit, and our spirit is the gate of heaven; here Christ as the heavenly ladder joins us to heaven and brings heaven down to earth.
All we need to do is turn to our spirit, exercise our spirit, and remain in the Spirit, and we will enter through the gate of heaven and touch the throne of grace in heaven through Christ as the heavenly ladder.
In this way we enjoy His ministry, we receive His dispensing, and we have a way to go on in the Lord and be built up together as the church, the Body of Christ.
Though not always according to our feeling, Christ’s Care for us is the Best and Always Positive
We all have our own thought and feeling as to how the Lord as the High Priest should care for us, what should He do for us, and what should He give us; however, many times Christ’s care for us is different from what we desire or expect.
Often the Lord’s way of caring from us is different from what we desire. We may want Him to heal us, to save us from some financial problems, or to bring in peace in some troubled situations, but He may not do this but rather allow things to happen to us that we may not consider positive.
We think we know what’s good for us, but the truth is that we don’t – only the Lord knows; He knows what is needed for our life on earth, and He knows what we need in order to fulfill His purpose.
However, even though Christ’s care for us is not according to our feeling and thought, it is always the best and it is always positive. We may not agree with the Lord’s way of caring for us today, but one day when we see Hi we will thank Him and worship Him.
We may even ask for forgiveness for complaining to Him or to others about our situation, for we will realize that God’s will for us is good.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, our great High Priest, is taking good care of us. Consider the example of the apostle Paul; he prayed three times to the Lord that He would remove the thorn from his flesh, but the Lord didn’t; rather, He said, My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness (2 Cor. 12:7-9).
We may think that it’s best for Paul – who wants to serve God and preach the gospel where the Lord sends him – to have this thorn removed, but the Lord’s answer is that He wants to impart Himself into Paul as grace, enabling him to know how precious and sufficient He is.
The Lord may not remove a troublesome situation or a sickness from us simply that we may be enabled to know how precious and sufficient He is.
When we have the experience of Christ as our High Priest who bears us on His shoulder of strength and breast of love, and He ministers God into us, we experience Him in the Holy of Holies.
When we have such an experience, we are not sure what is happening, but we know that we are on the Lord’s shoulder and on His breast, and He is ministering something to us that is very comforting and strengthening to us.
Our experience of Christ’s care for us as the great High Priest in the Holy of Holies is the highest experience and enjoyment. We simply need to remain here, in our spirit in the Holy of Holies, and allow the Lord to bear us, love us, strengthen us, and minister to us whatever He thinks we need.
We need to press on from the outer court into the Holy Place and even into the Holy of Holies, where God’s presence and shekinah glory are, so that we may experience Christ’s care for us as the High Priest.
Christ’s care for us is always the best – even when we don’t understand it or agree with it – and it is always positive. May we learn to never question the Lord or second-guess Him but learn that He knows what is best, and His care for us – whatever form it takes – is always positive.
Thank You Lord for Your care for us as our great High Priest. Though we may not understand it or even agree with it, Christ’s care for us is always the best and it is always positive. Though Your care for us may not be what we expect or feel it should be, we want to remain here in our spirit, enjoy You, receive Your divine dispensing, and allow You to minister to us. Lord, we don’t know what we need; we open to You, we come to You in our spirit, and we want to experience Christ’s care for us, which is the best and always positive!
Christ as the High Priest cares for God’s Need and Interests to Consummate the New Jerusalem
We all start by coming to the Lord and asking for His forgiveness, His cleansing, His love, His grace, His mercy, and many other things; our Christian life starts with seeing who the Lord is, realizing our need for Him, and asking Him to give us what we need.
But as we advance in our Christian life we realize that God has a heart’s desire, and the reason we are created in His image and likeness – and the reason we are saved – is that we would fulfill His purpose and desire.
What a salvation it is when we learn to set our mind on Jesus and the things which are above, not on our things or the things which are on the earth!
In 1 Kings 8:31-48 Solomon prayed concerning the temple and God’s people, and toward the end of his prayer, we see three conditions for God to listen to His elect’s prayers: the Holy Land, the holy city, and the holy temple.
The holy land typifies Christ (Deut. 8:7 and note 1), the holy city signifies the kingdom of God in Christ (Psa. 48:1-2), and the holy temple signifies God’s house, the church, on earth (Eph. 2:21; 1 Tim. 3:15).
Later, during the Babylonian captivity, Daniel prayed three times a day toward the holy land, the holy city, and the holy temple (Dan. 6:10).
God listens to our prayer not when we fervently pray and ask Him to do things for us; He listens to our prayer when our prayer is directed toward Christ, the kingdom of God, and the house of God as the goal in God’s eternal economy.
No matter for whom we are praying and asking, our prayers should not be aimed at that person or situation but at the interests of God, that is, at Christ and the church as God’s interests on earth, for the fulfillment of God’s economy.
Christ as the High Priest doesn’t merely care for us to make sure we go on in the Lord and grow in life, so that we become good Christians and build up the church; Christ’s care for us as the High Priest is for God’s need and interests on earth.
God has a need; He has some interests on earth, and He has an economy which He wants to accomplish. Christ today is in ascension as our merciful, faithful, and great High Priest caring for us – not merely to meet our need but to meet God’s need and accomplish His interest on earth.
The ascended Christ cares not only for us and our welfare: He cares for us so that He can care for God’s desires. Actually, we are most content, satisfied, and full of meaning and purpose when we put ourselves aside and we are joined with Christ to be one with Him for God’s interests and desire on earth.
He wants to build up the church as the Body of Christ, prepare the bride of Christ, bring in the kingdom of God, and consummate the New Jerusalem.
Christ’s heavenly ministry as the High Priest in ascension consummates in the New Jerusalem, which will be the mingling of divinity with humanity to be the very expansion, enlargement, increase, and expression of the Triune God in humanity as the ultimate goal of God’s economy (see Rev. 21:2, 9-11).
Lord Jesus, thank You for Your care for us as our merciful, faithful, and great High Priest. Cause us to realize that You care for us so that You may care for God’s need and accomplish His interest. Make the desire of Your heart become the desire of our heart, and make us one with You in every possible way. May we pray the prayers that You pray, and may we be fully one with You for Christ to be expressed among us, God’s kingdom to advance on earth, and the house of God as the goal in God’s economy to be built up.
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru C. for this week, and portions from, The Conclusion of the New Testament, msgs. 372, 374-375, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Cooperating with the Heavenly Ministry of the Ascended Christ (2017 Spring ITERO), msg. 5 (week 5), The Revelation, Experience, and Enjoyment of the Ascended Christ as a Merciful, Faithful, and Great High Priest.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Come forward now to God through Him, / Ne’er shrink back to destruction; / Come forward now to get the life, / Which brings the proper function; / Come forward now the life to take, / By life His people us He’ll make, / And swallow death forever. (Hymns #1130)
# Choose Thou for me my friends, / My sickness or my health. / Choose Thou my cares for me, / My poverty or wealth. / Not mine, not mine the choice, / In things both great and small; / Be Thou my guide, my strength, / My wisdom and my all. (Hymns #393)
# New Jerusalem is our dream; For her building, steadfast we’re pursuing; / Love outpoured, sweet ointment o’erflowing, Fight boldly for the interests of our God. (Song on being one with God)
About aGodMan
First Kings 8:31-48 mentions seven conditions concerning God’s listening to the prayers of His elect. In…the last condition three things are stressed (v. 48): the Holy Land, typifying Christ as the portion allotted by God to the believers (see footnote 1 on Deut. 8:7); the holy city, signifying the kingdom of God in Christ (Psa. 48:1-2); and the holy temple, signifying God’s house, the church, on the earth (Eph. 2:21; 1 Tim. 3:15). These are the three crucial things regarding God’s economy. During the Babylonian captivity Daniel prayed toward the Holy Land, the holy city, and the holy temple three times a day by opening his window toward Jerusalem (Dan. 6:10). This indicates that God will listen to our prayer when our prayer to God is toward Christ, the kingdom of God, and the house of God as the goal in God’s eternal economy. This means that no matter for whom we are praying, our prayers should be aimed at the interests of God, that is, at Christ and the church as God’s interests on earth, for the fulfilling of God’s economy. (1 Kings 8:48, footnote 1)
Halleluyah He is taking good, good care of Us. Amen
amen. God take gud care of us ..
Amen!
Thank u Lord for taking good care of us all….(Our high Priest)Amen
Amen dear lord our Great High Priest; the One who knows all-things.
Halleluyah He is taking good, good care of Us. Amen
Amen Lord You are soverign over all things. We want to turn to Your interests for the building up of the Church so You can gain Your Bride. Gain many golden lamp stands that will issue into the New Jursalem.