Journey Into Intimacy

Within the next month or so, I plan to release another workbook, similar to The Grace Walk Experience. It is an eight week study, divided into five daily studies. A video series will be available to use with the book. The book is a compilation of material from A Divine Invitation, The Godward Gaze and new content I wrote for this book. I hope it will be a good resource for small groups. Learning how to experience a conscious sense of intimacy with God is one of the greatest needs among Christians. I hope this book will help. The following is an excerpt from the book:

Do You Think Like A Legalist or a Grace-Walker?

Legalism will cause us to stay focused on sins, but grace will enable us to redirect our focus away from our sins, past or present and place our full attention on Jesus Christ, who alone can cause us to say no to temptation. Make no mistake about it, when we are more absorbed in the consciousness of our sins than we are our forgiveness, we have become trapped in legalism.

I want to prove that statement to you from the book of Hebrews. In Hebrews 9, the Bible compares the Old Covenant of the Law (legalism) with the new covenant of grace, as each relates to the matter of sin. The emphasis there is on how much better the New Covenant (Testament) is than the Old Covenant (Testament). One major aspect of the difference between the two has to do with how sins are regarded under each covenant. Note how sins were dealt with under the Old Covenant:

“…the priests are continually entering the outer tabernacle performing the divine worship, but into the second, only the high priest enters once a year, not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the sins of the people committed in ignorance” (9:6-7.

How often did the priest have to go into the temple and offer sacrifices to deal with the matter of sins?

Verse 9 says, “Accordingly both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make the worshiper perfect in conscience.” The New Living Translation says it this way: For the gifts and sacrifices that the priests offer are not able to cleanse the consciences of the people who bring them.”

After the priests offered the sacrifices, did it cause the people who had sinned to have a clean conscience?

It is important to understand that the sacrifices under the Old Covenant didn’t take away people’s sins. It only covered them. Every year the high priest would have to go into the Holy of Holies to repeat the process, pushing everybody’s sins forward in anticipation of the coming of Christ.

Read this passage in Hebrews 10:1-3, as translated in the New Living Translation:

“The old system in the law of Moses was only a shadow of the things to come, not the reality of the good things Christ has done for us. The sacrifices under the old system were repeated again and again, year after year, but they were never able to provide perfect cleansing for those who came to worship. If they could have provided perfect cleansing, the sacrifices would have stopped, for the worshipers would have been purified once for all time, and their feelings of guilt would have disappeared. But just the opposite happened. Those yearly sacrifices reminded them of their sins year after year.”

Why did the feelings of guilt the people had about their past sins not disappear? It is because the sacrifice was not perfect. It was a band-aid job to cover their sins another year while they waited for the Great Physician to show up on planet earth. The sacrifices only covered the sins, it didn’t take away them away. The people might have been okay for another year, but they knew what was “beneath the band-aid” and their consciences still bothered them about it.

What did the yearly sacrifices remind the people of every year? What happened inside them as a result of that reminder? What a wonderful day when Jesus Christ showed up here on earth! He came to take care of this whole sin issue, once and for all!

“Under the Old Covenant, the priest stands before the altar day after day,offering sacrifices that can never take away sins. But our High Priest offered Himself to God as one sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then he sat down at the place of highest honor at God’s right hand” (Hebrews 10:11-12 NLT).

The Old Covenant priest stood before the altar day by day, trying to offer enough sacrifices to take away sins. His role is comparable to being given a mop and told to go mop up the incoming tide at the beach. But Jesus didn’t stand there, day after day, fighting a losing battle. He came. He offered Himself to God as a sacrifice for our sins and He sat down.

Job completed. Done. Finished…forever. The sacrifices only covered the sins, it didn’t take away them away. One of the last things Jesus said on the cross was “It is finished!” The root of the word comes from the Greek word teleo, which means: to bring to a close, to finish, to end, passed, finished, to perform a last act which completes a process” (Strong’s Concordance, Strong’s Number 5055).

Why did Jesus go to the cross? To settle the matter of the debt we owe for our sins. When He said, “It is finished – passed – a closed matter,” to what was He referring?

Paul said in Colossians 2:14, He canceled the record that contained the charges against us. He took it and destroyed it by nailing it to Christ’s cross. (NLT) The question you have to answer is, do you believe that Jesus Christ fully and completely dealt with every sin you would commit or not? Did He succeed or was He mistaken when He said, “It is finished?”

If He intended that we should still wallow in guilt about our sins, then it wasn’t totally finished, was it? Under the old covenant, the work of the high priest was never finished. There was the ongoing need to go back into the holy of holies and offer up the sacrifice again and again. Hebrews 10:3 said that if what the priest did at the altar on behalf of the people had finished the job “their feelings of guilt would have disappeared.”

When Jesus came, He finished dealing with our sins. Look up Hebrews 1:3 in your own Bible. Fill in the blanks:

When He had made purification of sins, He _____ at the right hand of the Majesty on high. Why did He do that? Do you believe that Jesus Christ fully and completely dealt with every sin you would commit or not?

Hebrews 10:12 says,“having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, he sat down at the right hand of God." Why? Because there was nothing left to do regarding our sins. He dealt with our guilt and then sat down. Under the old covenant of law, there could be no guilt-free conscience, but you don’t live under that covenant. Jesus Christ did what the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament could never do – He took your sins away. The blood of Christ doesn’t cover them. They have been removed and you have been justified. You may remember the meaning of that word as being Just-if-I never sinned! You have a clean slate in heaven now! (Remember Colossians 2:14?) So, if you have a clean record in heaven, there is no reason at all for you not to have a clean conscience on earth.

Your conscience may bother you over past sins, but John said that if your heart condemns you, remember that God is greater than your heart and He knows all things.(See 1 John 3:20) He knows that your sins have been totally forgiven. Do you know that? Do you believe it?

John goes on to say that if you live your life without feeling condemned by a guilty conscience, it will give you tremendous confidence in your grace walk. (See 1 John 3:21) A guilty conscience is seriously debilitating to your Christian walk, but a clean conscience sets you free to live boldly!

As you end today’s study, review the verses you have read and apply them to your own life. Then pray and that your heavenly Father that Jesus finished what He came to do and that your sins really are gone, no matter how you might have felt about it in the past.