Get ready to start a journey…a journey through the pages of the Bible and the pages of your life.
Jesus told those who followed him, “I am the good shepherd” (John 10:11). He explained that the good shepherd was willing to lay down his life for the sheep. A hired hand would abandon the sheep to protect himself from the threat of wild animals. But Jesus, the great shepherd, would always take care of his own.
The Christian faith begins and ends with Jesus. Check out today’s passage.
Suppose I harnessed myself to the back of a powerful diesel tractor with the goal of standing firm while the tractor tried to pull me over. I would feel a part of the tractor’s power for a nanosecond before I went down. But suppose one could stand their ground against the power of the tractor. That person would be the only one who felt the full power of the tractor. That’s what Jesus did and felt by taking on the full-throttled power of sin.
Hebrews 3:1 provides two names for Jesus. Yesterday, we considered why Jesus is called the apostle. Today, let’s look at Jesus as our high priest.
Today’s passage gives two names for Jesus: apostle and high priest. Let’s read the passage and consider why Jesus is called an “apostle.”
In the last letter he wrote, Paul instructed a young pastor named Timothy to stand strong and endure hardship like a soldier fighting for his country. Paul would soon be gone, so he challenged Timothy to press on and share the gospel.
The Jewish people were looking for a king. Oppressed under the heavy hand of Rome, they wanted a leader to deliver them and rule over them. The coming of their king was not what they expected. A baby born to poor parents in the little town of Bethlehem went unnoticed, except for some shepherds in the fields and magi from the east.
Jesus is the mediator, the go-between, the intercessor. There is only one God, and there is only one way to spend eternity with him: The Mediator—Christ Jesus.
In the New Testament, God’s chosen people expanded from one nation to the entire world. Now, believers from every nation make up the body of believers, the ekklesia, the church. Jesus is the One in charge. He is the head of the body. Paul explains it like this:
The apostle Paul reminded the church in Philippi that every believer should have the attitude of Jesus. Although he was God, Jesus took on the very nature of a servant and humbled himself. He became obedient to death, “even death on a cross”! Paul explains that because of Jesus’ work on the cross, God exalted him.
When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, they tried to cover up their sin and shame. The fig leaves they sewed together concealed their nakedness, but the fig tree continued to live. Sin deserved death. Fig leaves would not pay sin’s penalty.
There was no love lost between the Jews and the Gentiles. Jews refused to associate with non-Jews, and if they even rubbed up against a Gentile while walking down the street, they considered themselves unclean. Then Jesus came…and changed everything.