“But you have come
to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to
myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are
enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the
righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to
the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel.” Hebrews 12:22-24
If any book could
be titled Out with The Old, In with The
New, Hebrews would be fitting to this topic. Do you know of someone that lives by the “Old
Laws”, the Mosaic Laws of the Ten Commandments and nothing more? Have you heard people exclaim that
Christianity only requires them to be “good people”, without guidelines to
determine what God deems as a good heart?
It is a broken record upon my ears.
A song that I have heard more than once.
While Jesus did not come to take away the ten simple rules that God
presented to Moses on Mount Sinai, He did come to incorporate those into a new
covenant.
Within the modern
church if today, I hear explanations of why they incorporate various aspects
into their time of worship, or way of overseeing the congregation. Those explanations were valid, until Jesus
came to bring a new order to things. A
new way to view Christianity. A new
church, with a new way of handling things.
The “new kid” in town brought about an entirely new promise to
everyone. Yet, several of the churches
just didn’t get it. The apostle Paul,
wrote to these newly established churches, warning them of the dangers of
continuing to follow the mindset of the Old Law. It didn’t work anymore. Paul referred to the Old Law as a curse
(Galatians 3:13), saying that if it had worked, God would have stuck with that
alone to save us (Gal. 3:21). Faith
would not have been needed (Romans 4:14).
Christ came to abolish the old ways (Ephesians 2:15).
Mount Zion is the mountain that we should be
directing our energies into climbing.
Mount Sinai had its day. The
practices of the Old Testament are no longer valid compared to the New Covenant
of the Christ. Why would we want to
settle for anything less? Those ten
rules, given to Moses, are laws of morality.
However alone, they cannot nor will not save us. Grace from Jesus’s selfless sacrifice gives
us that opportunity. It gives us a
chance to live with a loving, giving heart.
A heart that is a home to our Father.
A heart that enables us to be willing to share the beauty of every
blessing that God grants us, passing on our relationship with Him to
others. Following a few simple rules is
easy, choosing a path of how to make every single choice pleasing to our
Creator, takes more effort.
One mountain has a shorter path to its
summit. The other will take one’s
lifetime to reach the summit. Only one
of these is the goal of a grand inheritance.
Which mountain are you climbing?
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