Sat.’s Devo - Jesus, Our High Priest -

Read: Ezekiel 7:1-9:11; Hebrews 5:1-14; Psalm 105:1-15; Proverbs 26:28
The end had come and the day that God was going to do all he had told his prophets for years had finally arrived. The people who lived in the fields would be killed by the sword and the people in the city would be killed by famine and plague. When this happened, the people would race to the prophet for a vision but there will be none. They would want to know what the law says, but there would be no one to teach them. They would want to know the wisdom of the elder, but they would all be gone.
That night, God came and took Ezekiel by the spirit to show him what the elders and the priests were doing in secret. The elders were worshipping idols and offering incense to idols instead of to God. The priests were bowing down to the sun. Ezekiel watched as God called one of his heavenly scribes, the man clothed in linen who had a writing kit at his side. He was to go throughout the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieved and lamented over what was going on - those whose hearts were pure toward the Lord. Then, he was to kill all who didn’t have the mark. He was to show no compassion or mercy - that time was over. Ezekiel watched in horror wondering if anyone would be saved.
This is a picture of end time judgment.
Hebrews explained the selection of the high priest. He had to be a man who knew how hard it was to overcome temptation because he had experienced it himself. That is why Jesus had to come to earth as a man. He had to go through the same hard temptations that we do. He learned to obey God laying down his own passions. He had to become perfect the same way we become perfect and that is through hard trials. James says that our trials make us perfect. We think of Jesus as never sinning, and we think it means he never made a mistake. I think he made plenty of mistakes and learned by each of them just as we do. We are perfect through his blood and he became perfect through his own sufferings.
His life on earth qualified him to be our high priest in heaven on our behalf as Melchizedek was God’s high priest in heaven on heaven’s behalf. Everything on earth is a prototype of what is already in heaven, minus the evil.
Lord, thank you for becoming our high priest that we might have an advocate in heaven.