How can we approach God, who is sovereign, holy, and perfect? Approaching God is very different today, than how it was the old days. Can you image what the Old Testament believers had to go through? The only place to seek and worship God was at the tent of meeting—the tabernacle.

How wonderful it would have been if there were tabernacles everywhere. That wasn’t the case in ancient Israel. Jerusalem was the only place where the Jews gathered and met to practice their faith in accordance to the Scriptures. Also, the distance and time consuming was so hard that many people failed to come anywhere near a place of worship.

There was a clear distinction and separation between man and God. This demonstrated how God is transcendent, so far apart and different from all creation and the same time immanent, very near and close.

Today is no different and apart from the atonement of Christ, we alone cannot approach God. We fall short of His glory and standard of living. God is holy and perfect. We are sinful and insufficient to make peace with God based on our own abilities, morals, or ethics. We are not good enough to reach or earn our merit with God.

The grace and mercy of God is overwhelming. In his infinite and unconditional love, God provides a way or substitution for our sins. His name is Jesus Christ, our precious Redeemer and Savior. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29).

The wrath of God has been appeased by his only son. Justice, redemption, and salvation were made possible on the cross by the sacrifice of Jesus. The wall of separation was broken and the veil was torn. We have been bought with the ultimate price—the blood of Jesus.

God shows his love for us, by sending his begotten son to die on the cross and taking the punishment for our sins. Now through Jesus, by faith we can approach God with assurance, boldness, and confidence.

Reflection

We cannot come to God on our own. We can only come to him in faith by the justification of our sins by the work of Christ on our behalf. His righteousness becomes ours, and we can confidently approach the throne of God’s grace.

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water (Hebrews 10:19, 22).