Our Lord Jesus is the exalted Lord and King and at the same time he is the great high priest in heaven. Interestingly the writer of the book of Hebrews sees the priesthood of Jesus as something that should draw us close to God. This priesthood is not just something Jesus has because he is God, but rather because as the incarnate son of God he lived on this earth and experienced temptation as we do. Of course we know that Jesus was sinless, and we sometimes assume that he had an easier time than the rest of us, this is not the case because as we can see from the gospels Satan attacked the Lord with temptations and just because he was sinless Satan threw everything he had at Jesus. If we realise this we begin to see that Jesus really understands what we are going through when we are tempted. Jesus the high priest because he has sacrificed for our sins is able to supply all that we need, he has abundant grace and mercy to pour out upon us. His priestly intercession for us is not limited to our sins, but he also asks the Father to give us all we need for the Christian life. Take time to read the account of Jesus as high priest in the book of Hebrews and also read his high priestly prayer in John 17. Both os these sections of scripture show to us the depths of the Lord’s care for us. Ultimately that love and care is shown to us in His death and resurrection. His death shows us how far he was willing to go.

This is along way from a name it and claim it form of the gospel because it acknowledges that our high priest seeks those things that we need not what we want, some of the things we want are not good for us, and he withholds them from us but he does  provide us with all that we need. We can come to our Lord knowing that he will give us those things we need, he cares intimately for us and therefore sometimes he gives us grace to endure a particular situation knowing that it will cause us to grow, at other times he delivers us from the situation and brings his healing grace to bear upon our lives. Whatever situation we are in we can come to him with boldness (see Hebrews 4:14-16).Therefore, we need to come to him day by day and seek his grace so that we can live to his glory.