No Way But Jesus

When Jesus arrived at the upper room, He took His place at the table along with all the apostles. Then He told them, “I have longed with passion and desire to eat this Passover lamb with you before I endure My sufferings. I promise you that the next time we eat this, we will be together in the feast of God’s kingdom.” Then He raised a cup and gave thanks to God and said to them, “Take this and pass it on to one another and drink. I promise you that the next time we drink this wine, we will be together in the feast of God’s kingdom.Then He lifted up a loaf, and after praying a prayer of thanksgiving to God, He gave each of His apostles a piece of bread, saying, This loaf is My body, which is now being offered to you. Always eat it to remember Me.” After supper was over, He lifted the cup again and said, This cup is My blood of the new covenant I make with you, and it will be poured out soon for all of you.  Luke 22:14-20 TPT

Wow. What a reassuring, overwhelmingly heavy promise. We live in uncertain times. There are no end to the issues humanity faces and yet we as followers of Christ are repeatedly asked to “Fear not”. It gives us reason to believe then, stress and hardships are inevitable but that fear is a choice. Anxiety is a choice. Doubt is a choice. Imagine back to living in a time when we couldn’t access God directly but had to go through priests who mediated for us?.  What if the only way we knew God was found in a pillar of fire and cloud, who thundered and shook the earth when He came down to speak to His chosen prophets. 

Exodus 33:21-23 NLT The Lord continued, Look, stand near Me on this rock. As My glorious presence passes by, I will hide you in the crevice of the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove My hand and let you see me from behind. But My face will not be seen.

Moses was one such chosen man who spoke to God and was never the same again. God then gave Moses the task of anointing Aaron and his sons for the priesthood while also laying down the law, so to speak. 

The law had instructions on how the Israelites could serve God better and to love Him wholeheartedly. 

That was not all, there were laws related to offerings being made on several occasions. These offerings were grain offerings, burnt offerings, sin offerings and served to bring atonement and restitution to those who offered them. 

I’m certain It would have been tedious, painstaking and a little nerve wracking to keep track of all the required sacrifices in a year. 

And as we can probably relate to - the people didn’t keep up their side of the bargain and ended up abandoning God and chasing foreign religions and embracing pagan cultures. Reading the Old Testament it seemed like there was no way man could meet God’s expectations. 

No way but Jesus.