A Lenten Journey: The Wilderness Trail — Day Forty-One

Hebrews 9:11-15, The Message

But when the Messiah arrived, high priest of the superior things of this new covenant, he bypassed the old tent and its trappings in this created world and went straight into heaven’s “tent”—the true Holy Place—once and for all. He also bypassed the sacrifices consisting of goat and calf blood, instead using his own blood as the price to set us free once and for all. If that animal blood and the other rituals of purification were effective in cleaning up certain matters of our religion and behavior, think how much more the blood of Christ cleans up our whole lives, inside and out. Through the Spirit, Christ offered himself as an unblemished sacrifice, freeing us from all those dead-end efforts to make ourselves respectable, so that we can live all out for God.

‘live all out for God. . .’

Again, words I nod agreement 
at hearing, reading.
But I wonder.

Am I capable of 
‘all out?’

No, probably not.

Therefore,
I choose to rely
on that unblemished
sacrifice.

To choose freedom
from trying to 
make myself
respectable,
qualified,
enough.

Lord, have mercy on me.
A sinner.