the Fourth Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Our Daily Homily - Volume 2
Psalms 40:7-8—I delight to do thy will, O my God.
The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 10:1-39) lays great stress on these words. He says that this yielding up of Christ’s will to his Father’s was consummated on the cross, and was the inner heart of our Savior’s passion. "By which will (surrendered and given back to God) we have been sanctified." He then proceeds to suggest that it is only as we enter into a living oneness with Jesus in this that we can pass from the outer court and have boldness to enter into the Holiest of all. This, he says, is the new and living way. Jesus entered into the Holiest because He gave Himself absolutely to his Father. We cannot expect to go thither till we have become possessed of the same spirit.
It is a solemn question for each. Have we all stood at the cross, as the slave of old at the doorpost of his masters house, and said, "I love my Master. I will not go out free?" Have we been united to that cross, as by the boring of the awl? Have we so embraced the will of God that we are prepared to follow it, though it lead to the Cross and grave? Then one condition at least is fulfilled for our standing unabashed where angels veil their faces.
But there is yet another condition. We can have no right to stand within the Holiest, except through the blood of Jesus, shed for sin on the cross. This is necessary ere sinners can have boldness in the presence of Divine Purity.
When Rutherford was like to die of sore illness, instead of a martyr’s death, he said, "I would think it a more glorious way of going home, to lay down my life for the cause at the cross of Edinburgh or St. Andrew’s; but I submit to my Masters will. Oh for arms to embrace Him!"
