Today’s Prayer
Father, thank You for opening my eyes to see more of Jesus, His grace, His beauty, and the perfection of His work through Your Word. Thank You for drawing me by Your grace and unveiling Your great heart of love for me. I am amazed by how much You love me no matter what I have or have not done. Today, I rest in Your love and believe that You are bringing healing to every place in my life that needs Your touch. Thank You, Father! In Jesus’ name, Amen
.
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds
.
P
SALM
147:3
Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you
.
1 P
ETER
5:7
NLT
Today’s Scripture
Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption
.
H
EBREWS
9:12
O
ne of the things I love to do when I preach is to unveil Christ in the Old Testament Scriptures. It’s amazing how we can see Jesus unveiled in the Old Testament and what each detail reveals about the perfection of His finished work and His grace toward us. This is why it’s so important to get into His Word and take time to meditate upon the pictures or types that reveal His unwavering and unfailing love for you.
Would you like to see another example of Christ unveiled that will make your heart burn within you? Then look with me at the picture of Christ that is hidden in the ark of the covenant. In the days of the old covenant, God dwelled within the temple in Jerusalem in the Holy of Holies between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the covenant (see 1 Sam. 4:4). This was the throne of God. The ark was the centerpiece of His heart and so important to God that He gave the Israelites very specific instructions on how it was to be constructed (Ex. 25:10–22; 37:1–9) because every detail of the ark points to the person and the work of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For instance, the box portion of the ark is made of acacia wood and overlaid with gold. Wood in the Bible speaks of humanity (see Isa. 55:12; Mark 8:24). Acacia wood is known in Israel as incorruptible wood, so this speaks of Jesus’ incorruptible humanity. Gold in the Bible speaks of divinity and deity (see Isa. 2:20; Song 5:11, 14–15). So the wood overlaid with gold speaks of the person of Jesus—He was completely human and at the same time completely God.
Let’s look at the lid of the box, which was made from a solid slab of gold and covered the box. In Hebrew, the lid is called the
kapporeth,
1
which means “mercy seat.” God said that He would speak to the high priest from the mercy seat, “from between the two cherubim” (Ex. 25:22). The mercy seat was also the place where the high priest would place the blood of the animal sacrifices, only once in the entire year on the Day of Atonement. Let’s see what the mercy seat was used to cover from view.
Three items were kept in the ark. The first was the stone tablets on which God wrote the Ten Commandments, which we have seen speak of our rebellion and inability to keep God’s laws perfectly. The second was Aaron’s rod. When the people were complaining against God’s appointment of Aaron as the high priest, God caused Aaron’s rod to bud supernaturally to show the people that it was He who had appointed Aaron (see Num. 17:1–10). Aaron’s rod thus speaks of man’s rebellion against God’s appointed leadership. The final item in the ark was the golden pot of manna, which we have seen speaks of man’s rebellion against God’s provision (see
Day 59
).
Every item in the ark of the covenant speaks of our sins and rebellion against God! But what did God do with our sins and rebellion? He put them all into the ark and covered them with the mercy seat where the blood of the animal sacrifices was placed. By doing this, He was saying that when He looks down, He cannot see man’s sins and rebellion because the blood on the mercy seat covers them all!
This is the good news! Let me say it one more time to make sure that you did not miss it: God
cannot
see your sins when the blood of Jesus covers them. That is why in the Old Testament, Israel rejoiced every time their high priest went into the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement and placed the blood of the animal sacrifices on the mercy seat. When the blood was on the mercy seat, God could not see His people’s rejection of His laws, His appointed priesthood, and His provision. He could not see the people’s sins and rebellion. He only saw the blood on the mercy seat.
Now, stop and consider the wonder portrayed in this picture of Jesus and His sacrifice. Understand that it was “not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood [Christ] entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.” His shed blood that covers your sins is the basis of your eternal redemption!
My friend, as you see Jesus unveiled like this and make Him the center of your heart, you will experience peace, joy, and the fulfillment of redemption’s blessings, and reign in life.
Today’s Thought
With His own blood Jesus entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained my eternal redemption!
Today’s Prayer
Lord Jesus, thank You that every detail of the ark of the covenant points to You and Your finished work. Thank You for the mercy seat and that with Your own blood You entered the Most Holy Place once for all and have obtained my eternal redemption. Help me to see more and more of all that You have provided for me on the cross. I receive Your love for me and I believe I will reign in life through You. Amen
.
“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man to whom the L
ORD
shall not impute sin.”
R
OMANS
4:7–8
“For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”
H
EBREWS
8:12
Today’s Scripture
In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins
.
1 J
OHN
4:10
A
re you excited to see more of Jesus unveiled in the Scriptures? According to God’s Word, the more we grow in our knowledge of Jesus, the more grace and peace are multiplied to us (2 Pet 1:2). It’s my prayer today that as we see how the mercy seat of the ark of the covenant is such a beautiful picture of our Lord Jesus at the cross, every aspect of our lives will begin to be inundated with His grace and peace.
In today’s Scripture and in 1 John 2:2, the apostle John tells us that Jesus is, because He was sent by God to be, the “
propitiation
for our sins.” “Propitiation” is a beautiful word and it means that on the cross Jesus became our sacrifice and took God’s wrath meant for us upon Himself. Now, if you study the word “propitiation” in the Septuagint (a Greek translation of the Old Testament), you will find that it is the same word as “mercy seat.”
1
So when Apostle John said that Jesus is our propitiation, he was saying that Jesus is our mercy seat. What was so special about the mercy seat? If you were to study the construction of the mercy seat, you will see that the mercy seat (with the two cherubim) was made of one solid slab of gold that was beaten into shape (see Ex. 25:17–20). In the same way, for Jesus to take our place and be our mercy seat, He had to be (and was) brutally beaten and scourged so that by His stripes, we are healed (Isa. 53:5). What a beautiful picture of His love and sacrifice for us!
When you look at the illustration of the ark of the covenant, you will also see the crown around the mercy seat. This crown typifies Jesus’ majesty, glory, and kingship. He was the only King who came not to be served, but to serve. The One who created the universe became a servant-King for us on the cross. Can you see how the ark of the covenant is a shadow of our Lord Jesus Christ, His person, and His work? Because of His blood, all our sins have been cleansed.
Now, notice that the mercy seat is placed over the law. This tells us that God’s mercy triumphs over judgment (James 2:13)! God’s grace is above God’s law. God executes judgment because He is just, but His delight is not in judgment. His delight is in mercy and grace. The Bible tells us that God’s anger lasts only for a moment, but His mercy endures forever (Ps. 30:5; 106:1). In the same vein, we believers today should be exalting God’s mercy and His grace above the law.
But the way some people portray God today creates the false impression that His mercy lasts only for a moment, but His anger endures forever! That is just not true. His anger ended the moment it was exhausted on Jesus at the cross. In fact, even His judgment demonstrates His grace because instead of judging us for our sins (which we deserved), the judgment fell on His Son, Jesus Christ, in whom was no sin! That’s grace, my friend. The judgment that we deserved fell on Jesus, while the blessings that He deserved fell on us. That is the undeserved, unmerited, and unearned favor of God!
Beloved, God wants you to live life forgiveness-conscious today. All your sins have been completely forgiven by the blood of Jesus. Condemnation toward yourself or others does not have to rule your thought life today. The more you believe that all your sins have been forgiven because of God’s grace, the more sin will have no more power over you (see Rom. 6:14). Hallelujah!
Today’s Thought
God’s delight is not in judgment but in mercy and grace toward me
.
Today’s Prayer
Lord Jesus, thank You that You went to the cross, suffered for me, and that You are my mercy seat. Thank You for taking the weight of all my sins and bearing the punishment for every last sin until You completely exhausted God’s wrath against my sins. Today, I receive Your complete forgiveness in my life, and I forgive myself for all my sins, mistakes, and failings. As I release them all into Your loving hands and come under Your grace, I believe that sin will no longer have dominion over me. Amen!
For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime!
P
SALM
30:5
NLT
…Mercy triumphs over judgment
.
J
AMES
2:13
Oh, give thanks to the L
ORD
, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever
.
1 C
HRONICLES
16:34
The faithful love of the L
ORD
never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning
.
L
AMENTATIONS
3:22–23
NLT
Today’s Scripture
And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence
.
C
OLOSSIANS
1:17–18
H
ave you ever wondered why God called David “a man after My own heart” (Acts 13:22)? What made him so special, and how can we also be a man or woman after God’s heart? I believe David was special because he got hold of something that was of the greatest importance to God’s heart. He got hold of a divine thought and objective in God’s heart and made a vow to God in the wilderness to bring back the ark of the covenant to its rightful place among God’s people in Jerusalem (Ps. 132:1–5). Because David placed such importance on bringing back the ark, God considered him a man after His own heart.
For more than twenty years, King Saul had left the ark in a hilly place called Kirjath Jearim (1 Sam. 7:2). So David made it his passion to bring the ark to Mount Zion in Jerusalem, for the Lord had chosen Zion (which represents God’s grace, as opposed to Mount Sinai, which represents His law) as His dwelling place. God Himself said of Zion, “This is My resting place forever; here I will dwell, for I have desired it” (Ps. 132:14).
When you understand the typology of the ark of the covenant, you will see that bringing the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem is the same as bringing Jesus Christ back into a place of prominence and making Him and His finished work the center of all our teaching and preaching and lives.
This was the secret to David’s blessings. He pursued the ark of the covenant and God called him a man after His own heart. Today, you too can be a man or woman after God’s own heart. You can pursue Jesus and bring Him back into the center of your life. Make Jesus the centerpiece of every aspect of your life.
When Gillian from New Jersey and her husband started doing this, not only did it make their relationship stronger, but one blessing after another came into their lives. Round about the time they were introduced to the gospel of grace through my television broadcast, Gillian and her husband were struggling to conceive after being childless for all eleven years of their married life. They had tried all means, including in vitro fertilization, and Gillian was finally told that between her system being “so messed up” and her husband being diagnosed with a low sperm count, diabetes, and other diseases, they could never have a child on their own.