Getting Close To Christ - Dec., '08 - Day 15

December 15, 2008 …

Passage of the Day: Philippians 2: 9a [see highlight passage in bold/red] …
5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the Name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

My Journal for Today: With the help of John MacArthur, I (we) have seen that Christ’s exaltation involved four elements; and yesterday we looked at two of them: RESURRECTION and ASCENSION. However, it was the latter two, CORONATION and INTERCESSION, which allowed believers to have freedom from the condemnation of our sin condition; and this was due to the establishment of Christ’s Heavenly Priesthood.

Both Mark 16: 19 and Ephesians 1: 20 – 22 document that upon Christ’s ascension into Heaven, He was seated at the Right Hand of God, The Father, on the Throne of Glory with all power, authority, and dominion restored to Him. And besides this re-coronation to His Throne, our Lord was given the role of our eternal High Priest to be our advocate, interceding on behalf of saved believers forever. Both Hebrews 4: 15 and 7: 25, as we read two days ago, clearly declare Christ’s Priesthood and intercession in sending His Spirit to minister to the lives of declared Christians; and that process has granted believers like me (and prayerfully, you) faith, repentance, forgiveness, and God’s grace to become completed in Christ from sanctification in our lives on this earth and glorification in the next life in Heaven. I would charge you to do a deep reading through Ephesians, Chapters 4 – 9, to get the full picture of the importance and outcome of Christ’s coronation and intercession. And having just done it, I would also charge my followers here to go back and read Christ’s wondrous prayer for His disciples in John 17: 6 – 26, His intercession having begun even before He ascended into Heaven.

And how can a Christian meditate on that John 17 prayer, what is really THE LORD’S PRAYER, and not come away in wonder at the Savior, Who was about to go to the Cross on our behalf, praying this prayer for His Father’s children? In the prayer, in John 17: 5, we read Jesus imploring His Father, “…Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.” And that is what our focus on this day has been, … Christ’s re-glorification and re-coronation into His eternal Priesthood.

Oh glory upon glory, our High Priest lives and ever moves to intercede for His subjects; and I pray that you, as I am, are one of those subjects. And tomorrow we leave Phil. 2 for a day to delve into another wondrous passage about Christ’s glory. Stay tuned!

My Prayer Today: O Lord, all I can say from my meditation today is HALLELUJAH and Amen !!!