When partnering with your family to know, love, and follow Jesus, we strive to create and share content filtered by the Head-Heart-Hands model.
Head: the knowledge of God and His Word | Heart: the personal connection from scripture | Hands: a missional mindset
HEAD
Hebrews 7 is full of some pretty fascinating things! There’s some guy you hardly hear about in scripture except for here, a small bit in Psalms, and Genesis. His name Melchizedek. There’s a lot of talk about high priests and something about “the order of…”. There’s a lot to unpack in a fairly short chapter. Let me give you a little background. Back in Genesis we first meet Melchizedek. He’s King of Salem and priest of the Most High God which means he was appointed by God not because of his family line. He blessed Abraham and fed him after a battle, and Abraham gave him his tithe. He realized there was something greater in Melchizedek than there was in himself. Melchizedek was also special because God didn’t allow the kings of Israel to be priests or the priests to be kings, but Melchizedek was BOTH. He didn’t have a beginning or end, and he didn’t have a father or mother, but scripture tells us he was “made resembling the Son of God, he continues to be a priest forever”.
Scripture doesn’t have a lot to say about Melchizedek. There’s some talk that Melchizedek was a heavenly being since he didn’t have a beginning, end, or parents. Some even say he was a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus himself. What we do know is that Melchizedek is a picture of what Christ would be like. The writer of Hebrews compares Christ’s/Melchizedek’s priesthood with the tribe of Levi to show us how superior Christ is. Now the tribe of Levi was under the old law. They were all from imperfect humans. Levite priests would pass away and new priests would be born. They couldn’t save people and could only pray at certain times. They had sins that needed to be forgiven. Jesus was from the tribe of Judah which was from the order of Melchizedek. He lived a sinless life. He lives forever. He is always a priest. Jesus gave himself as a sacrifice so that all can come to God through Him. He is holy, innocent, sinless, higher than the heavens! The law couldn’t make us perfect before a perfect God. Only Jesus, who lived a perfect life, was able to make us perfect through His sacrifice. The old law could cover up sin, but only through Jesus are our sins completely removed! Jesus came to fulfill the law so that we didn’t have to live under it anymore!
HEART
Do you ever wonder if Jesus is upset with you over something you did in the past? Jesus is our perfect priest forever! His word tells us that “He is able to save the uttermost”. That means that He saves us completely. Our sins are completely gone thanks to Him.
HANDS
Go back and visit the Old Testament sometime this week. There are so many biblical truths that point to Jesus. Read Genesis 14:18-20 and Psalm 110 and see if anything we learned today shows up there!
Prayer: God, thank You so much for sending Jesus to be our priest forever! Thank You that we don’t have to live under the old laws, but that the law has been fulfilled with Your Son. We love You! Amen.