Dear Church,
 
If you read Exodus and Leviticus, you come across great details of the architecture of the ancient tabernacle – like the brazen altar, table for the showbread, the candle sticks, the veil, the curtain, the furniture inside the Holy of Holies.  But you never read anything about a chair in the tabernacle, for there were none. Why? When the priests were standing before God they could never sit, it was a lifetime job where they never finished the work of making sacrifices and offering before God.  So, for centuries the Old Testament priests would be on a never sitting, never-ending chain of blood, death, fire, smoke, animals crying in pain, and do you know how many sins you would have forgiven?  NONE!  Hebrews 10:4 says for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
 
Now, if it is impossible for animal sacrifice to take away our sin, what sacrifice made a difference?  Hebrews 10:12 (ESV) says, But, when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Folks, You, and I are going to heaven because of the truth this verse declares. On one side you have priests offering never ending sacrifices for hundreds of years. The same things every day, when one priest dies another priest shows up and does the same thing.  Every year a person has to drag a hesitant bull or lamb or a bird to the altar – at the altar, there will always be a priest, always standing, never sitting down.
 
On the other side we have our Savior, the Son of God, the one whom John testified, “The lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”  Yes, Hebrews 10:12 says One man, Jesus offered for all a single sacrifice, and he sat down at the right hand of God. When Jesus cried out “it is finished” and breathed his last, he didn’t mean, “it’s almost finished”, he didn’t mean “I’ve done my part, now you do your part”.  No, no, it means “I have paid the full price of your salvation”
 
Folks, if we need to go to heaven, we need a sit-down salvation. We need to believe and trust in the finished work of Jesus. There is nothing we can add on to it, we just need to enjoy our belovedness before God and align our life as a response to it.  Elvina M. Hall’s song, Jesus paid it All, has the following words:
 
Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.
 
Be Encouraged,
Mathews