To Your True Home

Hebrews 13:10-14 We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat. 11 The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. 12 And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. 13 Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. 14 For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.
 
HABITS and traditions are difficult to leave behind. Many of the Christian Jews still wanted to participate in the Old Covenant sacrifices. But the  Hebrews writer once more urged the Jews to look ahead. He wanted them to know the Christian’s altar is the cross. It is not the altar in the temple’s Holy of Holies.
   We recall that on the Day of Atonement, the priest sent a scapegoat out of the city into the desert to symbolically remove Israel’s sins. The remaining blood sacrifices were also taken outside the camp. In Exodus it was the literal Israel camp. From David’s time it was Jerusalem.
   Now the cross is the altar outside the camp – outside Jerusalem – at Golgotha. In God’s gracious power, Jesus has carried our sins into the wilderness. When we confess our sins and confess Jesus, we spiritually go outside of the camp. When you move away from the camp, you leave behind rules and regulations that keep you from Jesus. The Christian Jews then and all Christians today must know in all faith that Jesus’ blood on the cross is sufficient. We must know that the fellowship of communion is the only ceremony in which we are to participate. When we regularly remember and receive the bread and wine, we consider the cross. That is where Jesus’ body was broken and his blood was shed for the forgiveness of sins.
   We remember, too, that we have come outside the camp of personal preferences and self-purpose. We leave behind what we want, so we can be where Jesus wants us to be.
   We also bear the disgrace he bore when we commit to Jesus. The Jewish rulers rejected Jesus. He bore the disgrace and humiliation of the cross because of their rejection. Jesus did this, so you would be saved. In a like manner, we bear the disgrace of family and friends who ridicule our faith. Others bear the disgrace as they suffer imprisonment and extreme difficulty, even to the death.
   But we must bear culture’s disgrace, so we can display salvation’s glory. For the earth is not our home. Those who cling to the world’s desires, who shame Jesus and his church will never be citizens of the King. Philippians 3:19-21 Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. 
   What a glorious gift! Jesus has come to earth. He has gone to the cross amid shame and ridicule to triumph over his enemies. This is our destiny, too, when we faithfully leave the camp to live set apart in Jesus’ resurrection power.