The Delightful Newness of Level Ground Faith

I first knew about God 58 years ago. I have been growing to know him better ever since. 

One of the advantages of age is that it humbles a guy with the awareness that things I once thought I had all figured out in my younger years were saturated with childish immaturity that didn’t even know how much I didn’t even know! 

In my knowing-God-much-better-than-I-used-to stage of life I can now appreciate and marvel at things I am still learning in a genuine getting-to-know-God kind of way. 

For example, just in the last couple of weeks I came to realize that picturing God’s children coming to the level ground in front of the throne of grace is vastly superior to what I had thought for decades about the level ground at the foot of the cross. 

Fact is that people only come to the level ground at the foot of the cross once. That is when they understand the good news of great joy that God sent his Son to be their Savior, they feel God’s kindness bringing them to repentance, and they know that Jesus Christ died for them, was buried, and was raised from the dead to be their Lord and Savior forever. 

At that place at the foot of the cross they are “delivered… from the domain of darkness and transferred… to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” The cross became the door by which they enter the kingdom, and they never need to go back to the cross for anything because it has already given them EVERYTHING! 

Instead of coming to the level ground at the foot of the cross, I now see that we come to the level ground at the throne of grace. Every child of God comes here. All believers have the same “great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God”. All Jesus’ disciples have the same level-ground calling to “hold fast our confession.” And the reason for the level-ground at the throne of grace is that, in the negative, “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses,” and, in the positive, we have “one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” 

And so, as the level-ground continues, God invites all his children to, “with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” 

The “throne of grace” is level ground because God is pure holiness. It is his throne. It is his grace. He relates to each of his children based on the cross, but the cross that has brought us to his throne. 

God’s “mercy” is level ground because it is MERCY!!! He always shows mercy to all his children all the time. The cross has already told us that every child of God has already experienced the mercy of God pouring out his wrath against our sin on his Son. Because of this, God can freely and fully show mercy to every one of his children in a level-ground kind of way since we are all forgiven, cleansed, and adopted in the exact same salvation. We all entered the kingdom through the same door, which is faith in Jesus Christ crucified. 

And all God’s children will “find grace to help in time of need” because with our Father in heaven there is no favoritism, no injustice, no partiality, no bribery, no blindness, no busyness that can’t see what is going on. 

Instead, God’s grace is the grace of the holy God who knows all, sees all, loves all his children, knows the most intimate realities of our secret hearts, and has both the wisdom and knowledge to do what is absolutely best for each of his children, always working everything in each of us for the greatest good of making us more like Jesus Christ his Son. 

I share this because I had another dream about a third person who needs to reconcile with me. As I was praying through Psalm 51 for them, particularly asking God to lead them to pray this prayer of repentance for themselves, I was again reminded that the level-ground I long for with them is at the foot of the throne of grace where we will all receive the grace, and mercy, and help we need to walk in the “obedience of faith” in reconciliation. 

It wasn’t just the reminder that this level-ground that we once found at the foot of the cross already led us to the level-ground at the throne of grace, but also the awareness of a humble maturing within me that has only happened through meeting with God in his word and prayer almost every day for over thirty years. 

I simply found myself smiling with the knowledge that I now know something that hadn’t occurred to me until just a couple of weeks ago, and now it has transformed the way I think of Christians reconciling in the level-ground of the kingdom of God, the level-ground that welcomes every child of God to the throne of grace where we all will always receive the mercy, grace, and help that God deems the perfect fit with whatever we are going through each day, including whoever we need to reconcile with to the glory of “our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” 

Is there any fellow believer you need to reconcile with, perhaps someone who has been unwilling to even consider their need to repent to you for what they have done? I highly recommend going to the throne of grace in intercession, and using David’s prayer of repentance in Psalm 51 to ask God to do for them what David prayed for himself, and even to lead them to pray this prayer of repentance for themselves so they will meet you at the level-ground before the throne of grace where all believers are helped to reconcile with God and each other to the glory of the Savior who died on the cross to make such things possible.

 

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)