Hebrews

Hebrews 4:14-16
14Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.
15For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.
16Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Before I came to Czech, I took a class where we learned about the book of Hebrews. I've been reading over the book and looking at my notes that I took in class, and today this little passage stuck out to me. Can you imagine still living under the levitical priesthood where we had to constantly make sacrifice for our sins? Where a priest was a man who would eventually pass away? Hebrews 9 talks about the necessity of bloodshed for sacrifice, and in the levitical priesthood, that blood was the blood of animals. But when Christ was sacrificed, his blood was slain, and this is the best sacrifice. We've been singing the hymn "In Christ Alone" several times through the past week, and one line has stuck out to me:
"Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied;
For ev'ry sin on Him was laid
—Here in the death of Christ I live."

It humbles me to think of how Christ humbled himself - He is God, and yet became man. He did this so that He would be able to sympathize with human temptation and sin, and because of this He sacrificed Himself for us. What a beautiful sacrifice - what love. To take all of our sins on His shoulders so we're worthy of God.

Anyway, I just wanted to share what I've been learning in my devotions. The last couple days have been fun.
We finished up training on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, all the other countries' interns left. There are interns in Croatia, Serbia, Latvia, Slovakia, Poland, and Ukraine. Yesterday was the first day it rained, and a friend and I went for a hike to a waterfall. We decided to climb up the waterfall, and the water was FREEZING! It was so much fun though...and on our way back, we decided to take a "shortcut" and scampered up what was basically a wall of mud. Needless to say, I was caked in mud and looked gorgeous I'm sure. Last night we all went out to eat and I got yummy pizza. This evening we're heading to a national missionary's home - her parents own a turkey farm, so we get to hang out there which is pretty cool! And tomorrow we head to Pardubice for a week. We'll be hanging with the youth group all weekend, and then we'll be teaching English in their schools and start preparing for camps.
Exciting news: we're going to be volunteering at a Matt Redman/Hillsong concert! It's the first Christian concert in Czech, and I'm pretty certain that just about every Czech Christian will be there, which will be such an amazing experience.
Keep me and my team in your prayers this week!