“Wherefore in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.”

Hebrews 2:17

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Author: Unknown Tune: O God Our Help (W. Croft)

1. God's wisdom formed the vast design

To ransom us when lost;

And Christ's own blood and righteousness

Provided all the costs.

2. Strict justice, with approving look,

God's covenant was sealed;

When God incarnate undertook

To see the whole fulfilled.

3. Now sin appears deserving death

And would its curse impose;

But Christ our Substitute and Head

Has lived and died and rose.

4. Upon the merits of His blood,

Secure and saved by grace;

We dare approach the throne of God

In Christ who took our place.

Has atoning blood so influenced our eyes that we see no true beauty apart from Christ crucified? Has atoning blood influenced our ears so that we can listen to no sound so sweet as that of Jesus’ precious name? Has atoning blood so influenced our hands that we are willing to labor for His sake? Has atoning blood so influenced our feet that we cannot safely take a single step without Him? If this is the case with us, then we are the servants of Jesus Christ, bought with His blood, born into His house and blessed with His bounty. --Thomas Bradbury

A Prayer for God’s People

Oh precious Lord Jesus, cause Thy people to rejoice in Thy full and finished salvation. By Thee, all that believe are justified from all things (Acts 13:39). Here then, Lord, give Thy people grace to rest. Let there be nothing wavering, nothing unsettled, in our faith because everything in the covenant of grace is “ordered, and sure in all things” (2 Samuel 23:5). Oh for faith, in lively exercise, to believe “the record God hath given of His Son” (1 John 5:10-11). “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee” (Isaiah 26:3). Let all Thy faithful, therefore, of this present hour, as were the disciples of old, be strong in the grace which is in Christ Jesus, and, like them, be filled with joy, and with the Holy Ghost. --Robert Hawker

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Horatius Bonar wrote, “In another’s righteousness we stand, and by another’s righteousness we are justified. All accusations against us, founded upon our unrighteousness, we answer by pointing to the perfection of the righteousness which covers us from head to foot, in virtue of which we are unassailable by law as well as shielded from wrath.

Thy work alone, O Christ,

Can ease this weight of sin;

Thy blood alone, O Lamb of God,

Can give me peace within.

Thy love to me, O God,

Not mine, O Lord, to Thee,

Can rid me of this dark unrest,

And set my spirit free.”

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John 1:29 “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”

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