Holiest of All by Andrew Murray

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For we have not a high priest who is not able to
sympathise with our weaknesses. The writer uses the two
negatives to indicate liow common the thought is which he wishes
to combat. A rich king, who Hves every day in luxury, can he,
even though he hear of it,—can he fully realise what it means for
the poor sick man, from year to year, never to know where his
daily bread is to come from? Hardly. And God, the glorious
and ever-blessed, can He truly feel what a poor sinner experiences
in his daily struggle with the weakness and temptations
of the flesh? God be praised! Jesus knows, and is able to
sympathise, He is one who hath been in all things tempted
like as we are, yet without sin.
In all things! The thought of Jesus as a sympathising
High Priest, is ordinarily applied to those who are in circumstances
of trial and suffering. But the truth has a far deeper
meaning and application. It has special reference to the
temptation which meets the soul in the desire to live wholly for
God. Jesus suffered, being tempted : it was the temptation
to refuse the Father's will that caused His deepest suffering.
As the believer, who seeks in all things to do the will of God,
understands this, the truth of the sympathising High Priest
becomes doubly precious.
What is the ordinary experience of those who set themselves
with their whole heart to live for God ?
It happens very
often that it is only then they begin to find out how sinful they
are. They arc continually disappointed in their purpose to
obey God's will. They feel deeply ashamed at the thought of
how (jften, even in things that appear little and easy, they fail
entirely in keeping a good conscience and in pleasing God.
At times it is as if the more they hear of the rest of God anil
the life of faith, the fainter the hope of attaining it becomes.