To Encourage You

Hebrews 7:25 “. . . he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him . . .”

You’ve heard the phrase “willing and able.”  In terms of the need for help with something, unless both parts of this phrase are true, that help just will not come.  For example, if I need a large sum of money to pay a medical bill, there are many people in this world who might be able to pay it for me but who aren’t willing to do so because they have no relationship with me or obligation in any way to do so.  If, on the other hand, a person has a friend or family member with an illness of some type, they may be more than willing to help them in any way possible but if they don’t have the knowledge or means to treat them, they won’t be able to provide a cure.  That’s why the statement above from Hebrews 7 is so incredible, for it talks about the matter of “salvation to the uttermost.”  It’s talking about the complete and utter salvation that is available to those who put their faith in Christ.  It’s talking about salvation from sin and its curse, including the ultimate curse which is death.  It was only because Jesus was willing to give his life for us that we have any hope of salvation.  We weren’t seeking Him, we didn’t love Him, and we didn’t even know Him.  Yet, in our ignorant, hopeless, and helpless condition, He chose to come to this earth as a man and give His life to save us.  As we are told in Romans 5:7-9 “For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  What wondrous grace that He was willing to die for us. 

But He was not just willing to do for us what no one else would have been willing to do, He was also able to save us – to the uttermost.  Only He has the power to save in this way. Only He has the authority or the ability to do so. Only He was perfectly sinless so that He could die, not for His own sin but as a substitute for ours.  And only He had the power to conquer death and rise by His own power from the grave to live forever (John 10:17-18).  It is by that same power that He is able to raise us up and give us eternal life.

Eternal salvation, salvation from all the effects of sin, salvation to the uttermost – only Jesus is willing to do this. And only He is able.  And while we wait for this ultimate salvation to be realized, the believer has a God Who will never leave them nor forsake them, for His will is “to supply every need of (ours) according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). And about those needs, He is One “who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us” (Ephesians 3:20). 

So have you drawn near to God through Jesus? He is the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father but through Him, the only One who is both willing and able to save us to the uttermost. And if you have drawn near to Him, are you telling others what our wonderful God is both willing and able to do?