One of my favorite worship songs that we sing at Wellspring is “Providence (Broke My Chains)” by Citipointe Live. If you ever see me singing this song, I can guarantee you’ll see tears streaming down my face. I can’t help it, I feel every lyric to this song so very deeply. Right now though, I want to focus on these lyrics in particular: “Jesus be glorified. Your ways are higher than mine. Washed away every stain, Lord. No greater love than the blood, Lord.” These words came to my mind recently during my personal Bible study time in Zechariah 3.
God gave the prophet Zechariah several visions. In one of those visions, the prophet sees “Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him” (Zechariah 3:1). Picture this: a courtroom where Satan stands as the prosecutor with God’s high priest seated at the defense table. Can you feel Joshua’s shame as Satan hurls accusation after accusation at him, presents all of the evidence against him? Joshua sits there in filthy clothes (verse 3) hearing everything he ever did wrong, every sin he ever committed, every mistake he ever made. Not only that but as a high priest under the old covenant law, Joshua represented the entirety of God’s people as well. His job was to act as the go-between for the Israelites and God. But rather than convicting Joshua at this moment, God rebukes Satan, reminding him that He has chosen His people. Then the angel presiding over the trial commands that Joshua’s filthy clothes be removed from him. He says, “Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments” (verse 4). What a relief this must be! To be standing accused of not only your own sin but the sins of thousands of other people that you have no control over, only to have those same sins removed from you by no act of your own!
This is what happens when we choose Jesus to be our Lord and Savior. Under the new covenant, Jesus takes on the role of the ultimate High Priest. He becomes our intercessor between us and God. He advocates for us, simply because we choose to trust in Him. He takes our place at the defense table, wearing our sins, His priestly robes tainted by everything we’ve ever done against Him, while we watch on from the gallery. Satan at the prosecutor's stand spews hatred and evidence and accusations at Him, though “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth” (1 Peter 2:22). “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). None of this makes sense to me. This is one of those times where His ways are higher than mine, and I am grateful for that!
No matter what we’ve done, Jesus paid the price for it
I don’t know about you, but I have a past that I’m not proud of. There are things that I have done, decisions that I have made, mistakes that I can’t undo. Sins that I have committed. Sins that fill me with shame and leave me feeling dirty and unworthy. Can you relate at all? If you can, let me assure you, God forgives you and me both. No matter what we’ve done, Jesus paid the price for it so that we can come before God the Father completely clean, spotless, free of all of that shame. He washed away every one of our stains with his blood, the blood that proved His love for us. John 15:13-14 says, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.” There is no greater love than the love Jesus showed through his blood, his death. And so at the top of my voice, with tears streaming down my face, I sing, “Jesus, be glorified! Your ways are higher than mine! Washed away every stain, Lord! No greater love than the blood, Lord!”
Written by Mindy Carvalho,
Worship Team Volunteer
Listen to Providence on our Spotlify Playlist now!
