Better than the Wizard of Oz

I assume that most of you know the story of the Wizard of Oz. Dorothy woke up one day and found herself lost in a strange land filled with strange and frightening things. She desperately wanted to go home. Finally, she heard about a powerful wizard who lived in Emerald City and who might be able to show her how to get home.

Dorothy was shown a yellow brick road that would take her to this amazing wizard, and so off she went. Along the way she was joined by a Scarecrow, who needed a brain, a Tin Man, who needed a heart, and a Cowardly Lion, who needed courage. Together they journeyed through a series of hair-raising experiences until they eventually arrived at Emerald City. When they approached the imposing throne of the great Wizard, they were frightened by his presence–until they discovered that he was a fraud.

Have you have traveled down some pathways in life that eventually led to disappointment, too? A lot of things look promising at first. For example, the thrill of a new relationship can go sour, maybe even become a bitter disappoint.

Since life can be so confusing, even hurtful, we need a place where we can find REAL help. Thankfully, there is such a place.

You and I have been invited to approach a much greater throne. We have actually been invited to come before the throne of the Creator of the universe! “Therefore 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” (Hebrews 4:16). That throne is scary, too, because the one who sits on it is holy, eternal, and all-powerful—and frankly, we are not.

Even with all of our problems, we can still approach that throne “with confidence.” How? Self-confidence won’t help. We can have that confidence when we understand what our awesome Creator has done to restore us to a close relationship with Him. He actually came here Himself in the person of Jesus Christ.

Jesus is our “great high priest who has passed through the heavens…” (Hebrews 4:14). In other words, Jesus took the form of a man when He was born in Bethlehem, so that He could blaze a pathway to His own throne for us. Jesus did that by living a perfect life that we could not live, by making right choices instead of the wrong choices that Adam and all of his descendants have made. Jesus then died a horrible death to pay the penalty for our sins, to satisfy God’s righteous demand that our sins be punished.

When we surrender our lives to Christ because He took the suffering we deserve, God sees us as looking just like Jesus. We are “in him” (Romans 6:23). We can approach God’s holy throne because He then declares that we are “…holy and blameless before Him” (Ephesians 1:4). That is how we can find real help when we need it. We are one of God’s own children because through Jesus we have been adopted into His family.

As we launch out into 2015, we can’t know what this year will bring. In Christ, though, we can have confidence that we are safe in the hands of the One who made us and loves us. The day will come when we will actually see “the Lamb