Pray the word with David Platt is a resource from radical.net.

Exodus chapter 26 verse 34

you shall put the mercy seat on the arc of the testimony in the most holy place.

This verse comes in the middle of this description of the construction of the

tabernacle and how it's to be organized and at the center of the

tabernacle the innermost, is the most holy place, symbolic of the place

where God in His Holiness is dwelling among His people, and right in the middle of the most holy place is where we find the

mercy seat. So get the picture the only way to dwell with God to be in the most holy presence of God the only way for sinners to be there is through mercy.

So mercy, like we can't be there based on our own merit.

There is no merit that gets a center

into the throne room of God, into the most holy place.

The only way there is mercy.

Mercy from God. Mercy can't be earned, it can't be deserved. It's a gift from him.

And this is the message of the gospel in the whole of scripture that we have been invited into the most holy place that access has been granted to you and to me.

Like we're about to pray.

That is not because of any merit in us.

That is only because of mercy from God, because he and his grace has invited us and made it possible for us to be in his presence because of the blood of Jesus, because of the sacrifice of Jesus on a cross for our sins.

He was sinless, he paid the price for our sins so that we could come based on mercy, based on his merit.

He has merit to be there.

We don't.

And so we hide in his merit, we trust in his merit.

So when the day comes when you or I take our

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