ICS Daily Devotions
Overcoming Hindrances to the Throne of Grace
The Bible tells us to come boldly to the throne of grace but generally there are at least two hindrances that prevent us from doing so.
Firstly, the devil is working very hard to draw us away from God through his constant accusation and condemnation about our lives.
Revelation 12:10 (NKJV) Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down.”
The evil one will strike us at the weakest point, often accusing or bringing up to our minds the sins that happened a long time ago. He will say that it is useless for us to tell God our challenges because we have been such failures as Christians. His aim is to destroy our relationship and communion with the Heavenly Father. He wants to steal the boldness from us to approach the throne of God where mercy and grace are available to us.
The second hindrance is a sense of unworthiness, fear, condemnation and being insecure in God’s love. This consciousness of self is partly due to us living in a culture of achievement and performance. Whatever the person has accomplished in life determines the significance of a person. So with good intentions to please God, we set up man-made laws within ourselves to please God but these laws do not bring us closer to God because we are not able to meet those requirements due to the weakness of the flesh. Instead of having a relationship with God based on the finished work of Christ, we go into legalism and this pushes us away from God.
To overcome these two hindrances to the throne of grace, we need to acknowledge that we are coming to the throne of grace without basing it on any self-effort; all our self-righteousness are like filthy rags before the Father.
Isaiah 64:6 (NKJV) But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
Ephesians 1:6 (NKJV) To the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
God accepts us because of His grace. Therefore, we need not strive to use our own strength to make God love us more. We can counter the accusations of the evil one with the blood of Christ by saying that it has nothing to do with us when it comes to the worthiness of coming to the throne. Tell Satan that he has stay out of family matters when we come to God our Father for Jesus has redeemed us with His blood and He remembers our sins no more!
Sermon Series: Coming to the Throne of Grace
