God knew that we needed someone to show us the way to Himself and to take us to Him. What we needed was a high priest

What did an Old Testament high priest do? The high priest represented human beings before God. They could deal compassionately with weak, struggling sinners who had lost their way. God gave the high priest a special call to undertake this task.

Christ has all the qualifications to serve as our High Priest. God called Him to the task by exalting Him to His right hand in heaven. He put Jesus in enough places of suffering and hardship to develop in Him an appreciation for the value of obedience. A High Priest like Jesus becomes the perfect source of God’s salvation.

Sometimes, however, we simply do not use God’s resources. I know this pertains to me more than I would like. We slip backward instead of marching forward. We ought to be able to teach others, but we need to receive new teaching ourselves. We ought to be mature followers of Christ, but we live like spiritual babies. On the flip side, we should live dependently on our Father like a child does, but instead we live with the independence of a stubborn teenager.

The solution is for us to come to Jesus; admit our weak and meager efforts; and set our sights on the solid food of spiritual understanding and commitment. Once we start this path, we must endure it. Those who develop spiritual stamina find that they will be “perfect [mature] and complete, lacking in nothing” (Jas. 1:4, ESV).