As a pastor, I do a fair share of hospital visitation. In order to see who I need to see when I need to see them, sometimes I have to pull what my pastor friends and I call my “clergy card.” No, I don’t have an actual clergy card, but when I tell the nurse that I’m Pastor Ben from Collinsville First Baptist Church, I almost always get let right in. That “clergy card” gets me access to where I need to go and to whom I need to see.

In Ephesians 3, Apostle Paul doesn’t talk about a clergy card, but rather what you might call a “Jesus card.” He says there in vv11–12, This was according to the eternal purpose that [God] has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him.”

Did you hear the Jesus card? He said we have access to God the Father through Jesus Christ. Jesus is our access. And that access is not to be engaged in sheepishly as if we aren’t supposed to be there. No, we can boldly access the Father. Jesus told in the Gospel of John that He is the Way and the Truth and the Life and that nobody comes to the Father except through Him. That means that when you stand at the gates of Heaven one day, and the gatekeeper asks you why you should be let in, your only hope is your Jesus card.

May you turn from sin and trust in Christ! He is your only hope to accessing the Father.

Change begins in you!