Hebrews – BibleJournal.net

Him Who Is Able To Keep You From Falling

Yesterday was the first day that I actually started to let this whole virus get to me. I woke up yesterday morning feeling tired and sick of having to be at home. I am not a home body at all! I live with four other guys around my age, and I think we all are getting sick of each other a little bit. I am sure that you can relate to being a little stir crazy during this time.

The time we are in right now has changed our world around. We all feel out of sorts. It makes me think about how Jesus would feel, act, and behave during a time like this. There are so many days where I really think about that whole saying, “What Would Jesus Do”. Many times, we think about what Jesus would do because He is like our big brother.

Jesus came down to this Earth as fully man and God. The most overlooked characteristics about Jesus was how he related to us as humanity. This past weekend many of us celebrated Easter, the day that Jesus was resurrected from the grave. Jesus experienced the most unique thirty some years on this Earth, as a man. He experienced the joys, hurt, emotions, fought all sin, and everything we feel each day. In every way we can relate to the life of Jesus in His humanity.

Jesus came here to save us and bring us home to Him. Eternally as God, He has always and will always want us to be with Him. That is why the Father, gave the Son, to be sacrificed as fully man and God. We are a desperate people in need of a Savior. Hebrews 2:16-18, give us a deeper look at how much God loves us and how Jesus brought us home.

16. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. 17. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. 18. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

Sin breaks us apart from the Lord. It allows the devil to take root into our lives. Jesus came down, like us because that was the only way he could save us. He had to be made like us! For me that is a game changer. Our savior understands me on the deepest level. The moments where I feel so far away from Him, I can always depend on the one that will never fail me. As my brother, Jesus sacrificed everything for me to not fall away.

Life seems out of sorts right now, but I know I have nothing to fear. My savior is always here. No matter how hard the struggle or circumstances, He will never let me fall. I truly think Jesus would be on his knees each day praying, preaching to others, healing the sick, caring for those in need etc.

I pray that anybody who is reading this today is encouraged that for those who are in Christ have a hope that will never let us down. For those who are in Christ Jesus are promised eternal life and forgiveness of sins. Our brother Jesus will never fail us no matter what!

Jesus Doesn’t Change.

In the midst of a world that often feels unsteady with everything going on, whether in the national sense or my personal day to day life, reading Hebrews 13 was a breath of fresh air for me. I especially love Hebrews 13:18, which says:

For Jesus doesn’t change—yesterday, today, tomorrow, he’s always totally himself.

Isn’t this incredibly comforting? I love that the God we worship has never not existed, and yet He has never once changed. I love that the God we worship will never not exist, and yet He will never once change. And I love that the God we worship is so steady to hold onto, even when everything in our lives feels exactly the opposite.

Even though I know these truths deep down, and my head knows the truth that God is unchanging and completely steady, my heart sometimes forgets. I’ll try to hold on to anything else I can when my life feels crazy, from relationships to possessions to any other place where security can be found. And then I read Hebrews 13:9, which says:

The grace of Christ is the only good ground for life.

It doesn’t get much simpler than that, does it? God is the only thing that will never change in this world, and His grace is the only good ground for everything else in our life. Rest in that today, no matter how unsteady our world or your life feels… and let go of whatever other “good ground” you’ve been trying to build your life on lately.

By Faith

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1) Our reading for today, Hebrews 11, opens with this short definition of faith. Although this definition is not long, it is not necessarily simple. The concept of faith – believing in something we cannot see – is complicated, at least for me. The author of Hebrews knows that just giving us a definition won’t make the concept any more real to us. So, he gives us examples of people who have obeyed God by faith alone. The author of Hebrews names Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, the Israelites, and Rahab! As if these were not enough, the author tells us that he doesn’t even have time to tell us of the faith of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets!

Listen to what just a few of these people accomplished through faith: Noah obeyed God and built an ark – even though he had never seen rain. Abraham obeyed God and traveled with his people to an unknown land. The Israelites believed God and crossed the Red Sea – on dry land. The walls of Jericho fell after the people obeyed God’s instructions and faithfully marched around it seven times. “Through faith [they] conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight…received back their dead by resurrection.” (Hebrews 11:33-35)

What have you done in your life that you could not have done without your faith in God? In 1998, our family moved from upstate New York to Central Illinois – far away from our family and friends. We did not know a single person here in Bloomington / Normal when we arrived. Yet we knew that God was leading us here, and so we moved in faith. A few years later, in the summer of 2000, my husband and I decided to homeschool our children. At the time, we knew only two families who homeschooled; yet we knew that God was asking us to teach our kids at home. And so we obeyed, in faith.

Opposition often accompanies obedience. We read in Hebrews 11 that many “were tortured…suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment…were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword…went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated…wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves…” (Hebrews 11:35-38). In both of the situations I described above, we encountered opposition from friends and family who disagreed with our decisions (although certainly not to the magnitude that the author of Hebrews details!) I can only imagine the opposition that Noah faced when he began building a boat before the world had ever experienced rain. Yet Scripture tells us that Noah worked on that ark in “reverent fear” (Hebrews 11:7) God saved Noah and his family from the flood. When we moved our family to Bloomington, God brought people into our lives who taught us about Jesus. The blessings of obeying God and following Him in faith far outweigh any opposition we encounter.

What could you do, what dream could you accomplish, because you have faith in God? Today, listen to the stirrings in your heart. Begin to dream big. And remember that God is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think! (Ephesians 3:20).

Get On With It

So come on, let’s leave the preschool fingerpainting exercises on Christ and get on with the grand work of art. Grow up in Christ. The basic foundational truths are in place: turning your back on “salvation by self-help” and turning in trust toward God; baptismal instructions; laying on of hands; resurrection of the dead; eternal judgment. God helping us, we’ll stay true to all that. But there’s so much more. Let’s get on with it! Hebrews 6:1-3

Before we get rolling here, I just have to point out one thing… I don’t know about you, but for me, sometimes The Message version of a Scripture is so motivating. When I read the first few verses of Hebrews 6 today, I could not help but feel convicted… maybe you feel the same way. Anyways, moving right along today… 🙂

I’ll be honest: it’s easy for me to focus on the “preschool fingerpainting exercises” of my faith and miss the “grand work of art” that God really wants to grow me in. I seem to start off really strong after Sunday, but since I’m incredibly task oriented and to-do-list driven, by the end of the work week I often am going through the motions and missing the big picture of what God is doing in the midst of my everyday. I love that Hebrews 6 literally tells me that there is so much more to life than that… and when I’m barely able to find time to be with the Lord during a busy week, I can’t help but realize I’m just sitting here doing those preschool fingerpainting exercises when God’s painting a gorgeous work of art that He wants me to make time to be a part of.

I listened to a sermon the other day that reminded us as Christians that God loves us enough to give us free will. He is not going to make us do anything… all the way from preventing us from sinning to forcing us to trust in Jesus for our salvation. That goes for the things Hebrews 6 convicted me about, too: I have the choice to orient my life in such a way that I do exchange my meager attempts at fingerpainting for watching God paint a canvas. I can choose to live my days on this earth out in a way that puts Christ at the center of all things- my conversations, my errands, my emails, all of it. I have the choice to make the jump from the tiny to the grand- and God’s not going to make me do it. I have the choice, and He’s just waiting for me to take it.

What are grander things that God is waiting for you to choose this week? And what faith steps does God want you to take to grow your faith walk with Him, today? I fully believe that He wants us to trade in our meager attempts at finding full life on our own for the bigger, more beautiful things He’s already put in place for us. I hope that today you can be encouraged to get on with the grand work of art Christ has ready and waiting for you and to leave behind the lesser things. It’s time to grow in our faith and get on with what God has next for us.

We who have run for our very lives to God have every reason to grab the promised hope with both hands and never let go. It’s an unbreakable spiritual lifeline, reaching past all appearances right to the very presence of God where Jesus, running on ahead of us, has taken up his permanent post as high priest for us, in the order of Melchizedek. Hebrews 6:18-20

Apostasy

Today’s reading Hebrews 5 and Psalm 13

The theme of spiritual growth has been a focus in In the last three readings I’ve been assigned. Today is number four.

Three posts ago was, The 5 Essentials for Christian Growth from Philippians 1:9-11;
the next post was, The 3 Stages of Christian Growth (and how to avoid them) from 1 Thessalonians 5; where the topic was grieving the Spirit.
the last post was, Be Strong from 2Timothy 2:2-6, wherein Paul gave us four relatable examples of what we should grow into, the teacher, the soldier, the athlete and the farmer.

Hebrews 5 closes with a warning against apostasy. Having heard enough to be teachers of Christ, there were those in this congregation that were turning back to Judaism. (Hebrews 5:12) The Jews identified with being teachers, leaders of the blind, but here the writer rebukes them, essentially saying, you need to go back to the essentials. You need to start again at the beginning with the basic things.

We know from 1John 2:12-16 the three stages of Christian growth:

Babes. Babes in Christ know the name of Jesus.
Young Men. Young men in Christ are strong. They know the Word and use the Word (the truth) to overcome the deceiver.
Fathers. Fathers in Christ know God.

In my estimation, the writer was essentially saying, you think you are on stage three but you are obviously failing stage two (you are deceived).

This statement is made to the whole congregation as a preface to what the writer is going to share. In paraphrasing, he is saying, ‘I’m getting ready to go deep here. Get ready, and know that some of you aren’t going to get it because you’re self-deceived.’ The beginning of chapter 6 then wraps up the warning to those that have heard the truth and been led astray down paths of false doctrine. It is horrifying.

God, may we all grow in You and You alone. May we grow in Your Word and be strong, able to discern the truth and overcome the deceiver. God would you give each of us all a thirst for your Your Word? We need You LORD. Amen.