Wednesday, July 31,
2013, 7:33 a.m. – the Lord Jesus woke me with the song “Do You Love Me?” playing in my mind. Speak, Lord, your words to my
heart. I read Hebrews 3:1-6:20
because it was one continuous subject. I read both in the NIV 1984 and in the
ESV.
Take Care
Take
care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading
you to fall away from the living God. ~ Heb. 3:12 ESV
These thoughts were addressed to the Hebrew holy brothers
(and sisters) in Christ who shared in a heavenly calling. The writer was
addressing these thoughts to the church, the body of Christ, the fellowship of
the believers in Jesus Christ, and to all who confessed the name of Christ as
Lord and Savior of their lives. And, these words still speak to our hearts
today, for the message does not change with the passing of time.
We are to fix our eyes on Jesus Christ. He is our God, our
creator and our Savior. He came to earth, took on human flesh (born as a baby),
suffered as we suffer and was tempted in all ways in which we are tempted, yet
without sin. He was forsaken, betrayed, denied, rejected, despised, falsely
accused of evil, and arrested, although he had done no wrong; and he was given
a mock trial, was beaten, spat upon, mocked, and was hung on a cross to die as
though he was a common criminal. He did all this for you and for me, so we could
be free from eternal damnation, be free of slavery to sin (day-to-day), and be free
to walk in the power of God’s Holy Spirit within us in Christ’s righteousness
and holiness.
Jesus Christ is faithful over God’s house, his church, and “we
are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our
hope” (ESV), or “if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast”
(NIV 1984) – 3:6. Also, we have come to share in Christ, “if indeed we hold our
original confidence firm to the end” (ESV), or “if we hold firmly to the end
the confidence we had at first” (NIV ’84) – 3:14. As well, we should all “show
the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end,” so that
we “may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience
inherit the promises” (ESV) – 6:11-12. Or, “We want each of you to show this
same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure” (NIV ’84) – 6:11.
So, what is this saying? Basically, it is saying that we can’t
count on a decision we made at an altar as a child or in our youth or even as
an adult to save us. We can’t count on a baptism or church membership or church
attendance to save us. We certainly can’t rely on our good works to save us. And,
we can’t base our salvation on an emotional decision or intellectual assent to
what Christ did for us in dying for our sins, which we may call “belief.” True
faith in Jesus Christ, this says, holds fast to our faith in Christ to the very
end, i.e. it is enduring faith. And, it is faith in action. It is not sluggish,
lazy, casual, occasional, distant, and/or unconcerned faith, but it is
diligent, persistent, passionate, consistent, courageous, earnest, and faithful
to the end. It is not perfect faith, and it is not without fault or sinless,
but it is firm, steadfast, committed, and unwavering to the end. Also, this
faith is not fleshly, but is of the Spirit of God, working his will out daily
in and through our lives, as we yield control of our lives over to him.
So, today if we hear God’s voice speaking to us, we should
not harden our hearts against his voice, we should not be rebellious, and we
should not go astray from our pure devotion to our Lord in thought, word or
deed. We should take care that we do not allow evil thoughts and behaviors to
creep back into our lives, nor we should we listen to Satan’s lies and begin to
doubt God and his word, and thus fall away from what we have known to be the
truth. Instead, we, as the body of Christ, should exhort one another daily.
This means that we all have a responsibility before God and to one another to
urge, encourage, insist upon, prod, advise, counsel, implore, appeal to, and
ask our brothers and sisters in Christ to follow Christ’s teachings and to obey
all of his commands, i.e. to live what they say they believe, but to do so in
love and in all humility, being completely aware of our own ability to fall
away if we do not remain steadfast and diligent in following our Lord Jesus
Christ, and in obeying his word.
Strive & Obey
Let
us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same
sort of disobedience. ~ Heb. 4:11 ESV
And
being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey
him. ~ Heb. 5:9 ESV
This fourth chapter of Hebrews speaks of entering into God’s
rest. For us, this has to do with our salvation and our hope of eternity with
God in heaven. This is not proposing works-based salvation, nonetheless,
because that would contradict with the teachings on salvation by God’s grace
through faith alone. So, what is this saying then? It is saying, I believe,
that there is effort and striving involved in true faith, but not in our human
flesh, but in our humility, submission and surrender to God’s will for our
lives. As an example, we have Christ Jesus who, although he was God, struggled
in his flesh with the thought of all that he would have to go through to go to
the cross. So, he asked the Father if it would be possible for him to be spared
that cup of suffering, yet he said, “Not my will, but Thy will be done.” Then,
it says that he learned obedience, thus, through suffering. Although he was
tempted, he did not yield to the temptation, but he remained pure. And, this is
the same way in which we are to strive and to make effort, i.e. in our
submission to the cross of Christ.
There are two thoughts here in these two verses which are
coupled together in one common thought and that is that if we persist in
disobedience to Christ and to living for self and sinful pleasure, and we
refuse God’s voice speaking to us, we are in danger of falling from the hope we
profess, and of not entering into God’s salvation, because we rested our hope
in a lie that said obedience to Christ and repentance were not necessary for
our salvation. This second verse alone spells it out for us. Jesus Christ
became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, not perfectly, and
not sinlessly, but who consistently choose to walk in obedience, submitting to
the cross and to Christ, and who do not continue in a lifestyle of willful
disobedience after they have said they believed (Cf. 1 Jn.; Ro. 6). One day we
will all give an account to God for what we did with Jesus Christ and his
salvation. Make sure today, while you still have today, that your faith is
genuine faith.
Then, the writer of Hebrews addressed those believers among
the fellowship who had become dull of hearing. These were not new believers
(those who confessed faith in Jesus Christ), but they had been Christians for
some amount of time to where, by now they should have reached a certain level
of maturity to where they could teach others. Yet, they were still acting as
though they were just babes in Christ without knowledge of what God required of
them in thought, word or deed. And, they still kept going back to the
foundations of what they were taught, as though they still didn’t get it. And,
there are many among us today who are right where they were, still grappling to
even know and understand what salvation, faith and a walk with Christ is all
about, even though they have known Christ or have confessed Christ for many
years. And, so they remain stagnant.
The spiritually mature, on the other hand, “have their
powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from
evil” (5:14 ESV). Notice the word “practice.” This means they have put into
practice the things they have heard and have learned, instead of them still
grappling to even know why they exist and/or to understand what God has for
them. It means they are growing in their faith and their walks with the Lord
Jesus through obedience, surrender, submission, commitment, and walks of faith
which yield to the control of the Holy Spirit of God on a daily basis, not
perfectly, and not without any sin, but daily dying to sin and to self and by
surrendering their wills to the will of God in heaven.
So, the warning here is that we should get with the program,
i.e. we should stop living for sin and self, and we should stop just floating
along through life, not knowing where we are going, and just living by our
feelings, doing what we want instead of what God wants. We should stop
pretending as though we don’t know what God requires when we do. We should
cease with looking at ourselves in a mirror and consistently walking away,
forgetting what we look like, and claiming we don’t know. We do know! If we
have known Christ long enough to be teachers of the word and to be expected by
God to be spiritually mature, then we do know, and we should walk in the truth
of what we know. At the very least, the danger is that we risk missing out on
all the blessings of obedience that Christ has for us, and the effect we could
have had for the gospel of Jesus Christ in the lives of others. At the very
greatest, we risk hearing “I never knew you,” because we were depending on a
lie, and thought we could just get by.
Things that Belong
Though
we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better
things—things that belong to salvation. ~ Heb. 6:9 ESV
Now the writer switched to speak to those in whom he had
confidence that their lives exemplified the kind of faith that accompanies
salvation. And, then he gave us some thoughts on what belongs to salvation. I
will add to this list from these other chapters, as well. These are the
qualities of true and genuine believing faith that results in salvation:
·
Labor in the Lord, in his power and strength
working within us
·
Love shown for his name in serving the saints of
God (Christ as our example)
·
Earnestness in this work and love to the end
·
Swiftly fled sin and rushed to embrace or to
take refuge in the hope we have in Christ of freedom from slavery to sin and
eternal damnation and freedom to walk in Christ’s righteousness and holiness –
we have this hope as a steadfast anchor.
·
Hold fast (embrace) our hope to the end in all
earnestness, and steadfastness
·
Persist, continue and persevere in obedience and
faithfulness to Christ
·
Learn obedience through suffering
·
Become mature and don’t remain stagnant
·
Love God with all your heart and love others as
yourself
Do You Love Me? /
An Original Work / July 24, 2013
Do you love Me now?
Will you seek My face?
I have given you
My love and My grace.
Will you walk with Me
Ev’rywhere I lead?
Will you find in Me
All of what you need?
Won’t you meet with Me
Down upon your knees?
Will you obey Me,
And do what I please?
Will you hear My voice
Speaking now to you?
I am couns’ling you
To abide in truth.
I have died for you;
Taken all your sins –
Crucified with Me,
You have been
forgiv’n.
I have set you free
From your slavery,
So that you can now
Live in victory.
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