Hebrews 12:3-6 ESV
“Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
‘My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.’”
Now Jesus Christ was not born into this world with a sin
nature in the image of Adam like all of us humans were. For he was conceived of
the Holy Spirit, and God the Father was his birth father. So, he was sinless
from birth and he remained sinless all throughout his life on this earth so
that he could be our perfect sacrifice for our sins on that cross. But he was
tempted to sin as we are, but he did not sin. But he knows what it is like to
be tempted to sin.
The hostility that Jesus faced against himself was mostly
from his own people of his own faith, from the rulers and the teachers of the
Law in the temple of God, and some was from his own family members.
Some of them tried to trip him up and to tempt him to be less
than who he was, but he resisted them. And then they had him hung on a cross to
die as though he was a criminal, but this was all in God’s plan that Jesus
Christ should take on the sins of the world on that cross, in order to put our
sins to death with him, so that we might die with him to sin and live to his
righteousness (1 Peter 2:24). So, he literally fought against sin for us on
that cross to the point of shedding his blood.
And so in our battle against sin, we are to consider what
Jesus went through in order to secure for us deliverance from our slavery to
sin so that we can walk in righteousness and in holiness, in obedience to our
Lord, in the power of God. And we are not to forget that if we are God’s legitimate
children that he disciplines us for our good, and that discipline includes
being reproved and chastised by him, too.
For he gave his life up for us on that cross that we might
be crucified with him in death to sin and raised with him to walk in newness of
life in him, no longer living as slaves to sin, but now as slaves to God and to
his righteousness, in walks of holiness and in obedience to our Lord Jesus.
Hebrews 12:7-11 ESV
“It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
When we believe in Jesus Christ with God-given faith, we are
surrendering our lives to Jesus. We are now his possession, he owns us, and he
is our Lord and Master. Our lives no longer belong to us to live however we
want for we were bought back for God (redeemed) so that we might now honor God
with our lives. And now we are in the process of being made holy, and of being
conformed to the likeness of Jesus Christ, and so that involves pruning and
disciplining us so that we will share in his holiness.
And the discipline is painful, for certain, but later it
yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those of us who have been trained
by it. And that means that we are learning the lessons the Lord Jesus wants us
to learn through our trials, and so we are making the changes in our lives that
he requires, and now we are following him even more closely than we were
before, seeking his will and purpose for our lives, and doing as he commands.
Hebrews 12:12-13 ESV
“Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.”
Now God may discipline us just as part of what he does in
our lives because we need that regular pruning and discipline in order to keep
growing to maturity in him, and so we keep resisting the devil, and so we keep
submitting to Christ’s will for our lives in humble obedience to him. But he
may also discipline us because we have gotten off track and we need to get back
on course.
And so the counsel to us here is if and wherever we have
areas of our lives where we have gotten off course, even a little, and so we
need to be brought back to a closer and more serious walk with the Lord, we are
to work on those areas under the direction of the Holy Spirit and we are to
strengthen those areas where we had gotten weak by renewing our commitments to
the Lord to follow him in all ways. And we are to make straight (righteous)
paths for our feet (for our walks of faith) so that we will be made whole.
Nothing
Can Separate Us
An
Original Work / March 28, 2013
Based
off Romans 8:28-39
Nothing can separate us
From Christ’s love now within us:
Not trouble, hardship, nor famine,
Nor danger, nor sword.
No, in all of these things
We are more than conquerors!
For your sake we face hardship.
We are sheep to be slaughtered.
I am convinced that death,
Nor life, nor anything else
Will separate us from
The love of God now in Christ.
What, then, shall we say to this?
God for us: who against us?
He who did not spare His Son
But gave Him for us all –
How will He not, with Him,
Graciously give us all things?
Who brings a charge against us?
God justifies His chosen.
Who is He that condemns?
Christ Jesus, died, rose again.
He’s at the right hand of God,
Interceding for us.
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