Hebrews 4:1-16

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Hebrews 3 (Part 2)

In the second half of Hebrews 3, the Holy Spirit warns us against hardening our hearts toward the Word of God, as well as testing God. Both can lead to spiritual paralysis and it's nothing to fool around with. I think questioning why you believe what you believe is a good thing... in fact it's important to understand why you believe what you believe. However, some people can't have a true worship experience or even belief in God unless He proves Himself over and over in signs and wonders. God has done so much for us! Do we really need any other proof to believe He is who He says He is?! Do we need signs and wonders to prove that Jesus is faithful and will do what He says He will do? Do not test the Lord your God, but open your ears to what He has to say through His Word, and do not let your heart be hardened.

I also like how the writer of Hebrews reminds us that we can't walk this journey alone! We need to encourage one another daily! Yeah for that! I have proven to myself over and over that I can't do it on my own... in fact when I try, I miserably fail. I need my brothers and sisters to walk beside me to encourage, love, counsel, and sometimes scold me! It is this daily encouaragement that motivates us to stand firm until the end. Are you encouraging fellow believers daily?

I long for Christ's holiness to be real in my life. To do that, I need to fix my thoughts on Jesus (Hebrews 3:1). Let's encourage one another to do this TODAY!

Hebrews 3 (Part 1)

In chapter 1, the author wrote that Christ is higher than the prophets and angels, and now in the beginning of chapter 3, the author points out that Christ is bigger than Moses. Moses is mentioned here because if you remember from the introduction, the author was writing to the Jewish Christians, and Moses is an important figure in Jewish history. Could it be that the Jewish Christians were putting Moses on a pedestal and focusing on his good deeds, rather than Christ’s sovereignty? The author acknowledges that Moses was a faithful servant in God’s house, but Christ is faithful over God’s entire house! Jesus Christ is greater than the greatest!

I’m starting to feel like the author of Hebrews is trying to tell us something. Why does he feel the necessity to remind us that Christ is higher than the angels, the prophets, and Moses? Why is he urging us to remember what we’ve heard so we do not drift away, and now in chapter three, why is he encouraging us to fix our thoughts on Jesus? I think the answer is obvious, but sometimes the obvious needs to be stated or we have a tendency to overlook it. Jesus Christ is THE link between man and God. If Christ is not the most important thing in our lives, then we are missing the mark. If our eyes are focused on angels and prophets, or everyday good people like philanthropists like Bill Gates or influential people like Oprah, or our pastors and leaders, then we are going to fall. These people may be good, but Jesus is greater (actually, they don’t even compare to His greatness!).

I just read a story that went along with this chapter. It was about a lady who held many records for long distance swimming. One morning she decided she would swim from the Catalina islands to the California shoreline (that really doesn’t mean anything to me since I don’t know where the Catalina islands are, but I assume it’s a long distance!). It was a foggy morning, the water was cold, and the sharks were hungry (she had people boating beside her who would shoot the sharks before they got too close!). After she had swum for several hours, her body was numb from the water being so cold and she told her coach she couldn’t go any further. Her coach tried to encourage her to keep going because she was almost there. However, due to the fog, she couldn’t see anything and she insisted that she couldn’t last any longer and needed help getting into the boat. She quit only to find out she was ½ mile from her goal! When interviewed, she said had she been able to see the land, she might have been able to make it. It wasn’t fear, the cold or exhaustion that caused her to fail, it was the fog. She lost sight of her goal.
http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home/hblim/reflections/goals.html

Jesus Christ is the goal that we need to fix our eyes on. Distractions are going to come our way. Bad things are going to happen, circumstances are going to change, and life is going to get messy at times. There are times when God is going to feel far away, unconcerned, or hard to understand. But Jesus Christ came to be the link between us and God. Jesus ministers to us like no one else can. He is there to help us understand how our trials and burdens are meant to perfect us. Jesus Christ is it, folks! Jesus Christ, our hope of glory!

Wow, and that was only the first half of Chapter 3!

Hebrews 2:1-18

OK, so Chapter 2. I posted to my cousin's site who did a great job summarizing this chapter, but I wanted to say a little more now that I continue to think about it and then I'm moving on to Chapter 3.

I spent most of my time reflecting on the warnings given about spiritual drift, and wouldn't you know that the more I reflected, the more I drifted!! Isn't that exactly what the enemy wants us to do? Here's an excerpt from one of my favorite authors, AW Tozer, in his book, The Knowledge of the Holy. I thought it went along well with the beginning of this chapter in Hebrews.

"Until we have seen ourselves as God sees us, we are not likely to be much disturbed over conditions around us as long as they do not get so far out of hand as to threaten our comfortable way of life. We have learned to live with unholiness and have come to look upon it as a natural and expected thing."

As I was reflecting on Chapter 2, and on Tozer's words, I realized that spiritual drift does not occur as a result of blatant disobedience or rebellion, but it is brought on by nothing more than neglect and spiritual indifference. I take the author of Hebrews' warnings to heart because I am apt to fall in this category, and it's not a place I want to be. I have had to ask God to forgive me for my spiritual indifference this past week (or two). May I never become complacent with the unholiness around me.

Hebrews 1:1-14

Jesus Christ -- superior to the prophets and the angels. As noted in my previous post, the author of Hebrews was writing to people who were taking their eyes off of Christ and looking to other gods, maybe even looking to the prophets of the Old Testament and to the angels as gods or mediators to God. There are many verses in the Bible that tell us differently. One verse that comes to my mind is 1 Timothy 2:5-6, which states, "For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men..." Jesus Christ is Lord... not the angels, not the prophets, not the apostles, but Jesus Only!

I remember when I was a teen, the interest of angels really grew in society and it seemed like angels were popping up everywhere in the secular world, as well as the Christian world. I was slightly intrigued and I remember my mom talking to me about it and warning me about not putting angels at a level in which I worship them or fix my eyes on them. After reading Chapter 1 in Hebrews, I understand her warnings. Angels do have a place in God's work. If you look up the word angel, it's true meaning is "messenger" or specifically "messenger of God". The angels have a specific job from God to be His messenger. But we must be careful... an angel is NOT God... no angel has ever been asked to sit at the right hand of God. No angel has been called "Son". In fact, Hebrews reminds us that God said, "Let all God's angels worship him (Jesus)." Jesus Christ is superior to all the angels! There is none greater than He.

"For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men..." (1 Timothy 2:5-6)... "...and at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2:10-11) AMEN!

Where is Christ in your life? Is He Lord of your life?

Introduction

It has been debated for years who the author of Hebrews may be. Some say Paul, others say Barnabas, while others, namely Martin Luther, was convinced it was Apollos. This is the conclusion I have come to (remember, I'm no theologian)... we may never know who the author of Hebrews is, but I am convinced that it is God-breathed and will be used for my teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16)!

Moving on, the author wrote the letter of Hebrews to Jewish Christians who had started out strong in their faith, but for whatever reason, had shown a tendency to become lazy in their journey, if not decline spriritually altogether. This jumped out to me since the reason I decided to study Hebrews was because I felt I was becoming lazy in my spiritual life and felt burdened to delve into scripture. I honestly didn't know that was the purpose of Hebrews when I picked it to study. Coincidence? I don't think so. The letter of Hebrews served as a reminder to the Jewish Christians that Jesus Christ is the true Messiah, the Great High Priest, superior to the angels and prophets. Jesus Christ is supreme.

I am excited to study this book. While I believe in the absolute, supremacy of Jesus Christ, I know that I also sometimes struggle with verbalizing that Truth to those who do not believe the same. I work in the midst of people who believe in many different gods than Jesus Christ. I live in a world that tells me it's OK to believe in different gods... every god leads to heaven. I find these messages ludicrous and I do not believe them, nor am I tempted to do so. However, I think that satan has effectively used these messages to intimidate Christians and to silence them in their faith. In doing so, Christians have become content living a shallow Christian life, where they have a private faith, and are afraid to share the Truth. I know this has been true of me at times, so I assume I cannot be the only one out there who has this same struggle. The following scripture woke me up one day when I was enjoying my "private faith"... "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels." (Luke 9:23-26) OUCH! Hebrews picks up on this theme, and encourages its readers to GO DEEPER in one's spiritual life. As one understands the supremacy of Jesus Christ, I dare say that one will not be able to avoid going deeper without denying Christ altogether.