Morning Musings with the boys at breakfast...
There really was a wondrous and "great crowd of witnesses" among the ancients who lived throughout Bible times. They were amazing!! To learn of all they endured, as listed in Hebrews 11, makes one rather speechless! They hung on for dear life to what God had promised because of their great faith in Him. Yet it is the faith of those witnesses the Hebrews of this book of Hebrews were directed too. How their faith saw them through and also kept their ancestors from sinning. "So let these be examples to you all, ok!!? Listen up, you all", this writer seems to be saying. "You think you have it bad, look at your forefathers and mothers again. Do you get it?!"
No doubt there was great temptation to forget all this faith stuff and the believing in Jesus. Look where it was getting them for having the faith. Persecution and hardships. Please reread Hebrews 10; 11 and read chapter 12 too. They would "deliberately be keeping on sinning" (Hebrews 10:26) if they knew all this about God and of Jesus being their High Priest and His being GREATER than Moses, etc and even this "great crowd of witnesses" and then fell away from it all. That would have been a tragedy.
Exhortation assails them again then to throw off all the weights that bog them down and slow them down from continuing on the "race marked out for them". The finish line for them and for us today, is Jesus! Jesus "being the author and perfecter of their faith". They were to "fix their eyes" on Him. They had to look up to Jesus not down at all their troubles and difficulties of life. Jesus was their supreme example of someone who endured and we all know what Jesus endured! The cross and the shame and the pain and worse still, the separation from His Father due to bearing our sin. Jesus endured and persevered so much He lost His life for us.So you Hebrews, what about you!? Have you really and truly "struggled against your sin"?!! Have your resisted to the point of shedding your blood?" Come on! Endure a bit!
There have been several times when I've heard people using the reason "Oh, we're only human, what do you expect? Of course we fail." Yes, true. But do we use this as an excuse to sin? Do not use this as an excuse in our struggle against sin to find loopholes or to give in to our human desires that go against God. It's so easy to rationalize why we relinquish our struggle and give in and sin. The writer of Hebrews says in 12:4,
"you have not resisted to the point of shedding your blood".
When we are tempted to do wrong--have we really tried hard enough to resist? We need to do what it takes.
We need that 100%, plus the extra mile, type of effort..."to the point of shedding your blood" resistance, grit, endurance and perseverance. Let us not entertain wimpy excuses for ourselves. Let us not fall into temptations. Really and truly make that all out effort to resist the sin and to endure hardship as the Lord's discipline in our lives. Stretch your limits. This is how we grow in our faith process; in that sanctification process of becoming more holy and blameless in God's sight. The Hebrews are entreated to and so are we in our day.
About discipline: yes, it is often unpleasant but the desired end results are "to produce a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who are trained by it." Do we have that willingness of heart to submit to God's training?
Verse 12 resounds "don't be wimpy"--"shake a leg!"--"get with the beat"--"strengthen those feeble arms and weak knees"! No doubt the threat of persecution indeed is fear producing and caused them (and us) to lose our strength yet we are to remember those who have gone before; those faith fathers and mothers of chapter 11. They got through and stood firm in their faith despite even the extreme discipline of persecution; being thrown to hungry lions, being sawn asunder, and jeers and flogging to name a few. Not easy to face.
What was their recourse?
"To fix their eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of their faith".
Let us encourage each other to do this too. Let us trust Jesus as a child would jump abandonedly from a higher place into the arms of his parent, trusting them to catch him. Jesus has our best interests in His heart.
Our struggles with sin my not be to lose our faith due to persecution but as Hebrews 12:15 alludes to, bitter roots. God doesn't want us to miss out on His grace. We are to exhorted to
"watch out that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many."
Guys, we were talking about that the other night, about the Rules of Disengagement for the uncluttering of your life.
"If it ...weighs you down, clogs you up, or just plain makes you feel bad about yourself, throw it out, give it away, sell it, let it go, move on." (ODJ)
Relate this to NOT staying connected to past sin. Beg others' forgiveness. Forgive others. Don't stay connected to old grievances. Have mercy and forgiveness. Have true freedom that comes when we repent, and confess (1 John 1:9). Then God Himself will forgive. (See Psalm 103:12; Micah 7:19; and John 8:36) Being able to forgive takes grace and we do not want to "miss out on the grace of God (vs 15). This is one way of "growing grace" and aiming for the finish line and being perfected in our faith as well.
"The price of our freedom from sin was paid by Jesus Christ's blood." Remember He paid the price once for all for all sin for all time and eternity. He was the Hebrews' High Priest and is ours too in our day.
All this so that we can (vs 14) make "every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy." That "every effort" bit...that "point of shedding blood..." Have you gone all out for it? (At this juncture, I just want to say that by using the expression to the "point of shedding blood" does not mean 'cutting yourself' in any way, shape or form but rather that stretching of your limits to the nth limit and beyond to endure, persevere and/or to resist the temptations that come our way. Do what it takes.)
When we allow those roots of bitterness and unforgiveness to get a firm grip in our lives we affect others negatively; so "keep clean". Don't sell yourself, your children, nor anyone else for that matter, short.
Peace and holiness is what our Lord Jesus wants for us. Therefore, rid yourself of the unholy bitterness and/or sexual immorality (God sees these on par with each other); and godlessness. Don't get stuck in any of these as Esau did.
Esau couldn't get himself free despite his tears. I'm thinking there must not have been true repentance--only remorse such as was the definite case of Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus to His killers. One sold his soul for one meal and the other later for 30 pieces of silver; the price of buying a slave.
We have a great genealogy of faithful men and women of God who struggled with sin and abandoning of their faith long before we ever did. Ponder over what they went through, how they got through keeping their faith despite the hardship and discipline by keeping their
"eyes fixed on Jesus".
May we each overcome our sin, endure and imitate their faith and most importantly, "fix our eyes on Jesus," He will guide you with His eye (Psalm 32:8-11) all the way to the finish line.
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| Fix Your Eyes On Jesus & Run All The Way To The Finish Line |
~ERC 2016~
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