Scripture

Marriage should be honoured by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.

Observation

We should continue to love one another, entertain strangers, and remember those in prison.

Marriage must be honoured by all, and the marriage bed kept pure. God will judge those who are immoral. We should keep our lives free from the love of money, and instead trust the Lord.

We need to be wary of strange teachings, remembering our hearts are strengthened by grace and not by eating the right foods.

Application

Our culture has elevated sexual depravity to an art form. What was once, just a generation ago, considered contemptible and disgusting is now celebrated as desirable.

Marriage is seen as a more or less temporary affair with cheating and divorce expected as the norm.

Scripture teaches us that God has a very high view of marriage. In Ephesians, Paul says that marriage is a picture of the covenantal faithfulness of Christ to the church. The intimacy of husband and wife is analogous to the intimacy between Christ and His own Bride.

Marriage is not a light thing. It is no light thing. It is not a mere human convenience. It is God’s idea, God’s plan for the ordering of a civil society.

It is no wonder that the devil hates marriage and tries to undermine it in every way possible.

Christians must honour marriage and try to encourage every husband and every wife to rejoice in their relationship.

Prayer

Thank you Lord for marriage. Thank you for my wife whom I love more than life itself. Amen.

Reflection on Hebrews 12:14-24

Scripture

But you have come to Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God.

Observation

We should make every effort to live at peace with the people. We have to be holy, or else we will not see the Lord. Avoid bitterness and sexual immorality.

Mount Sinai was the place where the Israelites met with the Lord Yahweh. It was a frightful place – burning with fire and covered with smoke, with loud trumpet blasts. Not even an animal was allowed to tough the mountain.

We have come to Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of God. We meet with the angels, but above all, we meet with God and with Jesus.

Application

When Israel was passing through the desert, the Lord invited them to meet with Him at Mount Sinai. But they were afraid, and Moses went up alone. Moses was afraid, but his passion to know the Lord overcame his fear.

We have come to a better place, the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. This is the place where, together with the angles, we meet to worship our God and His Son our Lord Jesus.

It is not that the Old Testament religion is better than faith in Christ. No, the reverse is true. The Jews worshipped at a physical mountain, but we worship at a heavenly mountain.

It does not matter where we worship or how we worship. What does matter is that we worship with a holy and sincere heart.

Prayer

Thank you Lord for meeting with me at any time and any place. Help me to seek you often and to learn to live in awareness of your presence. Amen.

Scripture

Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. Make level paths for your feet, so that the lame may not disabled, but rather healed.

Observation

We are to endure hardship as discipline. Every father disciplines his sons. If you are not disciplined, then you must be illegitimate children, not true sons.

Human fathers discipline us as they see fit, and we respect them for it. But God disciplines us to make us holy. We don’t enjoy any discipline at the time, but it produces a harvest of righteousness.

Therefore, we must strengthen our feeble arms and knees so that the lame may be healed.

Application

In our happy clappy styles of worship and our feel good therapeutic sermons, we forget or overlook the fact that God is a good father.

Good parents discipline their children in order to shape their interactions with the world and other people. When children are not disciplined, they grow up to be selfish, bullies and thugs.

God wants the best for His children, and that includes allowing the difficulties of life to mould us into the people He wants us to be. The kingdom of God is meant to be full of people who know grace, mercy and empathy; not with overgrown babies demanding their own way.

The writer to the Hebrews is telling us to grow up and get over ourselves. We are to strengthen our arms in service and our weak knees in prayer. We are to help the lame similarly become mature in their faith.

Tough words from a God who loves us more than any earthly father,

Prayer

Lord, please train my thinking so that I learn to see you at work in my life in every way. Help me to welcome your discipline. Amen.

Scripture

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders us, and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run the race marked out for us.

Observation

We are surrounded by the witnesses, the heroes of the faith, who are watching us and cheering us on in this race. So we should throw off the sins that entangle us and everything that might slow us down, and run the race that God has set for us.

To do this, we should set our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross. If we keep our eyes on Him, we will not grow weary in the face of opposition.

We have not yet endured to the shedding of our blood. We must consider any hardship as discipline from the Lord, and rejoice that He loves us as sons and daughters.

Application

The heroes of faith mentioned in the previous chapter should spur us on to greater faith. None of them was perfect, yet they walked faithfully with God.

It is important to throw off the sins that hold us back. Some sins are easily overcome, but others are much harder to get rid of. The trouble with most sins is that we enjoy them. So we need to discern what God is saying we must let go of.

An athlete will arrange their whole life around their training. They will eat foods that build up strength, and avoid those that detract from their goals. For christians, our whole life must revolve around what God wants for us.

For some people, there are things in life that are totally acceptable to the Lord. For oterh christians, these same things are not what God wants for them, and for them they are sinful.

We must run the race God has set for us. A swimmer must be at the right pool in the correct event. A pole vaulter will not win a medal if they run the 100 metre race. I must run the race God has marked out for me, even if someone else’s looks more appealing.

Prayer

Thank you Lord for the knowledge of your love. Please show me the things I need to let go of in order to run the race you have set for me. Amen.

Scripture

All these people earned a good reputation because of their faith, yet none of them received all that God had promised.

Observation

It was by faith that the people of Israel marched around Jericho, and by faith Rahab gave a friendly welcome to the spies.

There are many other examples from Scripture of people who, by faith, overthrew kingdoms, ruled with justice, and received what God had promised.

But there were others who were tortured and killed. These were too good for this world.

All of them earned a good reputation through their faith, but none received all that God had promised. God had something better in mind.

Application

All of the people mentioned in Hebrews 11 are honoured because of their faith,Some we honour because they overcame evil, and others we honour because they refused to submit to evil.

But all of them had this in common – they did not receive the fullness of God’s promise. That was left for us.

God’s intention for all of history was that people move into full relationship with Him. What the patriarchs and prophets saw dimly was fully revealed in Christ. We now have the privilege to receive salvation by faith and to hold within us the Holy Spirit. They experienced God at a distance, as it were, but we know Him personally and intimately.

We were made for fellowship with God. Every human desire points to a higher fulfilment in Christ.

You and I have the privilege of being able to relate to God person to person, whenever we want.

This is the consummation of faith.

Prayer

Father God, I thank you for this awesome privilege of being called your child. Thank you for salvation in Christ and for the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Scripture

Moses thought it was better to suffer for the sake of Christ than to own the treasure of Egypt, for he was looking ahead to his great reward.

Observation

By faith, Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He knew that God’s promise of me descendants through Isaac would come true, so he figured that God could raise him from the dead if necessary.

The patriarchs – Isaac, Jacob and Joseph – likewise lived by faith.

Moses parents defied the order of Pharaoh to care for their baby. By faith, Moses rejected all of the comforts, pleasures, and sin of the Egyptian royal family in order to follow the higher vision given to him by the Lord.

By faith, the people of Israel passed through the Red Sea, but the Egyptians drowned .

Application

Do we believe the promises of God and risk our comfortable lifestyle for a higher calling?

Moses turned away from the power and prestige of the Egyptian elite. God commanded him to set the Israelites free and to lead them to the Promised Land. He chose the path of obedience and suffering because there was a great reward that could not be seen in the natural.

Faith means that we put our trust in God, along with our personal desires and ambitions.

When we left our former denomination to plant a new congregation, we did so trusting that God would provide what we needed. A friend said it was the greatest act of faith he had seen. But to us it was not that heroic a step. We knew that God wanted us to do it, and to choose the way of safety and comfort would have made us miserable.

To obey God in faith means that we give up some things, but find a much deeper joy then we could have thought possible.

Prayer

Lord, the way of faith is challenging at times. Thank you for the promise that you will never abandon us when we trust you. Amen.

Scripture

But they were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

Observation

By faith Abraham obeyed God and went to another land. He was looking forward to a city designed and built by God.

By faith Sarah was able to conceive and bear a child. She believed that God would keep His promises.

They died still believing the promise, even though they did not receive it. They saw it at a distance. They were looking for a heavenly homeland which God had prepared for them.

Application

Faith is the quality that enables us to see that God is greater than our circumstances. At its heart is the conviction that there is a better place, a heavenly homeland.

God has prepared a place for us. This is not just heaven in the afterlife, but a destiny in this life which we perceive as heavenly because God is in this place.

When we pour out our lives serving God according to His command, then we are in that heavely homeland, enjoying the grace and presence of God.

Faith is practical because it directs our movement and our actions.

When we live in this pattern of faith and obedience, God meets us as He welcomes us as co-workers in His plan of redemption. He is not ashamed to be our God, and He has prepared a city for us.

Prayer

Father God, you are with me as long as I choose to be with you. Thank you for your presence in this life and for that city yet to come. Amen.

Scripture

By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen.

Observation

Faith is confidence that God will fulfil our hopes and certainty about things we cannot yet see. It shows us that God created all things.

By faith Abel brought a better sacrifice than Cain, and by faith Enoch was taken up to heaven without dying. It is impossible to please God without faith.

Noah built his ark by faith. God warned him about things that had never happened before. Noah believed God and was saved in the flood that condemned the rest of the world.

Application

Hebrews 11 is often described as the faith chapter, because it starts with a definition of faith and then travels through the Old Testament to highlight the famous examples of men and women of faith.

We believe that God created everything with a few words of command. He created everything that can be seen out of nothing.

This is an awesome thought. in recent years, science has found more and more things that exist in our universe. All of this just demonstrates that God is infinitely greater than we can imagine.

Some scientists try to have us believe that everything just came from nothing in a “Big Bang.” Then, after things settled down a bit, life created itself with no help from a Creator.

We believe that there is a God who made it all, and that He loves His creation.

Prayer

Lord, the whole of creation sings of your glory. Praise be to God. Amen.

Scripture

Just think how much more the punishment will be for those who have trampled on the Son of God, and have treated the blood of the covenant, which makes us holy, as if it were common and unholy, and having insulted and disdained the Holy Spirit who brings God’s mercy to us .

Observation

If we deliberately and will fully keep sinning after we come into the way of truth, then there is no other sacrifice available to us. Under the law of Moses, those who refused to obey were put to death. How much worse then is the punishment for those who trample on the Lord Jesus.

God has told us that he will take revenge. It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

T he people addressed in this letter were ridiculed, beaten, and imprisoned. but they accepted this suffering with joy. They should endure, remembering the great joy that comes when we remain steadfast.

Application

This passage is not about christians who continue to sin after they are saved. Everybody falls, and as we grow in maturity of faith, we learn how to live according to God’s standards for holiness.

This passage is about people who turn their backs on the way of salvation. They once believed but no longer do so. In the context of the letter, it is directly about those who caved in to pressure from the Jews and returned to obeying the law, thus denying salvation by faith in Christ.

It is sad when anybody turns away from the Lord. It is even worse when they are high profile leaders in the christian community. How often have we heard the phrase, “I no longer identify as a christian.”

Jesus himself said that anyone who denies him in this life will find that He denies them at the Judgement.

This is not to say that there is no chance of redemption for such people. But it is very hard to walk away from Jesus and then to try to come back.

Prayer

Lord, please help me to stay true to you all of my life. Amen.

Scripture

And let us not neglect meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is near.

Observation

We can boldly enter the Most Holy place of Heaven because of the blood of Jesus. His death opened a way through the curtain that separated us from God. Let us go then right into God’s presence.

We must hold tightly to hope, encourage one another in love, and keep on meeting together to build one another up.

Application

Meeting together with our brothers and sisters in the Lord is a basic part of Christian living.

God has called us to be a community of faith, a people who witness together and worship together.

How can we love one another, encourage one another, bear one another’s burdens and so on, unless we actually meet together?

The church functions best when all of its members meet together in large groups and small groups. Meeting is great for worship and instruction. The smaller group is best suited for personal ministry, exhortation and fellowship.

Jesus did not minister as a “Lone Ranger” but through a band of followers whom he trained into ministry.

It is in exploring life together that we become mature in our walk with the Lord.

Prayer

Lord, I thank you for your body, the church. Thank you for all of those brothers and sisters who encourage me regularly. Amen.