Hebrews 10  - Motivate and Encourage

Well, even for the most charmed, things get tough.  If you’ve been on the Christian walk for a while, you’ve tasted spiritual and physical hardship, crisis, suffering, and loss.  You’ve likely had something stolen from you - something like property, or something like a career role, a sports position, or your good reputation.  

Have you tasted that?  Have you experienced life getting real?  Injustice.  I suspect you have.  If we look back over our lives - especially for those of us getting long in the tooth - we can see God’s grace and His discipline through many situations.  God’s way builds our character.  

This is one of the best chapters in the Bible.  Let’s cherish it.  It reminds us of who Jesus is.  And that He waits patiently for the hour of His return.  Likewise, we are to be patient and to persevere.  Let this chapter motivate us and give us the resolve to do right by Jesus - no matter the cost.

It’s funny, you know, challenges come in many ways.  Sometimes, ironically, our biggest challenges come when we are having the most success.  Beware of the thrill of the high, it is a dangerous place to be.  God sees how we deal with failure and suffering and He sees how we deal with success, acclaim, and accomplishments.  You see, the living God is perfectly loving and perfectly just.

God loves us.   He cares about us.  At our lowest point, when we seem to have no hope.  And at our highest high when we feel like life is all that it should be.  God loves us in every circumstance.

But don’t take Jesus Christ for a fool.  A dupe.  You may be able to trick your mother or con your peers, but you will never put one past God.  He can’t be cheated.  His save percentage is one thousand.

As it says in Lamentations, “Restore us, O LORD, and bring us back to you again!  Give us back the joys we once had” (5:21).  We are restored when we understand what Jesus did and does for us and when we obey Him with confidence and humility.

And let this chapter eliminate any confusion in the church about how we have our sins forgiven - how to be made holy before God.  The Apostle Peter struggled with this even though God showed him in dreams and with miracles (Galatians 2:11-21).  We can't hold a candle to Peter, so don't think for a second that we are beyond confusion or reproach.  Just as Paul boldly confronted Peter, this chapter tells us that it was always God’s will that people were “to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all time” (10:10).

That is a key verse.  It is only through Jesus.  One way to new life.  Take your guilty conscience before Christ today.  Only He can make it clean.  And He will.  And may no man call unclean what God has called clean (Acts 10:9-16).

Finally for today, let this verse from this chapter lift us up and encourage us to do right before God, “Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works” (10:24).

Thank you, Lord Jesus.  No matter what comes our way today, may we live this day in service to You for what You have done for us.  Amen.

In my study, in Lynchburg, VA.