Hebrews 12- God's Discipline Yields Rightousness

⁹ Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live?
 ¹⁰ For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness.
 ¹¹ All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

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Bring on the discipline if that is what it takes to "share in His holiness" and produce "peaceful fruit of righteousness".  I thank God for the learning, growing and changing He has produced in my life.  We must be soft to His will through every situation.  He is sovereign and uses life's situations to train, discipline and mold us.  We are much better off rolling with His teaching than working so diligently to do what we want, and failing.  God has only our best interest in mind and more importantly does all things for His own glory!

Hebrews 11- Pleasing God

 ⁵ By faith Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death; AND HE WAS NOT FOUND BECAUSE GOD TOOK HIM UP; for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God.
 ⁶ And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.

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The encouraging Faith Chapter...This verse really stood out to me this morning because I had just heard a similar statement last night during our Churches Summer Series.  The speaker had been impacted as an early believer by the statements found in scripture where different people had "pleased God".   This is another of those statements.  Enoch seems to be a man to study... If you did not notice above it was not a single action that pleased God, but was in a constant state of pleasing God.  Continually... what an incredible testimony to have.

Hebrews 10- Christ's Sacrifice is Final

 ⁵Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says,
         "SACRIFICE AND OFFERING YOU HAVE NOT DESIRED,
         BUT A BODY YOU HAVE PREPARED FOR ME;
    ⁶IN WHOLE BURNT OFFERINGS AND sacrifices FOR SIN YOU HAVE TAKEN NO PLEASURE.
    ⁷"THEN I SAID, 'BEHOLD, I HAVE COME
         (IN THE SCROLL OF THE BOOK IT IS WRITTEN OF ME)
         TO DO YOUR WILL, O GOD.'"
 ⁸After saying above, "SACRIFICES AND OFFERINGS AND WHOLE BURNT OFFERINGS AND sacrifices FOR SIN YOU HAVE NOT DESIRED, NOR HAVE YOU TAKEN PLEASURE in them" (which are offered according to the Law),
 ⁹then He said, "BEHOLD, I HAVE COME TO DO YOUR WILL." He takes away the first in order to establish the second.
 ¹⁰By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

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Hebrews 9- Our Calling to an Eternal Inheritance

 ¹¹ But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation;
 ¹² and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.
 ¹³ For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh,
 ¹⁴ how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
 ¹⁵ For this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

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Hebrews 8- Christ Heavenly Ministry

 ⁶ But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as He is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises.

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What an Awesome God we serve, Who has placed His Son, Christ, as the mediator for each of us.  We are able to go directly to Jesus with our thanksgiving, worries, requests and to seek forgiveness.

Hebrews 7- Christ: Our Hope and Salvation

 ¹⁸ For, on the one hand, there is a setting aside of a former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness
 ¹⁹ (for the Law made nothing perfect), and on the other hand there is a bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.

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Jesus Christ had to come to this earth to save us from our sin because, as Scripture points out repeatedly, the Law made (or can make) NOTHING perfect.  God requires nothing less than perfection!  Being good by our own (or our parents) standard does not even get God's attention.  The only thing our own efforts can produce is sin.

Think about it...  If I work really hard to be good, who am I impressing?  Not God, likely myself, maybe some others... Okay, so what does that produce?  Pride, false confidence, false hope.  No matter what we do on our own, it is doomed to produce sin in our lives!

The only thing which we can confidently place our trust in is Jesus Christ.  That is the Hope being spoken of in vs. 19, through which we can draw near to GOD.  What an amazing concept!  Even though God demands perfection, He has created a path through the "red tape" and enabled us to be forgiven, IF WE DO NOTHING ON OUR OWN, BUT ALLOW CHRIST TO WORK IN US!

Has anything similar been done in all of history?  I doubt it...You deserve eternal death, but if you let Me do everything for you, I will reward you with eternal life in the presence of Christ & God.  ...wow...

Hebrews 4- The Word & Our Christ

 ¹² For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
 ¹³ And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.
 ¹⁴ Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.
 ¹⁵ For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.
 ¹⁶ Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

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