Hebrews 12:1-2 -“run with endurance the race that is set before us” I want to run my own race, not the race that God set before me. I want to follow my own desires, my own priorities, my own plans, not God’s. I rebel against His ways, telling myself I don’t have time or that I have pressing priorities. Verse 2 has the key: “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith“. Jesus endured for the joy set before him for our sake. If my focus is on Him, running the race should not be burdensome. It only becomes so when my focus is on me.
Hebrews 12:11 – I long for “the peaceful fruit of righteousness” that comes from discipline from the Lord. But, to receive it I have to allow myself to be trained by His discipline.
Hebrews 12:18-24 – Interesting contrast here. The author contrasts the mountain of the Lord in Moses’ day where no one was allowed to approach. It was an Earthly place where God dwelt, but because of His holiness and our unholiness, no one was to come near. It’s a vision of power and fear. But, he says we have instead come to God’s actual citry, the heavenly Jerusalem. One would assume that if the Earthly copy was unapproachable, the true city in heaven would be even more so. But no, we, “the righteous made perfect”, are welcome and are the assembly.
Because of Jesus’ blood, we are welcome in God’s house where the people before weren’t even welcome in a replica of God’s house.
Hebrews 12:25-29 – It’s tempting to view my relationship with God as buddies. It is true that through Jesus I have the kind of relationship that the Jews of old could only dream of, yet I must remember, He is still God, not simply a mentor or coach or trainer. My relationship with him, though intimate and personal, must be one first of submission, reverence and awe. God does not suffer fools.

Hebrews 11:1-3 – Notice that it does not say that the universe was created by God out of nothing, but that “what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.” But still, the fact that God made it at his word is something we take on faith, not on reason or empirical evidence.
Hebrews 11:4-31 The interesting thing about these faith heroes is that each of them took their faith and acted on it. In many cases, their faith is manifested in obedience to direct commands or instructions. Not an original observation I suppose, but my tendency, and I suspect many others’, is to equate faith with emotion or belief or something internal or intellectual. It must be more if it is to be real.
Hebrews 11:13 – “These all died in faith“. Certainly, the did not start their faith journey thinking they would not see what had been promised, but at some point it must have become clear that God wasn’t going to deliver the promise in their lifetime. Yet, they did not waver in their faith. Why not? Because faith delivers along the way to the ultimate promise. For Christians, that ultimate promise is heaven, but along the way, a life of faith delivers rewards unforeseen at the start that propel us onward.
Hebrews 11:13-16 – People of faith are looking forward, to the future promises, while living in the presence. For followers of God, our present actions are informed and influenced by looking forward, in faith.
Henrews 11:26 – Faith alters our worldview, redefines riches, winning and losing.

Hebrews 10:1-4 – It’s obvious, in hindsight, that the temple system, as a copy of the realities in heaven, could not fully cleanse those who participated in it. But look at what he says in verse 2. He says that if those sacrifices had been perfect, the worshipers “would no longer have any consciousness of sins”. Isn’t the implication here that since Jesus’ sacrifice is perfect, that we who have been cleansed should no longer have any consciousness of our sins. Does that describe you? Me neither, however, it is illuminating as to what our attitude ought to be in regard to our past sins.
Hebrews 10:11-14 – Stop for a minute and take in this picture of Jesus. Seated and comfortable because he work on our behalf is complete, awaiting a footstool made from his enemies.
Hebrews 10:17 – If God himself has decided to remember our sins no more, why should we?
Hebrews 10:19 – We have confidence to enter the most holy place. I imagine on that once per year when the high priest entered the most holy place,he likely did so tentatively, having made sure, double and triple checked that he had met all the requirements. But because of Jesus, we already have full confidence to enter ourselves.
Hebrews 10:24-25 – This passage, so often used to admonish those who have stopped coming to church, is powerless separated from the few verses before which themselves rest on the preceding chapters. Having such a great savior, having such a superior sacrifice, having such confidence to enter – why would you not want to be around other disciples? Not out of an obligation to obey, if that’s why then you’ve forgotten what has been done for you. Taken as a commandment, it has no more power than any other. No, it is in light of Jesus and what he’s done, the amazing grace bestowed upon you, that you cannot help but long to be around those who share it as well.
Hebrews 10:26-31 – If after Jesus went so far to redeem you, after the lengths he was willing to go to is known, if then you still treat sin casually, as if it wasn’t a big deal or if it didn’t matter, then there is nothing left. Jesus left no more room for additional redemption, he went all the way,as far as there is to go, to make our redemption sure, undoubted and absolutely complete. If we then refuse to take sin seriously, we have nothing to expect but the wrath of God.
Hebrews 10:32-39 – Read between the lines here. This book wasn’t written primarily to prove to the Hebrews the truth of the gospel, nor to give them insight into its inner workings, although it does both. No, these were folks who had forgotten what they had received and he longs for them to be reignited by the fire of the gospel, the glory that is in what Jesus had done for them. It was no less glorious, but the memory of it had faded. We all need to be reminded, on a regular basis, of the glories of the gospel that we might not shrink back into a like of sin and guilt.

Hebrews 9:9-10 – The temple system was imperfect, temporary and was only in place until a better, more perfect way could be established.
Hebrews 9:11 – I imagine that the Most Holy Place in the temple was a place of awe and much curiosity among the devout. It was where God lived, so holy and pure that only the High priest may go there, only one per year and never without a sacrifice. It was the most perfect place on this Earth and I imagine many devout Jews dreaming of what it must be like.
Yet, when Jesus came and when he appeared as High Priest, it wasn’t good enough for Him. It was the best Earth could offer, but the job he had to do, the best we have wasn’t good enough. He demanded the perfection that could only be found in the true temple in heaven.
Hebrews 9:12 – Not only was the earthly temple not sufficient, the sacrifice required for once and all justification could not be accomplished by goats and calves. It demanded purity only found in God, only in Jesus’ own blood.
It should not be shocking that our failings should demand such a sacrifice, rather it should be shocking that He would agree to it.
Hebrews 9:13 – The old sacrifices were enough to purify the flesh – for a time. But Jesus’ blood is able to purify all the way to our consciences.
It brings to mind that scene in MacBeth where Lady MacBeth continues to wash her hands, in her mind never quite cleansing them of the blood that was spilled. Surely, the water did remove the actual blood from her flesh, but the stain on her conscience remained. No amount of water would remove that.
It is the same with the sacrifices offered in the temple, or our own penitent acts of sacrifice, be they the proverbial ‘Hail Mary’ or the promise of devotion made to God in a moment of desperation. They may heal for a moment, but the guilt remains on our soul. Jesus’ blood, however, cleanses through and through, no guilt remains. We are clean, completely and thoroughly in a way that is so foreign to our thinking as to be almost incomprehensible. If we do truly understand it, we are likely to dismiss it as too scandalous, and not just for we pay nothing for our sins. But that is the amazing in Amazing Grace, it is completely unfair and we get away, in some cases literally, with murder.

Hebrews 8:1-7 – In Hebrews 7, we find that Jesus is a priest of a different order entirely than the priests that they are familiar with. Here, in the beginnings of Hebrews 8, the writer continues to drive the supremacy of Christ the priest home. Not only does he come from a superior line with superior power and superior authority, he serves in a superior temple – the real temple, where God lives permanently. Not the copy made on earth, he sits aside the real throne in heaven.
Though God instituted the Earthly temple and the Earthly priesthood, and it was therefore excelent, it was only a shadow of what Christ already was and would be.
Hebrews 8:9-12 – The problem with the original covenant was not the covenant itself, but us. We simply could not keep it, though we desired to. God knew this, but the old covenant had to be made to establish for us our need for a better covenant in which God himself fulfilled both ends of the bargain. “I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts” he says. We will not commit to them, we cannot. Rather God himself will place His commands in our hearts Himself, through Jesus.

Hebrews 7:1 – Melchizedek, other than this mention here (quoted from Psalm 110) and the account of Abraham in Genesis 14, is an unknown, yet he was a king and “priest of the Most High God”. We like to think that the Bible is the story of God’s people, his only people. But then, there’s Melchizedek, “priest of the Most High God”, and we know almost nothing about him. The implication here is that God has others, and has had others, not mentioned in the Bible. In John 10:16, Jesus refers to sheep ‘not of this sheep pen’. Now I wouldn’t get carried away and say that means that other, non Christian religions are therefore valid, but it does imply that the story of the Bible is not eh only story of a people of God. In other words, there are others following HIm that aren’t even mentioned.
Hebrews 7:16 – This is one of my favorite verses in the Bible, Jesus became a High Priest “not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life.” The power of an indestructible life! What’s even more amazing is that Jesus has passed that indestructible life to us. Do we believe that? If we truly grasped the life handed to us, how would we live?
I could stop and meditate on the second half of this chapter for hours. Jesus “is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Heb. 7:25), he’s “the guarantor of a better covenant” (Heb. 7:22) and he is “holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.” (Heb. 7:26). What we have been given in Jesus is far, far, far more than we could have asked or imagined and far, far, far more magnificent than we realize.
Lord, forgive me for living as if I have an adequate savior.

Hebrews 6:1-3 – A couple of things struck me here in these first 3 verses:
1 – ‘Repentance from dead works’ is an ‘elementary doctrine’. At first, I thought of repentance as in ‘stop sinning’. But, repentance isn’t really that. We simply cannot stop sinning, if we could we wouldn’t need Jesus. Besides, as Ed Anton pointed out in his book on Repentance, repentance is not a change of action (as I was so often taught),it’s a change of heart and mind, reorienting ourselves away from self and towards God.
With that in mind, I’m thinking that ‘repentance from dead works’ is a shift of the mind from our human way of thinking that we work our way into acceptance or righteousness or just being a good person, to the gospel where our faith is credited to us as righteousness.. The way of ‘works’ is dead, we need a new living way.
2 – “And this we will do, if God permits” We can only do as much as God allows. Sometimes we need to camp on the ‘elementary doctrines’ for a while, and God won’t allow us to move on just yet.
Hebrews 6:7-8 – This is the ‘fake grace’ I was eluding to in my last post. Not that works was part of the salvation process or somehow required, but that true grace produces fruit. It does not simply exist on it’s own. Grace that produces nothing, or ‘thorns and thistles’, is ‘worthless and near to being cursed’. My heart is convicted that the grace I’ve received is producing little more than feelings of relief and contentment. The gospel of Jesus is so much more precious and powerful than that.
Hebrews 6:13-20 – The whole oath and two things part of this passages turns my mind in knots. What I love here is the picture of God providing for “we who have fled for refuge“. God, steadfast, reliable, firm in the midst of our storms (why else would we seek refuge?), is both aware of our struggle and seeks to give our battered selves ‘strong encouragement’. but not only that, but this encouragement, this hope, is not simply good tidings. It is an anchor straight to the most holy place, where God lives and where man is unworthy to go. Jesus himself, though, is worthy and he went there, carrying this anchor and left it there so that we will never be disconnected from God.
Jesus went to God’s house, left an anchor there and he’s handed you the other end of the rope.
Think about that for a bit and see if your mind isn’t blown.

Hebrews 5:8 – It says that Jesus “learned obedience through what he suffered.” He didn’t learn it from instruction or study, but through what he suffered. I don’t want to suffer, I don’t want to work, I just want to be and do right. But being and doing right comes through work and suffering.
Hebrews 5:11-14:

About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

I feel like this is me. Funny, for a long time I’d read this passage and think that I was not still on milk. I doubt the Hebrews that this was written to felt that they were either and most who read it don’t think they are.
But when I read this this time around, I knew I was needing milk. A big part of this is simply that I’m realizing that I’m not as smart or talented as I think I am. I think that’s true of humanity, we think we’ve accomplished much, we are smart and clever and have figured things out. We deceive ourselves, avoiding contemplating our sins. We are simply weak as humans apart from God. We need milk, not solid food.
It’s good to face that head on, if it turns us to God and to work, with His strength and grace. I think when we embrace our weakness, allowing it to drive us to our knees in humility and in prayer, and we embrace the grace freely offered us despite our weakness, we can then be supernaturally empowered to climb the mountain ahead of us, through the grace that comes from the cross.
But I’m realizing that’s not where I’ve been. I’ve seen my weakness and accepted it instead of accepting God’s grace which can make me strong. I’ve accepted some kind of fake grace that simply says “You’re weak, but God has still chosen you.” Real grace, and the gospel of Christ, doesn’t stop there. It empowers and emboldens us to work. Not work for acceptance, but work because of acceptance and because He works and because we want to be like Him.
I’ve settled for fake grace, and that will no longer do.

Hebrews 4:1 – “Therefore … ” Again, I’m prompted to look back and see what this ‘therefore’ refers to. The Israelites lost the opportunity to enter His rest because of their unbelief. That possibility exists for us, but as long as we have breath in our lungs, the promise is still there. The writer here says as long as that promise stands, “let us fear“. Fear what? Fear the one who can revoke that promise.
Hebrews 4:10 – “for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.” I think we, or at least I do, think of this rest as Heaven to come, a time of no tears, no pain, no sorrow. However, this struck me differently. When we fall on our knees before God, acknowledging our sinfulness and inadequacy, and he takes us in, we then and there enter rest from our works. No longer do we work for justification, validation, sanctification and acceptance. We are all of these and more through him who came and died, and we can now, finally, rest from those fruitless and futile works.
Note, he doesn’t say we rest from ‘work’ but from ‘works’. Notice also, in the promises of heaven, we are not promised freedom from work, only pain, tears and death.
Hebrews 4:11 – There’s a little bit of irony here in the writer calling us to ‘strive’ to enter that rest. It’s a fact of man’s existence that letting go of our need to justify ourselves rather than rest in His justification is an ongoing battle. We are drawn to make something of ourselves rather than letting God make us into something of His own. So we strive to rest from our works.
Hebrews 4:14-16 – Read through this, and savor each and every word and see if it does not move you:

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.