As We Wait…Heart-to-Heart
How many times have believers read and pondered Hebrews 12:1-3? Each time I’ve heard a message preached on these verses I’m always convicted.
Note … I did not say “condemned.” When I feel condemnation, it makes me want to isolate … hiding while I am beating myself up for being so weak or ‘stuck’ … and nothing changes. After licking my wounds … distractions come, and life goes on.
These verses in Hebrews, indicative of the kindness of Jesus, settle over my mind and heart with His gentle call to repent and be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. When conviction settles in my soul, with my whole heart, I long to be transformed. But … distractions come, and life goes on.
Today, in this very hour, many distractions have been eliminated from our schedules. For some, schedules have been eliminated altogether. Preparations have already been made to hunker down in quarantine. And we’ve probably never before had the ‘gift-of-time’ granted to us as we do right now. Can it be that it has arrived in a grievous, ugly, smelly, brown wrapped package and smuggled across enemy lines to get this gift to us … to be used for the transformation of the church and the salvation of many? [Genesis 50:20]
“Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit … enlighten the eyes of our hearts so that we may know YOU better. Tune the ears of our hearts to hear and know Your voice with clarity. We do not want to waste the ‘gift-of-time’ that You have given us.”
Thank You, Jesus, that You desire to finish in the Spirit what You began in the Spirit.
Hebrews 12:1-3 AMPC
“Therefore then, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses [who have borne testimony to the Truth], let us strip off and throw aside every encumbrance (unnecessary weight) and the sin which so readily (deftly and cleverly) clings to and entangles us, and let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the appointed course of the race that is set before us. Looking away [from all that will distract] to Jesus, Who is the Leader and the Source of our faith [giving the first incentive for our belief] and is also its Finisher [bringing it to maturity and perfection]. He, for the joy [of obtaining the prize] that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising and ignoring the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Just think of Him Who endured from sinners such grievous opposition and bitter hostility against Himself [reckon up and consider it all in comparison with your trials], so that you may not grow weary or exhausted, losing heart and relaxing and fainting in your minds.”
With our earnest, intense, expectation confidently in Jesus may we press on,
Roz