Scripture Reading--Hebrews 12:1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.
4 Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.(King James Version)
Hebrews 12: Discipline in a Long-Distance Race
1-3 Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!
4-11 In this all-out match against sin, others have suffered far worse than you, to say nothing of what Jesus went through—all that bloodshed! So don’t feel sorry for yourselves. Or have you forgotten how good parents treat children, and that God regards you as his children?
My dear child, don’t shrug off God’s discipline,
but don’t be crushed by it either.
It’s the child he loves that he disciplines;
the child he embraces, he also corrects.
God is educating you; that’s why you must never drop out. He’s treating you as dear children. This trouble you’re in isn’t punishment; it’s training, the normal experience of children. Only irresponsible parents leave children to fend for themselves. Would you prefer an irresponsible God? We respect our own parents for training and not spoiling us, so why not embrace God’s training so we can truly live? While we were children, our parents did what seemed best to them. But God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God’s holy best. At the time, discipline isn’t much fun. It always feels like it’s going against the grain. Later, of course, it pays off handsomely, for it’s the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God.(The Message)
Text for Today--Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.(Philippians 3:13-14, King James Version)
Focused on the Goal
I’m not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don’t get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back.(Philippians 3:12-14, The Message)
One thing I do. Paul refers to the way he has come, to th fact that God has laid hold of him for glorious destiny, and of his own effort to lay hold of that for which God has laid hold of him. Forgetting the things that are behind, pressing toward the things on before. Right between the things past and the things toward which he presses he waits to give this emphasis to the present condition. There are things which are past, there are things which are future, but the one most vital thing is my present experience and relation. Paul waits to say, "I am now in a condition, a relation, an experience. I live in the present. I dwell upon one thing; I am filled with it; I am environed and ensphered by this one fact." Every blood-washed spirit has his place before the throne, where he worships God day and night in His temple, he is always in the royal presence; he always has the ear of the King.
No wonder Paul waited in the procession of thought between the past and the future say, "One Thing."
"Rivers to the ocean run,
Nor stay in the course;
Fire ascending seek the sun;
Both speed them to their source;
So a soul that that's born of God,
Pants to view His glorious face;
Forward tends to His abode,
To rest in His embrace."(Robert Seagrave).
The First Devotional by Phineas F. Bresee.
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