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Because God wanted to show His unchangeable purpose even more clearly to the heirs of the promise, He guaranteed it with an oath, so that through two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to seize the hope set before us.  Hebrews 6:17-18

Since God is my sanctuary, I must do everything to develop my spiritual life.  Why do I need to do this?   Because there are chinks in my armor and the weak spots need strengthening.

I’m willing to do it in the physical realm.  Following surgery, there is physical therapy. In education, a student weak in mathematics sits under a tutor.  A special needs child requires special needs intervention for his area of challenge. Whatever is weak needs concentrated attention.

In the spiritual, the process is the same. If I’ve got an anger problem, I can’t just throw all the responsibility on God to fix it.  “Lord, heal my anger today.”  I’ve got to commit time and attention because all growth is cooperative.  It takes effort to know God and it takes effort to know myself.  I believe that Christian maturity is this ~ Knowing the truth about God, knowing the truth about me, so that the truth about God can impact the truth about me.

I can know a lot about God but little about my own heart. My spiritual life can be comprised of a Christian education without a thought to my inner world.  The result is that I will know a lot but feel little. I will live shut down and my faith is little more than an intellectual distraction rather than something transformative.

Here are some examples.  An extrovert needs to learn to be quiet.  An introvert needs to learn to reach out.  A peace lover needs to learn to be bold with the truth.  A debater needs to learn when to be quiet and pray instead.  A merciful person needs to know when not to offer help and a person with little mercy needs to express compassion.  So, for me, an introvert and a peacemaker, I must learn how Jesus balanced alone-time with people-time.  I must uncover when Jesus attempted to bring peace and when He introduced conflict.  Until I know Jesus, I will not have a mirror.

Moving beyond personality types, there are sins that cripple us.  Why do we tend to self-pity?  Why do we need to control?  Why are we angry?  Why do we brood?  Why do we need attention?  These questions require prayer, reflection, the disclosure of the Holy Spirit, and feedback from people who know us well.

I need change only the Spirit of God can successfully bring about.  But I can’t say, “Change me.”   That’s ludicrous.  I must prepare the ground for His Spirit to move.  On a Sunday morning, a pastor does not ask God to preach his sermon for him.  He does His part to prepare, consecrate his heart, and then he gets to deliver it clothed in God’s power.

God uses the reflection of His Son to show me my own heart.  He shows me what to confess so that I am full of His Spirit.  Resurrection power can be mine with some personal investment.

I lay down my pride.  Amen

I am complete in Him Who is the head over all rule and authority—of every angelic and earthly power  Colossians 2:10

I remember flying from New England to Atlanta some years ago. It was turbulent and way too stressful to think of reading.  Even music didn’t appeal. I finally closed my eyes and said, “Lord, teach me something powerful that I do not know.”   Slowly, God gave me this picture.  I saw the Spirit of God move into my being – like He did when I was 7 yrs. old and I asked Him to be my Savior.  “I am in you and you are in me,” He said.

Then He let me see what that looked like.  I was like a puzzle piece that He set in place inside His heart.  (It was a space only I could fit into.)  I could see the edges of me, but with time, my puzzle piece began to get fuzzy…like the edges were dissolving.  Soon, I was no longer definable. I had melted into the person of Jesus.  We were one. 

This morning on the way to a dentist appointment, I heard Alistair Begg describe the privilege of being ‘in Christ’ another way.  He talked of wrapping up the smallest infant in layers of blankets.  They are tucked round and round the child and the baby is not even seen from across the room.  You know that somewhere in those blankets, there is a baby.

Somewhere in Christ, tucked in the many layers of God, there is you.  There is me.   The more like Him we become, the more blurred the lines.  This is a deviation from Hebrews but something I’m feasting on today.

 

 

For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.  Hebrews 6:10-11 

‘Sluggish’ is an interesting word and carries the picture of someone dragging their feet.  Do you know anyone who drags their feet on most everything you suggest?  You knew before you mentioned something that you would get resistance.  Nothing you come up with is a great idea.  They see themselves victimized by it somehow.  Now, they might comply but you know they’ll be negative the whole time.  You might say under your breath that it would have been easier to just do it alone.

It’s very humbling to realize that the sluggard can be me. Am I the one dragging my feet where the ideas of God are concerned?  Do the things that excite God excite me?  Does every suggestion from scripture appeal to me or am I the one trying to find excuses to get out of it?  I’ve lived some of my life complying with the commandments of God as if He were unreasonable and I was a victim.  I wanted to do what I wanted to do.    

Paul knew that sluggishness is a temptation.  He said, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”  Galatians 6:9 

What’s the fix for my contrary spirit?  It would appear that I should rise up, give myself a good talking to, and just stop being lazy.  That would be the biggest mistake.  That’s the legalist in me.  I try to talk myself into doing what is right and behave appropriately.  So, what’s wrong with that?  I must realize that this is not a behavioral issue but a heart issue.  God doesn’t want, nor deserve, a whiny child.  He wants a friend/partner who engages with His redemptive plan joyfully.  His ideas are energizing if the Spirit of God is large in me.  If they seem like a drag, my need for quiet time with Jesus has never been greater.  Our love life has been starved by everything else that seemed more appealing.

You don’t need me to do anything.  You invite me. It’s a privilege to be asked.  Fill my heart with joy for every single thing you place in front of me today.  Amen

For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned. Hebrews 6:8 

Would you take a minute and read this scripture several times, ever so slowly?  Get past the wordiness in order to achieve some kind of familiarity because what follows won’t be of any benefit without tying it into this verse from Hebrews.  Now take a deep breath.  Let’s jump in.

This scripture is not about believers and unbelievers.  The book of Hebrews was written to believers and this verse describes two children of God who are walking differently from one another.  They are in polarity.  One receives the rains of God’s Spirit, lets it soak in, and is so fruitful that he receives a blessing from His Father.

The other child of God allows thorns and thistles to overtake his life. The weeds (which are sins left to metastasize over time) have taken over his garden to such an extent that he is long past fruitful.  Nothing has been cultivated for some time and the soil has passed fertility.  The only thing to do now is burn it and start over.  God brings about the fires of judgement.  Extreme adversity causes that believer to look up, repent, and return to communion with His Father.  Fruitfulness follows.

This journey from obedience, into waywardness, and then back to obedience is seen over and over again in the life of Israel.  How stunning was their prosperity while under God’s favor.  But then began their slow descent of disobedience into judgement. Along the way, and in His mercy, God’s Spirit called them to turn back and repent.  The more their landscape was ravaged by weeds however, the less they heard Him, and the less they cared that His voice was out of range.

Adversity was brought about by the hand of God.  It was a merciful adversity, a burning that became a shaping agent in their sanctification.  The judgement caused them to turn back.  Their hard hearts were melted by the heat, then by love and mercy, and repentance was once again on their lips.

You will do anything possible to cause Your children to return to You.  Your heavy hand, working behind the fires of captivity, wields the scepter of love.  Through the fire and the smoke, I once discovered the blessing of adversity. Amen

Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits.  Hebrews 6:1 

I lose so much as God’s created child when I stay in shallow waters.  But you might say, “Knowing the Bible takes so much work.  I don’t have the time or energy for that.  And to be honest, I’m not sure the payoff is worth the investment.”  I’ve been there ~ initially questioning how much joy I’ll get from such a significant investment of time and energy.  Instead, I settled for thoughts about what devotional book to buy, what church would pour into my depleted reservoirs, what good deeds I might do in the way of service that would make God happy with me, segmenting my life into secular and sacred because God’s Word wasn’t familiar enough to help me merge them.

The writer of Hebrews is saying, “Enough already.”  Here is the same scripture in The Message.  So come on, let’s leave the preschool fingerpainting exercises on Christ and get on with the grand work of art. Grow up in Christ. The basic foundational truths are in place: turning your back on “salvation by self-help” and turning in trust toward God; baptismal instructions; laying on of hands; resurrection of the dead; eternal judgment. God helping us, we’ll stay true to all that. But there’s so much more. Let’s get on with it! [The Message] 

God made so many different kinds of people with varying personality types.  Each one is made in His image.  So why should I be surprised to discover that His world, and the kingdom, speak to each person in ways that thrill them.  It speaks to me no matter how I’m wired.  What book can do that!  What person can do that!  It’s spiritual chemistry.

• If I’m a person who needs a mission, God gives me that. It will take a lifetime to unwrap it.
• If I’m a person who genuinely loves to help others, scripture gives me insight into people and what they need. I will engage in serving in the most meaningful way possible because God will energize it.
• If I’m a person who loves to learn, there is enough science in God’s universe to span an eternal existence.
• If I’m a person who loves to dream and create, God is my creative Mentor. Don’t I want a deep relationship with the One who made the world?
• If I’m a person who loves to think and reason, the Scriptures are elegantly written and provide fodder for legal minds.
• If I’m a visual person who thrives on beauty, the world of the kingdom is unveiled in great detail with vivid imagery. It will thrill my soul now, and forever.

What I haven’t mentioned yet is most important. You and I have a voracious appetite for God.  He made us for connection with Him and we are most alive when we live in Christ.  But when we are disconnected and the Spirit is quenched, we don’t feel the longing and can’t imagine that jumping into the deep end of the pool of the Spirit is what we’re really seeking. The most important prayer I’ll pray outside of the sinner’s prayer is this:

“God, awaken my heart to see Your glory and touch the eyes of my heart to see Your Word as You see it.  And then, help me feel what you feel about the scriptures.”  Amen

But solid food is for the mature—for those whose senses have been trained to distinguish between good and evil.  Hebrews 5:14

Just as wisdom is layered and sometimes unpredictable, the same is true with evil.  It can be equally hard to recognize.  You may object and remind me that we teach our children to know basic right from wrong.  Lying vs. telling the truth. Working hard vs. laziness.  Envying vs. sharing another’s joy.  Hoarding vs. giving.  The good is obviously good and the bad even feels evil.

The writer of Hebrews says that I need to prize spiritual maturity because the solid food I get with it helps me distinguish between good and evil.  There is a realm where it’s not so cut and dry.  These are the deeper layers that are riddled with shadows of deception.  For instance, my blind spots prevent me from seeing good and evil clearly.  The deceitfulness of my own heart leads me to make wrong assumptions.  My motives are mixed, too.  Because of that, what appears altruistic might be giving my ego a huge payoff.

I can also make idols of my strengths and though it appears I’m using them for someone else’s good, I get a reward. I alleviate another’s distress with comfort and a gracious gesture, but it just may be that I relish the stories that will be told about my big heart.  What looks like ‘good’ is little more than self-serving behavior.

However, the flip side is also difficult to discern. What seems evil can really be good.   When I withhold an answer from someone who needs it, it can feel unloving but perhaps God has led me to step back so the other person can dig deeply in prayer to hear the Spirit for himself.  Or a rebuke can offend me as I feel it was un-Christlike and unkind, but God may use it to wake me up to something I’ve been unwilling to face.

Living on the milk of the word gives me a Kindergarten definition of good and evil.  The problem is ~ life’s issues have long left grade school.  Many times, I have taken a dilemma I’m facing to someone older and more experienced and it has left them stumped.  They just couldn’t tell what was what without a season of prayer.  Solid food, (i.e. the grasp of scriptural principles against the messy backdrop of life), provides an avenue for wisdom to emerge from around the corner.

My times are complex but Your voice untangles every web to make the way plain.  Write Your Word in my heart, make me a kingdom thinker.  Amen

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. Hebrews 5:12-13

 How do I become good at something?  I learn the basic concepts from a teacher and then I go out and do it myself.  As long as I stay with the instructor and watch him do all the work, I’ll never be anywhere.  I need to be set free to begin personal application.

Think about something you’ve mastered.  Whether a profession, a sport, or something you do at home, you know how, through trial and error, you’ve learned how to master the subtleties.  Most likely, they are fine points you never knew existed when you began so many years ago.  One such skill for me has been singing on a powerful microphone in a studio.  My first experience was at age twenty-one when I recorded my first album.  I was given a little instruction by some industry people.  A producer and a few background singers were invaluable.  I was told that the microphone is so powerful that it’s like putting your voice under a microscope.  I was encouraged to sing with great attention to detail.  I was told that every flutter, breath, crack, and deviation from pitch (even for a second) would be magnified. While I’ve learned all of that is true, those realities are elementary compared to what I’ve learned over four decades in front of a mic.  When you put on headphones and close your eyes, you really get to know your own voice over time.  You learn your where your skill starts and stops.  You know that you might be able to sing a certain note but only in passing while others ~ you can hold strongly for a measure or two.  You learn about full voice and head voice and where each range lies.  You learn about doubling and harmonizing with yourself on multi-tracks.  You learn how to match yourself so that you don’t hear the slightest ripple as one pass rubs against the other.  Let one small imperfection go, and each voice added accentuates the mistake.  Experience has been the classroom.  Experience became the teacher.

Such is the case with scripture.  If I spend my time learning about scripture but never exercise it, I am nowhere.  My walk with Christ might be built on the basics but without personal application, I never enter into what experience begs to teach me.  Only with repeated application will I learn the ins and outs of a spiritual concept.  I will learn how faith works within my own personal makeup. I will learn how well I trust in some areas but fail to trust in others.  I will learn my own limits and be able to predict failure.  I will learn more about the fine points of my own vulnerabilities and be able to guard against an enemy who strategizes to specifically target them.  I will understand more about God’s promises; both what He meant when He promised it and how it is actualized.

To stay in the schoolroom is to live on the milk of the Word.  I’m a chubby baby without refined spiritual muscles.  To gain vast experience, to know myself and to know my Lord, I must leave the nest and live on solid food.  Maturity results when knowledge is tested through application, one day at a time.  The more the experience, the more wisdom is revealed, layer upon layer, precept upon precept.

The real question that comes to me today is this, Lord.  What specific thing haven’t I applied because I’ve been too afraid.  When will I take the leap? I’ll be looking at that.  Amen

As he says also in another place, “You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.” Hebrews 5:6

Every language is limited in descriptors.  For instance, the word ‘love’ is vast.  Saying that I love pizza and I love my child are far removed from each other.  If you tell me that your father was the kindest person you’ve ever known, I would ask you, “Tell me how he was kind.”  Your stories would help me understand kindness as it related to him.

These challenges in language apply to attempts to describe Jesus.  When I read that He was compassionate, I can think of compassion as something I have experienced from others.  The problem is that the compassion of Jesus is way outside the box of normality. Take any of His attributes and they are so far out on the continuum that they test our ability to comprehend them.  This wordlessness is the foundation of worship and the beginning of awe.

Today’s description of a high priest is related.  First, if God hadn’t instituted the office, there would be no such thing.  We wouldn’t put the word ‘high’ with the word ‘priest’.  The tribe of Levi would have no distinction.  But God always thinks and plans outside the box.  If you were a contemporary of Aaron, how could you have known that the concept of a high priest would be so important in a book called Hebrews?  How could you have known that a Messiah would come and be known as the great High Priest?  Aaron would have asked, “And what will make him a great high priest, a priest like none other?”  Descriptors are needed yet again.

To help you and I understand that Jesus is distinct from all other high priests, God created a man named Melchizedek.  He lived in the time of Abram, many generations before God’s people would be delivered out of exile, far before the Levitical system would even exist.  Yet because God is eternal and lives outside of time, He knew that Melchizedek’s life was significant for believers down through the ages as a way for us to understand how different Jesus was from all other priests.  He was not from the tribe of Levi as Levi hadn’t been born yet.  Melchizedek might be the only character in the book of Genesis whose lineage was not unwrapped.  He comes out of nowhere.  He is a king, and a priest, and blesses Abram so powerfully that Abram tithes to his ministry, the first instance of a tithe in scripture.  Melchizedek’s name means ‘My King is righteousness.’  To say that Jesus is of the order of Melchizedek is to set him apart from all other priests.  Jesus had no beginning and will have no end.  He does not have a lineage either as He is not begotten of anyone.

Melchizedek is a big descriptor of Jesus as High Priest.  Equating him with Aaron and the sons of Levi is as limiting as saying that God is loving as you and I are loving.  I’m so glad that God wrote history and included a King of Salem in our history to influence our understanding of how different Jesus is from the mainstream of High Priests down through the ages.  This High Priest is the sacrifice and is the only One worthy of worship.

This is so deep, Lord, that I can’t take it in.  What a story You have written down through the ages.  You connect the dots like no one I’ll ever know.  Amen

And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was. So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you.”  Hebrews 5:4-5

Self-imposed honors are out of bounds for the child of God.  Seeking to self-advance goes against every intention of a holy God for children.  He owns His creation.  He knows what’s best.  He makes poor and makes rich.  He promotes and He also humbles.

He is the One who must initiate a holy call.  Every other calling to a holy office is a counterfeit.  Not only is the counterfeit not appointed, he will not be anointed.  In Old Testament times ~

• A high priest had to be called by God.
• Jesus also waited to be appointed by God.
• He could not assume this position because He believed himself to be qualified.
• Jesus, who was qualified in every way, did not usurp His position either.
• A high priest offered gifts and sacrifices to atone for the people’s sin.
• Jesus offered the gift, and the sacrifice, of Himself to atone for people’s sin.

He humbled Himself to walk as the God-Man, but He was the Perfect Man, leaving for us an example to follow in His steps.  If He chose obedience, even in His perfection, how can I think of deviating one iota from every Word of God!

Finally, in every society since the beginning of time, there has been the presence of a priesthood system.  Ancient Assyria had priests.  So did Babylon.  Even Egypt had priests and Joseph married the daughter of one.  Mankind has always been conscious of his own sin; aware that he was morally corrupted.  There is a Chinese proverb that says: “There are two good men ~ one is dead, the other is not yet born.”  The fact that priests have existed in every culture and in every religion seems to point to the fact that mankind knows he cannot take care of his own sin-sickness.  Even pagans long for a pardon.

In every culture, sacrifices to please the gods involve the shedding of blood.  “The life of the creature is in the blood.”  Leviticus 17:11  Gruesome deaths occurred, and still occur in a perverse attempt to receive atonement.  The good news of the Gospel is that Jesus satisfied all requirements of the Law by offering Himself as the perfect sacrifice.

You are my perfect High Priest, appointed by Your Father.  You assumed Your position through much suffering.  Thank you for pardoning me.  Amen

For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness.  Hebrews 5:1-2

Condemnation is a terrible thing.  It’s bad when I inflict it on myself but it’s just as bad when I bring it down on someone else’s head.  If I set myself up to be above them, then I will have a negative reaction when they fail.  I’ll say, “How could you do such a thing?”  This drives the one I am condemning away from the cross, not towards it.  It multiples shame and makes it that much more difficult for that person to accept God’s love and forgiveness.

Choosing a high priest was a serious business.  He was to take sin seriously but within the parameters of his own personal humility.  He was called to serve the spiritual needs of others, not use his position to make them feel small.  He was to deal gently with their failings because he was very much in touch with his own weaknesses.  How easy it was for priests to become drunk with their own importance and create more laws for the common man.  They made their burden heavy and that’s what Jesus condemned!

I am to take this scripture in on a personal level.  In the New Testament, I am told that as a believer, I am part of the kingdom of priests.  I am here to serve others’ spiritual needs, to be an agent of reconciliation, bearing them up with humility and patience.

• Am I soft on my own sin, excusing my own behavior?
• Am I soft on others’ sins because my sensitivity is dulled by my own waywardness?
• Have I found the balance between loving righteousness while living in God’s grace?
• Do I have an innate understanding of how easily I am tempted to do the unthinkable?
• Do I offer that same consideration to others?
• Do people around me find me someone to whom they can confess their sins and share their burdens?

The qualification for priests has not changed.  What has changed is who it is that serves in the role.  It is now you.  It is now me.  If I am authentic on my journey about my own propensity to sin, if I am generous with stories about my need for confession, and if I am brimming over with personal accounts of God’s mercy and forgiveness, then I fulfill the qualifications of today’s scripture.  A brother or sister who has lost their way will find me an agent of healing as they return to cross centered living.  What I daily receive, I can give away effectively.  But what I try to teach outside of personal experience, this will always falls flat.

Show me if my own sin still condemns me.  I need You to be my High Priest today before I can help anybody else. Amen