Today in the first 8
verses, we find the author of Hebrews warning this group of
Christians to stand firm on their faith and to persevere in the truths
they had learned: “Therefore let us get past the elementary
stage in the teachings about the Christ, advancing on to maturity and perfection and spiritual
completeness, [doing this] without laying again a foundation of repentance from
dead works and of faith toward God… “(V 1)
Since Christianity did
grow out of Judaism, it was easy for a Jewish Christian to slip back into some
Jewish practices. These Jewish Christians did not want to abandon their
new faith, but they went back to this kind of “comfort zone”, to avoid
persecution.
This is exactly what
is happening to some Christians in these days, too! What do you see in the world today? Watching
the news we only find chaos, suffering and persecution. How about our personal
lives? We also encounter difficult and hopeless situations at times, but that
is why Christ came and why he gave us His Holy Spirit… We must not waver in our
faith!
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“Therefore we
must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from
it.” (2:1).
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“Consider it nothing but joy, my [b]brothers and sisters,
whenever you fall into various trials. 3 Be assured
that the testing of your faith [through experience] produces endurance [leading
to spiritual maturity, and inner peace]. 4 And let
endurance have its perfect result and do a thorough work, so
that you may be perfect and completely developed [in your faith], lacking in
nothing….” 6 But
he must ask [for wisdom] in faith, without doubting [God’s willingness to
help], for the one who doubts is like a billowing surge of the sea that is
blown about and tossed by the wind.” (James 1:2-4,6)
So let us not be discouraged because God’s promises are reliable.
(6:13-18)
We are not alone and in Him we find HOPE.! “ This
hope [this confident assurance] we have as an anchor of the soul [it cannot
slip and it cannot break down under whatever pressure bears upon it]—a safe and
steadfast hope that enters within the veil [of the heavenly temple, that most
Holy Place in which the very presence of God dwells], 20 where
Jesus has entered [in advance] as a forerunner for us, having become a High
Priest forever according to the order of [e]Melchizedek.” (6:19-20)
The anchor was
a common figure for hope in the ancient world. Here the idea is that
we are anchored to something firm but unseen (which enters the Presence behind
the veil).
· We need the anchor
to hold the ship and keep it from being wrecked.
· We need the anchor
to stabilize the ship and keep it more comfortable for those on board.
· We need the anchor
to allow the ship to maintain the progress it has made.
“And just as sailors sometimes
send the anchor ahead that they may have a fixed point towards which to warp
themselves, so, if our anchor is that Christ who has passed into the heavens,
He will draw us, in due time, whither He Himself has gone. A calm steady hope
fixed upon the enthroned Christ, our fore-runner, and the pattern of what we
shall he if we trust Him, will make us steadfast and victorious in all our
sorrows, Burdens, changes, and temptations. Without it life is indeed as
‘futile then as frail,’ and our only ‘hope of answer’ to its torturing
problems, or of ‘redress’ of its manifold pains is ‘Behind the veil, behind the
veil.’ Such a hope knits us to the true stay of our souls, and is a cord not
easily Broken. As for men’s hopes fixed on earth, they are fragile and filmy as
the spiders’ webs, which, in early autumn mornings, twinkle dewy in every copse,
and are gone by midday.
My brother! You have this great faculty; what do you do with it, and where do
you fix it? You have a personal concern in that future, whether you think about
it and like it or not. What is your hope for that future, and what is the
ground of your hope? Let me beseech you, fasten the little vessel of your life
to that great anchor, Christ, who has died, and who lives for you. And then,
though the thread between you and Him be but slender and fragile, it will not
be a dead cable, but a living nerve, along which His own steadfast life will
pour, making you steadfast like Himself, and at last fulfilling and
transcending your highest hopes in eternal fruition of His own blessedness.”
(Bible Hub Heb. 6:19 Commentaries -MacLaren’s Exposition)
Thank
you Father for Jesus, our only Hope!!
Blessings
my sisters!
Mari