16 For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it…
16 For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? 17 Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? 19 So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.' . . .
Hebrews 4:1 'Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it.'
So... in Hebrews, we are warned to not come up short when it comes to faith. The author points out the there was a whole population of Israelites who ended up spending 40 years wandering around and then dying in the wilderness simply because when a word was spoken to them in connection with the power and possibility of what God to do . . . they then, with their mouths, completely denied the possibility of that 'word' or event being able to take place.
Faith, in the bible, is defined as 'the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen'.
In other words, you cannot have faith unless the thing you believe WILL happen has not happened yet. Anything less than this is not faith. And God also happened to mention that 'without faith it is impossible to please God.' Now that can be a dilemma.
So...after pointing out the 40 year tragic wandering and death of the people who refused to believe in the wilderness, the author of Hebrews warns us:
In Hebrews 4:2 he reminds us that the empowering, energizing, encouraging, true words that were spoken to the Israelites long ago on the brink of the promise land by Joshua and Caleb . . . those words did not profit them because the people did not 'mix' faith into those words to bring life to it. It's like taking seeds, throwing them into the ground and not adding water and expecting something to grow. That seed will just sit there, languishing for a while and then die. It will never grow.
So. . . I am wondering now. . . a little to late in many circumstances. . . how many opportunities have I missed in my life where words given to me by the Word of God (Jesus) and His Holy Spirit were not 'watered' by my faith and brought to life. How many times have I been given a word and it did not profit me at all?
I have decided that I want to enter that promised land. In order to enter, I have to obey (Hebrews 4:6)...I have to not harden my heart, be stubborn and not believe His words (Hebrews 4:7).
God's word is alive, powerful, sharp, really sharp and it pierces us and divides our soul and our spirit. God's word brings to light our hidden thoughts and intents of our heart....all of the hidden stuff. Nothing, noone, no thought is hidden from Him and God's word brings it out so we will have no excuse.
Jesus gets this....because He chose to become human. He went through every temptation we will whine about on judgement day. He Himself cried and prayed to God and was heard, by God the Father, because of His Godly fear (Hebrews 5:7) Even though He was God and man he still leaned obedience by suffering.
Amazing.
And then, when He was perfected. . . He became the author of our salvation. He IS that word which we must add faith to in order to be saved, in order to function, in order to thrive, in order to contend, in order to conquer. Faith that He knows what is best, what He says is true, what He means for us is good, what He says we should contend for is ours.
Created 10 months ago
