Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession: Jesus; He was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was in all His house. For He has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later; but Christ was faithful as a Son over His house—whose house we are, if we hold firmly to our confidence and the boast of our hope.
Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says,
“Today if you hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts as when they provoked Me,
As on the day of trial in the wilderness,
Where your fathers put Me to the test,
And saw My works for forty years.
Therefore I was angry with this generation,
And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart,
And they did not know My ways’;
As I swore in My anger,
‘They certainly shall not enter My rest.’”
Take care, brothers and sisters, that there will not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another every day, as long as it is still called “today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we keep the beginning of our commitment firm until the end, while it is said,
“Today if you hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts, as when they provoked Me.”
For who provoked Him when they had heard? Indeed, did not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose dead bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient? And so we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief. Hebrews 3 NASB
The hardest thing in life might be in regards to our Spiritual senses.
To not believe what the Spirit shows, to harbor unbelief either in regards to salvation or in the midst of a walk with Jesus.
The scope and magnitude of the wide open chasm that is Hell vs the narrow way into Heaven is lost on most of mankind. The reality of the Scriptures both coming true and what's yet to come true as well as the parts that indeed are indisputably having come true already...ought to give us pause to take them seriously.
I found a post that I had made years ago in my Facebook memories. In it I had made mention of some things that I was letting go of in this world. Allegiances to a few sports teams.
Christians ought to be a lot more discerning in their outlook on life in view of God’s Word.
We ought to, again as the Bible says, live life in such a way that those in the present darkness ask us about why we are the way we are.
All this world values is worthless in light of eternity.
All this world values as more important than a right relationship with Jesus is worthless.
The writer of Hebrews points out the deceitfulness of sin.
You and I are easily able to be deceived by sin. We can pour time, energy and effort, towards things and even people that are a sinful deception.
People who are in Christ can be faced with more elaborate deceptions. We can indeed excuse sin because of the grace and mercy of God that we enjoy.
We can go overboard and be excessively zealous for God and inadvertently drive people into staying away from God. Our lives are to show the world hope, not fear, that's found in Christ Jesus. We are to follow His example for life, not create our own vision of the road to salvation.
Sin is utterly deceitful. It's in direct opposition to the Will of God.
It is serious business. It honestly is something that bothers me to hear of the misguided passions that people have. They are far more zealous for a sport than they are for the one who saved them. They are far more zealous about hobbies, about family functions, about possessions, about careers, even about health, about oh so much that they don't see nor realize they have been robbed of life.
Years ago Mercy Me had their famous break through song "I Can Only Imagine". It's obviously a Christian song that's a person's view of what it will be like when they get to Heaven.
So look at the reverse. Can you imagine, can you fathom, what Hell is like?
It's a vast, honestly beyond imagination in size, place of torment and pain.
It's reserved for the unbeliever and certain fallen angels.
Satan has never been there.
The deceived populate it. Those who have rejected the offer of God of salvation through Christ Jesus alone.
There's no happiness or joy to be found there.
There's a constant crying out of the vast multitude of people who number in the countless trillions for God to have mercy on them. To somehow send word to people they know so that they would not join them there.
There's darkness. The darkness is a painful darkness.
You can take life seriously now or you will wish you had when you die.
Nobody who's made it to Hell can ever not know a day without painful torment. At the Final Judgment, when indeed they receive a glorified body, their next step is to wait for the Book of Life to be opened. All who's names are not listed will be cast alive into the Lake of Fire.
Sin is that serious of an offense to the Holy God of this Universe.
A life in Christ isn't promised to be easy, but it is promised to be worth it. Every believer has an assignment by God to help reach people for Christ while the opportunity is possible.
In a very short time that assignment will be over in the present Church age.
Billions, possibly, will vanish. Massive accidents and economic collapses will happen worldwide. The Rapture of the Church will have happened.
Right now billions of people think either that day is too far away or they have a misguided idea of the seriousness of sin to God.
I am still wrapping my head around the scope of denying myself, taking up my cross and following Jesus. I often wonder about too many things. But I also want to be taught by God to be found doing the right things.
Too many people just don't get the truth of how deceived they have been.
Too many people just don't get the truth of how grave the situation is in regards to repentance and salvation.
You could be having a stellar life, no worries or troubles, and in a split second find yourself dead and either entering Heaven or Hell.
Countless trillions in Hell believe they are good people. That they don't deserve to be there.
People do not set the standards, God does.
You, my Dear Reader, as well as I, need to take stock of our lives to be right with God in our lives now, rather than finding out the truth the hard way.
We need to take the Bible seriously in regards to sin, to idolatry, to all of it in all its forms.
There are no second chances.
No comments:
Post a Comment