July 9, 2021 — A Study on the Book of Hebrews

“Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, as on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your ancestors put me to the test, though they had seen my works for forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, and I said, ‘They always go astray in their hearts, and they have not known my ways.’ As in my anger I swore, ‘They will not enter my rest.’ ”

Take care, brothers and sisters, that none of you may have an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partners of Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end. As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” Hebrews 3:7-15

“Today is the day that we are to live our life as unto the Lord and to produce spiritual fruit which will verify that we are truly members of His holy household and citizens of heaven. We are to grow in grace, mature in the faith and live a life that identifies us as His hallowed household.  We are to do it today and not postpone it for some future occasion. We are to take to heart the self-same warning that went unheeded by the Israelites – that today is the day of salvation. Today is the day we need to live as unto the Lord. Today is the day we should grow in grace. Having been justified by His blood we are reminded that today is the day that we should continue to be maturing in the faith and be progressively sanctified. Today is the day that we should become more and more like Jesus Christ in thought, word and deed.” (knowingJesus.com; Source: https://dailyverse.knowing-jesus.com/hebrews-3-7)

When all heck is breaking around you, how do you respond? Some people freeze — the shock of a situation paralyzes them. In some tragedies, when people are confronted suddenly with the option to fight or flee — there will be those who do neither — they will freeze.

Now, one way that we can “freeze” is to turn away from our training. In some of the school shootings that our country has witnessed over the last few years, there have been instances of police officers who are serving as “resource officers” at the high school in which, when they were suddenly confronted with a “threat” — they completely forgot their training, and they froze. Their mind froze — their feet froze — their bodies froze — because the shock was too great. This is what their training is supposed to prevent — but none of us will know how we might react to a situation, until the evil is upon us.

We need to train ourselves to fight evil — and one of those ways is to study our field guide — which is the Bible, the “Word of G-d”. “Today is the day that we are to live our life as unto the Lord and to produce spiritual fruit”…the author of Hebrews writes. The author continues to exhort his followers to refer back to the word of G-d — because it is in arming ourselves with G-d’s Word that we will know our path – and today is the day to act as people of G-d. 

Don’t wait for all heck to break in on you to begin to study the word of G-d — it might be too late. Your training should take you from hearing the word, to consuming the word, to living the word of G-d every day.

Pastor Dave