Chronicles of the Mind

Continuing from my previous post - just to keep things organized and not create one massive blog post.

6:12 - that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

This verse is downright impressive to me. Looking ahead, we see an example of those we should imitating in Hebrews 11. Being sluggish is so easy, however, in a culture that promotes ease and comfort. Many things need to come quickly and exactly when we want it - we don't like to wait. Faith is, however, by its very definition as found in chapter 11:1 something that we cannot see and don't yet have in our possession. When we look through the pages of Scripture, we find that faith and patience often go hand in hand. God values endurance and character, which are built primarily through the testing and building of faith through waiting. Mmmmm...I love it! Hebrews 12 says we need to keep our eyes on the goal, just like Jesus. That's what this verse says too: through faith and patience we will inherit the promises!

Let me just touch on one more, though I could keep going for quite a while:

Hebrews 10:31 - It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

It seems that nowadays there is more and more an emphasis on the love of God. While this is not a bad thing, it is often accompanied by a loss of vision of the holiness of God. I'm once again filled with awe and reverence and amazement at the greatness of God when I read here that it is a terrifying thing to fall into His hands. If only we had this perspective every moment of every day. May the fear of the Lord increase in our lives as well as the love of God.