Hebrews 12

1. So we have many people of faith who are an example to us. Their lives show us what faith means. So let us run the race that is before us and never give up. We should remove from our lives anything that would get in the way. And we should remove the sin that so easily catches us.

Any sin that becomes a habit is a strong place for the devil to build something in your life. If you cannot stop doing it then it may be something passed on in your family.

Get on your knees and ask God to remove it. Ask Him to forgive your family and to send away any spirit that is not of Christ. The devil will say, “Others can do this so why is it that you cannot?” Do not listen to this lie. Others cannot do this without paying a price so why would you want to join them in slavery to something that you cannot stop doing?

2. Let us look only to Jesus. He is the one who began our faith, and He makes our faith complete. Jesus suffered death on the cross. But He accepted the shame of the cross as if it were nothing. He did this because of the joy that God put before Him. And now He is sitting at the right side of God’s throne.

We hate being laughed at and shamed by people. Jesus showed us that we can make ourselves look at what God wants us to do and not even look at what people are doing.

3. Think about Jesus. He held on patiently while sinful men were doing evil things against Him. Look at Jesus’ example so that you will not get tired and stop trying.

The Jews had no good reason for the things they did to Jesus. Do not waste your time thinking about why people attack you for following Christ. Remember they have confused minds and cannot think correctly so there is no way to understand why they do these things except that their thinking comes from the devil.

Jesus said, “At My Father’s direction I have done many good works. For which one are you going to stone Me?” John 10:32

4 – 5

You are struggling against sin, but your struggles have not yet caused you to be killed. You have forgotten His encouraging words for His sons: “My son, do not think the Lord’s discipline of you is worth nothing. And do not stop trying when the Lord corrects you.

Hard times prepare you for what is coming. You will need some men who are against you so that you will understand how to help others face this same problem.

You need some people who look down on you so that you will not think so highly of yourself. You need to know what it is like to not have enough food or money so that you can tell others how God helped you and that He will help them.

God uses these things to prepare you for understanding what you will need to do later.

6. The Lord corrects those He loves. And He punishes everyone He accepts as His child.”

We do not spank other people’s children. God is the same way. Proverbs 3:11-12

7 – 8

So accept your sufferings as if they were a father’s punishment. God does these things to you as a father punishing His sons. All sons are punished by their fathers. If you are never punished (and every son must be punished), you are not true children and not really sons.

If you can do evil things and not be corrected by God then you are not one of His. Other people can do evil things and they are not caught. Thank God when you are corrected because if He did not stop you then you would go on to something worse.

9 – 11

We have all had fathers here on earth who punished us. And we respected our fathers. So it is even more important that we accept punishment from the Father of our spirits. If we do this, we will have life.
Our fathers on earth punished us for a short time.

They punished us the way they thought was best. But God punishes us to help us, so that we can become holy as He is. We do not enjoy punishment. Being punished is painful at the time. But later, after we have learned from being punished, we have peace, because we start living in the right way.

When children are corrected they cry and complain about it. They get tired of crying and want to be part of the family again after they make a decision to stop doing what is wrong. They will not change their thinking if you correct them in an angry way!

Fathers, do not tempt your children to anger by the way you treat them. Ephesians 6:4

12 – 13

You have become weak. So make yourselves strong again. Keep on the right path so that you will not be weak and fall but instead be made strong.

Sometimes God makes us weak so that He can take control of a situation. If we are feeling too strong we will take over and can make the problem worse. There are some people who do not want to hear from us but when God speaks to them they will listen. So when we are weak we are also strong in Christ.

That’s why I [do not complain] in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:10, Proverbs 4:26, Isaiah 35:3

14. Find ways to live in peace with all people. And try to live lives free from sin. If anyone’s life is [unclean], he will never see the Lord.

If we are slow to speak and give a soft answer we can ask people to take some time to think about a problem before they make a quick decision. If we speak too soon and use our emotions we can add more wood to the fire and it can burn out of control.

Fire goes out without wood, and quarrels disappear when whispering stops.  Proverbs 26:20

Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone. Romans 12:18

15. Be careful that no one fails to allow God’s grace to work. Be careful that no one becomes like a bitter weed growing among you. It will spread to the people around you.

When somebody does something wrong to you God gives you the grace and power to forgive them and move on.  If you push away God’s grace, then you will become bitter and you will make the people around you also become bitter.

Bitterness is a poison that people drink and they hope that it will hurt their enemy instead of them.  Bitterness comes from not trusting God to fix your problem.

You can also become bitter when you are angry about something that was done to your friend, which is none of your business.  Psalm 15:3

16 – 17

Be careful that no one takes part in sexual sin. And be careful that no person is immoral like Esau. He sold all his rights as the oldest son for a single meal.

You remember that after Esau did this, he wanted to get his father’s blessing. He wanted this blessing so much that he cried. But his father refused to give him the blessing, because Esau could find no way to [get what he wanted] and did change what he had done.

The devil will come to you with imaginations of what it would be like to be with another person.  This is what he did to Esau.  Esau gave up the blessings of God to get what he wanted.  Later, he felt bad about his decision, but he still did not change his heart.

18 – 21

You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire. You have not come to darkness, sadness and storms. You have not come to the noise of a trumpet or to the sound of a voice. When the people of Israel heard the voice, they begged not to have to hear another word.

They did not want to hear the command: “If anything, even an animal, touches the mountain, it must be put to death with stones.”  What they saw was so terrible that Moses said, “I am shaking with fear.”

Do you hide from God and do not want to hear His Words? Then why are you not reading them? How can we live even one day without hearing from the One who made everything? How else can we know how to live? If we are always too busy to hear from God through prayer or by reading what He has said, then later we may not know His voice when He tries to speak to us.

A voice spoke from heaven, saying, “I have already brought glory to My name, and I will do so again.” When the crowd heard the voice, some thought it was thunder.  John 12:28-29, Deuteronomy 9:19, Exodus 19:12-13

22 – 23

But you have not come to that kind of place. The new place you have come to is Mount Zion. You have come to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands of angels gathered together with joy. You have come to the meeting of God’s firstborn children.

Their names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all people. And you have come to the spirits of good people who have been made complete.

We have not come to Mount Sinai where God says, “here are the things that you must do if you want to come to me.”  We have come to Mount Zion, where God says, “Here are the things that Jesus has done so that you can come to Me.“

24. You have come to Jesus, the One who brought the new agreement from God to his people. You have come to the sprinkled blood that has a better message than the blood of Abel.

We have the answer to Job’s prayer! Job said that he wished there was someone to stand between him and God. Job 9:33

25. So be careful and do not refuse to listen when God speaks. They refused to listen to Him when He warned them on earth. And they did not escape. Now God is warning us from heaven. So it will be worse for us if we refuse to listen to Him.

What have you done lately to show that you are listening to God?

26. When He spoke before, His voice shook the earth. But now He has promised, “Once again I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.”

Why would we want to go back to doing all the things the Jews did in the temple when we have Jesus? The things on earth have to be gone before the things of heaven can come. Haggai 2:6

27. The words “once again” clearly show us that everything that was made will be destroyed. These are the things that can be shaken. And only the things that cannot be shaken will remain.

It is good for God to shake things in our lives. We want anything that does not belong in our lives to be shaken loose and stay away. We will then see that what we have left cannot be shaken.

28 – 29

So let us be thankful because we have a kingdom that cannot be shaken. We should worship God in a way that pleases Him. So let us worship Him with respect and fear, because our God is like a fire that burns things up.

Each one of us is coming to a day which will be the biggest test of our lives! Nobody wants to talk about it but there is no way that we will enter heaven without being tested by fire.

You would be wise to get yourself ready for when the big test of your life comes. If you read God’s Word every day and take notes on what He is showing you then you will be more ready than you were before. If you are not ready the fire may burn away everything that you thought you had and things will be harder than they needed to be.

It is better to know in your heart that God is with you and keep going back to what He has shown you than to cry about this time of testing.

Call on Me in your day of trouble, and I will rescue you.  Psalm 50:15