A Dad Who Spanks

"Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?" (Hebrews 12:7)

Way too many of us Christians have kind of blocked this part of Hebrews 12 out of our Bibles. Every once in a while we read it by accident and think, "God uses hardship to discipline His children? Hmm. I don't like that idea. Wonder what's in Hebrews 13?"

The ideas we like are a) all of a believer's sins are forgiven because of Jesus' death on the cross (true!); b) we are no longer "objects of wrath;" we will not be punished/condemned for our sin (true!); and nothing can steal us away from God our Father (true!). But would a God who loved us enough to sacrifice His only "birth son" to bring us into His family not also love us enough to discipline us (note: not "punish") when we start living in worthless, destructive direction?

This passage says that's exactly what He does. He cares about us way too much to just let us do our own rebellious thing for very long. He uses the hardship in our lives to give us the chance to come running back to Him, to trust Him again, to believe again that our Father loves us enough to show us the best path for our lives.

Think: Have you ever gone through a hard time and wondered if God might have been using it to help get you moving in a right direction again? How did you respond to that idea?

Pray: Thank God that He loves you enough to discipline you.

Do: Ask a wise and caring dad (not necessarily your own) how and why he disciplines his kids and how he feels about it.

Serious Sin

"In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood." (Hebrews 12:4)

We may not admit it out loud, but I think most of us carry around with us a kind of rating scale for sin. We all know the big ones: rape, murder, adultery, etc. But our list of "little" ones are very different: lying to parents, impure thoughts, envy, gossip, arrogance. Eh, everybody does them. Not a big deal. We're all forgiven, right?

It's tough to carry that attitude toward sin (even little ones) too far into Hebrews 12. Today's verse should grab us by the shirt and shake us up a little. It's possible the writer is referring to a resistance against "sinful men" or persecution, but it starts a passage about how seriously God takes sin in the lives of Christians.

One thing it tells me is that I should be struggling against my sin. I don't know how often we do that. The point isn't that we should be perfectly sinless already; we're still growing. The point is that we should be in the fight. We should expect it to be a fight. We should expect the "want" to sin to fight back every time we stand up and say, "No, I'm going the other way."

Then this crazy idea: Whether facing persecution or facing down my own sinful desires, the fight is against sin and it can get bloody. Pain and blood always raise the stakes of a fight. Are we just in the fight against our own sin until it gets inconvenient -- or even when it gets deeply painful?

Think: What's the furthest you've ever gone in standing up against your own desire to sin?

Pray: Ask God to help you come up with braver and bolder strategies for saying no to sin.

Do: Pick a sin or two you struggle with and write down a new battle plan for winning your next encounter with that impulse.

Devos Every Day

If you haven't noticed, we've changed the schedule for this devo. At the request of some users, we're now sending out one a day instead of one a week. The devotionals will be shorter with a quick suggested prayer, application, and something to think about at the end. Usually, we'll cover one topic or passage each week for seven days (starting on Mondays).

If you'd rather just get one devo a week, we're still going to publish a longer one to be delivered on Monday only. Jonathan is reconfiguring the site and setting up the feed for that weekly option. Look for it soon.

Thanks for reading!

Chris

Eyes on the Road!

"Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." (Hebrews 12:2)

Driver's Ed can be scary. You ride around for hours in the back seat finding out all of your classmates driving flaws. I remember seeing a friend of mine notice something on the side of the road. As his head turned to look at it, he began to turn the wheel in that direction, too. If the instructor hadn't snapped him out of it, we'd have driven right off the road and straight into what he was focused on.

Faith racers are kind of like new drivers. We run toward what we're looking at. So this passage says, "Hey, keep your eyes on the road; look at Jesus!" After all, we're running His trail. We're following Him. Sometimes, I forget that. I think I'm supposed to take off on my own in search of direction (or I just lose interest in the race). But my purpose in life is to keep following Jesus.

It's a tough trail. It took Jesus to the pain, agony, and potential shame of the cross. But He kept running. He knew how many of us would be following Him. He made it possible for us to follow Him until we finish our own race.

What are you looking at today?

Think: How does this racing metaphor help you picture the life of trusting God in a new way?

Pray: Ask God to snap you out of it when you begin to turn your focus away from looking at Jesus and the path He set for you.

Do: Write down three things you sometimes start to focus on instead of Jesus.

Strip Down

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." (Hebrews 12:1)

Some people get the wrong idea about Christianity. They think you have to check your competitiveness at the door to Jesus' house. If that's true, why does the Bible use so many sports metaphors? The writer of this passage wants to reach out and yank on your need to compete, to do your best, to win.

He says, "All the old champions are at the race today. The legends of the game are in the stands. Their pictures are all in the trophy case. I hope you're up to the challenge!"

You can almost hear your favorite coach's voice: "Are you serious about doing well? Then dress like it. Strip down before the race starts!" In this Bible culture of long, flowing robes, it was normal for runners -- the serious ones -- to compete naked. Even most runners today wear next to nothing. Those jeans, hiking boots, and sweatshirts can only slow you down and trip you up.

If you're serious about trusting God -- about stepping up to the faith of the champions -- strip your life of all the sin and unnecessary baggage you can find. It can only get in the way. Don't wait. The champions are watching.

Think: Is it okay to use competition as a motive for trusting God more? Why or why not?

Pray: Ask God to show you any sin or worthless stuff in your life that's slowing you down on the race He has marked out for you -- then ask Him for the strength to leave it behind.

Do: Briefly write: a) what is the course God has marked out for you today and b) how will you need to trust Him to run it well?

Better for Us

"These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect." (Hebrews 11:39-40)

Most of us like a movie with a happy ending. The hero survives the adventure, defeats the bad guys, and saves the day to live happily ever after. But some of the richest stories don't arrive at such a tidy end. The hero does everything he or she is supposed to do -- and still dies without figuring out the mystery or saving the day. His part runs out before the story does.

The writer of Hebrews describes all those Old Testament heroes that way. They lived by faith. They obeyed God because they believed Him. And they died without ever seeing the ultimate point of the story. They never saw Jesus. That makes their faith even more heroic to me.

We take our part of the story for granted, don't we? We've been told the beginning, middle, and ending. We know all about Jesus -- about his heroic death in our place and our future with Him through faith. Do we trust God more or less than they did?

Think: Would my faith be stronger or weaker if I had to go through what the OT faith heroes did? (See Hebrews 11:32-38)

Pray: Pick a few of those trusting champions described in Hebrews 11 and thank God specifically for their example.

Do: Finish this sentence, "By faith today, I will . . ."

Rock Hearts

The nation of Israel had rock hearts. They had what could be described as an on again/off again relationship with the God Who Is Love. But the "off again" part was all on them. The God Who Is Love never, ever stopped loving them. He never left. He never gave up. He kept on loving.

He did get jealous, though. He had made it clear more than once that Israel belonged to Him. He chose her. He brought her up. He showered her with good gifts, important gifts. He blessed her and made her rich and gave her everything. She liked it. She liked being the best loved nation in the world, growing strong, defeating enemies with ease, adding children. She felt loved.

But when she looked around at the other nations, she sometimes felt like maybe she was missing out on what other gods had to offer. A girl has to think about her future, after all. How could all the other nations be so wrong about playing the field? What if she was making the other gods angry by not worshipping them, along with her God? Why was her God so restrictive with the rules and the boundaries? So intolerant? Was he really all she needed? She wanted some freedom, some time to herself, maybe she'd take a break from God for awhile.

And He'd let her go for a time. He'd let her wander far enough away that she felt the difference. His love was the only true love. His love was the only powerful love. When she gave her rock heart away to other gods, the result was always the same: pain, loss, death, economic downturn, slavery, disaster. No god could love her like He could. The fake god's so-called love always ended badly. He made sure of that. He would not let her enjoy being apart from Him.

And so He would wait once again for her to call, to tell Him she was wrong, to ask Him to rescue her again and bring her home and make her His own again. And He would do it. He would remind her that He had never stopped loving her. He would remind her that she chose the way of death and pain. He would say, "Let's start again."

Listen to this valentine He wrote to her through the prophet Ezekiel:

"I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

"Then you will remember your evil ways and wicked deeds, and you will loathe yourselves for your sins and detestable practices. I want you to know that I am not doing this for your sake, declares the Sovereign LORD. Be ashamed and disgraced for your conduct, O house of Israel!" (Ezekiel 36:24-32)

Not exactly Hallmark. He loved her too much for that. He wanted her to finally understand that his passionate, relentless love was the only love worth having, that his loyalty to her, his gifts to her, were the only ones she needed. Why ruin herself in all these destructive relationships? When would she understand?

Eventually, of course, he gave her the greatest gift of all. A son. Perfect. Flawless. Brilliant. Creative. Intense. In all ways like his dad. And destined to make a way for her and people from all nations to finally, fully be His forever. No more rock hearts. No more broken hearts. No more on again/off again. One perfect sacrifice to point the way to one perfectly happy ever after.

Of course, our hearts are no more faithful than hers, no more likely to be satisfied with perfect love, no more noble, no more understanding. Like her, we had to have our old, hard hearts ripped from our chests (when we confessed our need to be saved by His Son) and replaced with new hearts, soft hearts that beat only for the Savior, the Rescuer, our Friend.

He is making us new, so we can know how to love Him back for all the love He has showered on us. When He's done changing us, we'll spend forever together loving and being loved, knowing and being known. Let's hope it happens soon.