Today’s passage is Hebrews 10:26-39. If we wilfully sin after knowing the truth, then all we can expect is judgement and the fire for God’s enemies. To trample on Jesus and count his sacrifice as a common thing and insult the Spirit of grace is to deserve the worst of punishments from God, who said, “Vengeance is mine.” Apollo says to remember the first days of our conversion where we endured insult and persecution and had compassion on those who suffered even more.
Do not throw away your confidence in God but endure so that you will receive the promised reward. We are not among those who fall away and are damned but are with those who believe and are saved.
How do you turn away from God?
What is your experience of having fallen into the “hands of the living God”? (31).
Turning away from God is frighteningly easy.
I do it every time I sin, wilfully or otherwise.
I turn away when I think, “Oh, it’s too much trouble to go to worship today. I’m tired, I have work to do, I’m not feeling well, the weather is too bad, I want to go hiking, I just want to stay home and read a book, etc., etc.”
But not going to worship except for the most dire of circumstances is for me the equivalent of turning my back on the cross.
It shows me how ungrateful I am for Jesus’ death on the cross.
It really is like “trampling” on him as if he were nothing and his sacrifice nothing (29).
I turn away from God when I get angry at someone.
Anger is a selfish emotion. It is a loss of emotional control when I’ve failed to control something outside of me.
I lose my temper at people who don’t do what I want, like my wife, my children, my students.
I turn away from God when I’m judgmental because that’s when I push God aside and take on his role as Judge.
I turn away from God when I wilfully turn to worldly distractions like pornography or too many movies or too much news or too much TV.
I turn away from God when I fail to do my work well or blame others for my failures or try to avoid apologizing for my mistakes.
I turn away from God when I don’t meditate on the Word each day and reflect on my spiritual state and actively seek to discern my sins and, most of all, to know God better.
I turn away from God when I fail to love others and be gentle, thoughtful, patient, considerate and kind.
So much of my life seems to be turning away from God when I want to turn to him.
I’m in a constant struggle, doing what I don’t want to do and not doing what I want, just as Paul describes himself in Romans 7:19. I don’t want to be conformed to the pattern of the world, which is to reject Jesus, but to be transformed.
I look at the picture of my baptism, my head bowed, Pastor Kim’s hand on my hand and I feel the water dripping down my neck.
Every day I want to die to the world and be reborn in Christ.
But every day I turn away. Lord, have mercy.
Application: be gentle with one person I am NOT usually gentle with.
Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. Help me to face your cross each day, help me carry my cross.
