Mar 27 God’s Remedy: For a Cold Heart Hebrews 3:12-19
A Verse to Remember:
Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. Matthew 6:33
Hebrews 3:12-19
So, search your hearts everyday, my brothers and sisters, and make sure that none of you has evil or unbelief hiding within you. For it will lead you astray, and make you unresponsive to the living God.
This is the time to encourage each other to never be stubborn or hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. For we are mingled with the Messiah, if we continue unshaken in this confident assurance from the beginning until the end. For the scriptures say,
If only today you would listen to his voice, don’t make him angry by hardening your hearts, as you did in the wilderness rebellion (see Psalm 95).
The same people who were delivered from bondage and brought out of Egypt by Moses, were the ones who heard and still rebelled. They grieved God for forty years by sinning in their unbelief, until they dropped dead in the desert. So God swore an oath that they would never enter into his calming place of rest all because they disobeyed him. It is clear that they could not enter into their inheritance because they wrapped their hearts in unbelief.
Gospel Story: Peter’s Daniel mark 14: 66-72 ….. and Jesus, Peter and the fact that Love Wins! john 21:15-17
Reflection:
In Christ we have this awesome opportunity to wrap our hearts in the Amazing Love and Grace that God has for us. Unfortunately, just because we’ve experienced the freedom Christ brings to our lives, there is a risk that we might side with the sin of unbelief. That choice alone could get in the way of God’s plan for us to enter His rest.
God’s rest is available to us because, “we are mingled with the Messiah, if we continue unshaken in this confident assurance from the beginning until the end”… In the words of Jesus, “the one who endures to the end will be saved”. Matthew 10:22.
So what I want to know is what enables us to to keep the faith, to keep our hearts wrapped in God’s Love and Grace and endure to the end? With all my heart I want to avoid entering the land of unbelief and live in the promised rest.
Peter’s story I think provides some insight here. Like the people of Israel of the Old Covenant, we see a man very acquainted with God’s miraculous saving, healing and delivering power. Much like the folk in the wilderness Peter too experiences real moments of unbelief and doubt. It’s this kind of unbelief that the bible tells us is sin. Jesus puts it this way, “The worlds sin is that it refuses to believe in me” john 16:9. So what keeps us trusting in Jesus? The answer? Jesus! For every personal denial, act of disbelief, Jesus continues to pursue us with unrelenting love, grace and restorative power! For each act of denial, Jesus returns to Peter with an opportunity to respond to Christ’s love in the affirmative. I think it was Jesus’ persistent love the won Peter’s heart and gave in all he needed to endure right to the end. Peter’s declaration of love flows from the heartfelt knowledge of how much Jesus loves him!
My prayer, may the persistent love of Jesus pursue you and pursue me all our days. Jesus is my only way out of the wilderness and into the rest that God wants me to experience, today, everyday and for all eternity!
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