Daily Meditations

Hebrews 4:12c The thoughts and attitudes of the heart One final meditation on the power of the Word of God. Note that we are told that it judges  “the thoughts and attitudes of the heart !” This is not easy reading because we are all aware that our hearts are not as pure and holy as we would like them to be! The good news is that nobody needs to ever know what we are thinking or what our intentions and desires and motivations really are. We can live in a thousand fantasy worlds and constantly ruminate over countless images and ideas without anyone ever knowing about it. Isn’t it great to have secrets and to know that even those closest to us are unable to discover what goes on in our hearts? Every one of us has a secret place, a place that our nearest and dearest know nothing about. The trouble is, God knows! Not only that, but His sword penetrates and discerns what lies hidden and it exposes the secrets. At first, He warns us and pleads with us to deal with the issues privately, j...

Hebrews 4:12b God's Word penetrates and divides In addition to being alive and active, the Word of God is literally His cutting-edge tool used to penetrate even the hardest of hearts. The image of the double-edged sword is found again in Revelation 1:16; 2:12; 19:15,21, in every instance this sword comes from the mouth of Yeshua who, as we have seen, is the Word of God. That is why His words, as recorded in the four Gospels, are so important and compelling.  A double-edged sword was much more versatile than a sword that was sharpened on one side, it made it possible to slash and thrush during attacks and to cut from left, right, up down and even in a single, straight line because the blades, having been sharpened on both sides, had an extremely sharp point. This is a very potent weapon and, in the context of this verse, it went much further than just piercing the heart or the vital organs of an opponent, it even exceeded the potential of human swords that were designed to chop off ...

Hebrews 4:12a The Word of God is living and active At first sight, this verse may seem like a giant, sideways leap away from the matters that have occupied our minds since chapter 3:7. After all that discussion about “Rest,” the writer is suddenly evaluating the effectiveness of the Word of God! Is he going off at a tangent then? No, because in the previous verses he has, three times, implored us to not harden our hearts if we hear God’s voice. And what is the primary means by which the Lord our God speaks to us? Through His Word, it is His voice. There follows therefore, a brief but very astute summary of the nature and value of God’s Word to assist us when we are trying to understand how we might enter His rest.  Whilst the Lord is undoubtedly alive and well and seated on His heavenly throne, we His earthly children need constant and immediate instructions about how to live our lives and to cope with the challenges and responsibilities that face every true follower of Yeshua. As ...

Before we move on, we need to assemble our thoughts about God’s REST into some kind of order. This was a simple subject, prior to studying these verses in depth! It is now obvious that the term REST means many different things in the Scriptures and is used in many different contexts. That is why it is helpful to try to put them into order because there are links; of course there are!  The literal meaning of the Hebrew word “Shabbat” or “Sabbath” is “to cease”, “to stop” or to “desist from working and labour.” It implies that certain activities that demanded time and effort have ended, but it does not mean that we replace that busyness with nothing. God does not call us to laze around or to “do nothing!”  God came to REST when He ceased the labours of creation and had permanently completed the work of turning dark matter into a beautiful, productive world pumping with life, energy and productivity. He rested from the work of creating but not from activity. Adam and Eve were at ...

Hebrews 4:11 Make every effort to enter the rest So what do we learn from all of this? We have been treated to a series of allegories, and the author of Hebrews has been trying to get his Jewish readers to understand. They were new-born followers of Christ and they, more than anyone, should understand the lessons from their history. These lessons are for us too as part of the wider church of Jesus Christ. Firstly, when we rest in the Lord, we do not put our feet up, but we do recognise that everything necessary for our salvation and future peace has already been done. We cannot add to it any more than God could add to His perfect creation. Secondly, once we have been delivered from sin and bondage we must be prepared to move on, sometimes through wilderness experiences, because the Lord is preparing us for the Land of Promise, where we can be at rest. There are those that inherit His promises but many others who do not. The major obstacles to exclusion from the Land are disobedience an...

Hebrews 4:10a Israel and rest Continuing on from our previous musings, we have seen how Israel, under Joshua, learned to remove the pagan gods and their adherents from Canaan; this involved military conquests and a great deal of effort but, eventually, the land was at rest, and it fulfilled its description as the Land of Promise. However, it was not long before the tribes of Israel compromised themselves and their relationship with the Lord God and they turned to worship foreign gods. Whenever they did this, they lost their “rest”. It was not just that they built idols and sacrificed on the high places but in so doing they rejected the provision and protection of the Lord, they preferred to worship man-made gods. This idolatry led to 10 of the tribes being completely overcome by the Assyrians and they were lost to civilisation to this very day. The southern nation of Judah also indulged themselves in paganism and they were taken into captivity by the Babylonians; there was no rest for ...