Daily Meditations

Hebrews 3:3 The Builder of the House Moses was never the builder of Israel. Abraham laid the cornerstone and it could be argued that Job provided the foundations. By the time of Moses, the walls had been put in place, but the building process was still under way. Moses did not design this house, nor did he complete its construction, he was just part of the fabric. I guess we might argue that at his time it was a temporary structure, and Moses oversaw its’ transportation to a more suitable and permanent site. Israel was a “mobile home” under Moses.  Not so with Yeshua, He was not just the cornerstone but the capstone as well, He is the final stone that holds the entire structure together. He is the foundation of our faith, He is the protective walls that surround us, He is the roof that covers our heads, and He is the future hope of the full potential and glory of the building. It is not a temporary building either, it will remain forever, but its influence embraces the whole world....

Hebrews 3:2 Faithful, like Moses. The Jews have a habit of exalting the names of their greatest ancestors. And why not? The patriarchs are the first names in the Hall of Fame, so Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are regularly referred to in one breath, even to this day. David was, of course, the greatest of the kings so his name is honoured and respected. And then there is Moses, the “Prince of Egypt”, who successfully led the Children of Israel out of slavery to the boundaries of the Promised Land. What a tiresome, complaining lot those Hebrews were and what a leader Moses turned out to be! It is not his status that will be discussed in the next few verses but His mission. God gave Moses a very difficult job to undertake, to safely lead a large community of people (possibly 2 million) from a pagan country, through the wilderness, to the edge of the land that had been promised to their ancestors, centuries earlier.  Having employed many staff members over the years, I would say that there ...

Hebrews 3:1 Fix your thoughts on Jesus! What a journey this epistle has taken us on already! Surely by now, we have established that Jesus Christ is greater than, and exalted over, any angelic beings. Not only that, but we have begun to understand the extent of His manhood and the unique way in which He, and only He, has dealt with the problem of our mortality. The one final and unconquerable obstacle to our ascent to the heavens is death; this final nail in our coffins was destroyed at the cross and Jesus is now the Victor and unsurpassed Saviour of all mankind. The only battle that really matters in the history of humanity is the battle with death, and Yeshua is the only One who has conquered and made a way through this seemingly impossible barrier. How foolish men are, to ignore Him and belittle and blaspheme Him! Who else can save us from the inevitable? No wonder the author of this extraordinary epistle now asks us to  “fix our thoughts on Jesus.” If you, like me, consider you...

Hebrews 2:18 The one who understands temptation Much has been written about the temptations of Jesus, particularly those He encountered in the wilderness when the Satan confronted Him, head on! Let’s face it, our Lord was a man, born to a human mother, living in a world of corrupted human beings and being affected by the same lusts and lures that we all have to endure every day of our lives. Later in this remarkable epistle the writer takes the matter a step further; –  “For we do not have a High Priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet He did not sin.” Hebrews 4:15. To teach that Jesus was somehow insulated from temptation is not true, He grappled with the same problems that we all have to deal with, day after day. However, He had no inclination to satisfy His fleshly desires, and He was so inspired by His Father’s will that He was able to do something that none of us can; He rejected, even rebuk...

Hebrews 2:17 The faithful High Priest Jesus the Christ came to us from heaven, from His Father’s domain, a place inhabited by possibly millions of angelic beings. He came from a different realm, a spiritual dwelling place where God the Father is exalted by beings who do His bidding. God’s agenda was not to save the heavenly realms but to do something extraordinary for the citizens of earth, to liberate men and women, to break the stranglehold of sin over mankind, to cancel the power of death.  It was clear that to achieve this, someone had to come to the earth to carry out the mission of redemption, Jeus was the One who was both qualified and who was willing and able  to carry out the mission. He came to us in the role of a priest, a position that was already familiar to God’s chosen ones, the Jews. They had appointed High Priests for centuries and understood the purpose and function of these men. A High Priest was the head of the sacred order of men who served the Lord o...

Hebrews 2:16 The descendants of Abraham The writer here is still contemplating the theme of chapter 1 of his letter, that Jesus Christ is superior to all the angels, that He has been proved to be the Son of God and that He reigns supreme over all created beings. The death that Jesus died, the shame that He suffered the awful events on the cruel cross at Calvary, were all undertaken for mankind. It was as a substitute for the death of men and women that He came to die, it was humanity that He came to save, not angelic beings. The generic term used here is “Abraham’s descendants” which may have a broader implication than many people realise. Firstly, Abraham’s descendants refers, of course, to the nation of Israel.  “ The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you,...