Rest for Today and Forever--Part 1

“Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” Hebrews 3:15

Currently we see the reality of wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes in abundance, and lawlessness permeating society everywhere; our world presents many opportunities for us to worry and despair. Centuries ago when the Israelites left Egypt they faced daunting obstacles that threatened their very lives, but God delivered them from each difficulty. Despite God’s extreme intervention for their good, they still didn’t trust Him. The result of their unbelief was that they didn’t get to enter the promised land and enjoy the “rest” God wanted for them. What about our lives today? Do we face all that is happening with confidence in God, or unbelief like the Israelites? I am fascinated by the “rest” God offers to us—rest of the soul irregardless of what happens around us. A major “rest” settles into our hearts when we turn from ourselves and trust Jesus’ death on the cross to be the payment for all the wrong we have done. But, a further “rest” comes as we moment by moment trust Him by obeying His Word and living confidently in His sovereignty.

Please join our study this Thursday morning as we encourage one another in these Biblical truths that apply to every moment of our lives. Livestream is available at 9:30 Thursday morning, or in the archives later.

What Are You Afraid Of? Part 2

“…it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect (or complete) through suffering.” Hebrews 2:10

What an amazing and incredible truth—God became a man to suffer for us. We often think mostly of His suffering on the cross in our place, but, we need to be mindful that He also suffered in ways that we do on a daily basis. Think about this quote from Nancy Guthrie. “How could God fully identify and thus fully sympathize with us apart from becoming flesh and experiencing what our lives are like? The suffering of Jesus gave him that experience. It gave Jesus an unlimited capacity to sympathize with the troubles and temptations we experience in these bodies in this life.”

“No matter how much we suffer, we can never suffer beyond the ability of Jesus to sympathize with our suffering. We can never out-suffer Jesus. He knows and understands the hurts of living and dying in this world from his own personal, painful experience.” Quoted from Hoping for Something Better

What great encouragement the remembering of Jesus’ suffering should bring to our lives in times of difficulty. We should never feel that no one understands the misery we are in because Jesus absolutely does know exactly the degree of pain we are experiencing and He will give us aid as He now acts as our High Priest before God the Father. Glory!!

What a great time of discussion waits for us Thursday morning as we gather to dig into this amazing part of Scripture in Hebrews 2. Be sure to read from page 29 to the end of the chapter after you answer questions 7-13 on pages 187 and 188.

What Are You Afraid Of? Part 1

“We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.”

Hebrews 2:1

How often do we find ourselves casually reading the Bible, not really focused with any intensity on what the almighty God of the Universe has carefully preserved through the centuries to communicate to us. Hebrews chapter 2 begins with such a good exhortation for all of us. “We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.” “Tim Keller has said that this instruction to ‘pay more careful attention’ could more accurately be rendered as ‘be furiously obsessed with.’ The writer is saying that unless we remain furiously obsessed with the original messge of the gospel, we are going to drift. We can get sidetracked by the latest fads in religous thinking, the latest best-selling book, the newest ‘it’ teacher. So we have to stay focused on the person and work of Christ, on who Scrpture reveals him to be. We can never exhaust the Word’s meaning or implications in our lives.” Quoted from Hoping for Something Better by Nancy Guthrie. Are we “furiously obsessed” with digging into God’s Word?

This Thursday morning we begin Chapter 2 of our study books which deals with Hebrews 2:5-18. The first half of this study will be our goal. Remember to do the questions in the back of the book before you read the chapter. Discussion in class will focus on pages 21-29 (verse 5-9) in our study guide.

Summer will be helping us out with the little children.