Heb. 9-11
Hebrews 10:14 - "For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified."
How amazingly glorious is it that I have been perfected? No matter what I do wrong or mess up or excel in, He already sees me perfect. Wow.
Hebrews 10:22 - "Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water."
This, to me, is the epitome of refreshment. It reminds me of when I was working up in Merrit and Adam and I needed to shower, so we went to this crazy fast and shallow mountain stream. It was ice cold, and when we sat down it was up to our waists, so to wash our hair we had to lay back under the water. Refreshment, especially in that kind of dry, ridiculously hot weather. The heart is sprinkled clean, the body is doused. Beautiful.
Hebrews 10:29 - "How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?"
Wow. I wrote however long ago above this passage: "This brings it down to a choice, and shames us for ever considering the alternative." How true! We uphold Him, or trample Him. We acknowledge Him, or we ask Him not to acknowledge us. We glorify Him, or glorify ourselves. What's it going to be?
Hebrews 11:15 - "And indeed if they had been thinking about that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return."
If I wanted to go back to the old life, the old country, I could have at any moment over the last few months. But my eyes have been somewhere else. I don't want to get down on where I am and take my eyes off God in the process. Those men and women of faith were truly incredible.
Hebrews 11:37-38a - "They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated (men of whom the world was not worthy)."
That last bit always gets me...the world was not worthy of these men. They saw God and therefore did not need to see everything around them. It made them too good for this world. I want to be far too good for this world.
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