Hebrews 12:3–17
Find a quiet place, alone and apart from distractions. Be comfortably alert, still, and at peace. Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer. Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself. Slowly and carefully read the passage of Scripture. Also, look at these passages: Genesis 25:19–34, Proverbs 3:1–12, and Romans 12:14–21.
1. Being a Christian is often compared to being an athlete running a race or a boxer involved in a boxing match. There is the arduous process of training, building up both muscle and skill, then facing real and competition. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose.
2. A chief part of the process is looking at the life of Jesus, as we find it in the Gospels. Here, Messiah/Savior stood against incredible hostility, much of it satanically inspired, yet He finished the race and won the greatest prize, and all for us.
3. Our great Coach and Lord, works with us as we both train for the struggle and engage in a contest that calls for all that we have.
4. “Discipline” is also involved. When we go adrift, there is a price to pay, and it must be so in order that we learn to endure against great odds. This experience is anchored in the fact that the Father disciples and corrects His sons and daughters. This the author of Hebrews likens to earthly parents who discipline us.
5. Such discipline, and you may want to look back now and see how you were disciplined, is for our own good no matter how unpleasant it seems in the time.
6. We are encouraged to gather our strength, get back into the race and the battle. In fact, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the powers of evil, a warfare we cannot win on our own.
7. Our enemy would like to sideline us, keep us out of the game/work. There are too many who are sitting on the bench without even wearing a uniform, who have a “root of bitterness” in them that may well infect the entire team.
8. The Word of God calls us to not grow weary, and though we carry on against great opponents, we are to continue to serve and obey our great Coach, our Lord Jesus Christ.