Hebrews 6:9-20.  Wow way to get behind.  I know, I know we had this discussion before when we were in Isaiah.  Reading my Bible daily is about a relationship with God it’s not a thing on a list of todo’s.  And for the most part I have been reading along each day (though not on the schedule I have set), I just haven’t had time to write.  I just looked at my work records over the summer and I worked about 60 hours each week.  When you consider that last week was the church campout and I did not work much on Friday and not at all over the weekend that adds up to a lot of time on the other days.  That is party why I am behind in writing.  Sorry for the delay.

In yesterday’s reading the author of Hebrews gave a pretty heavy warning about faithfully living for God and about making progress in our relationship with him.  In today’s reading the author gets way more positive.  He tells the readers that he is sure they will live up to the decision they have made to follow Jesus.  In verse 10 he tells his readers that God knows what they have done, that they have faithfully served other believers.  This hints at the problem that is going on with these believers, they have started to back off; skipping church, not hanging out with people from church, not serving anymore.  Though it appears that they are still involved a little.  The author wants them to get back to it, he wants them to be involved like they were at the beginning.  The author wants them to live this way so they can experience the full measure of hope that comes with living for God; he doesn’t want them to live half-hearted Christian lives.  The author wants them to imitate those who have gone before them believing in the promises of God and patiently enduring the troubles of life.

In verses 13-20 the author uses an example from the past to help his readers trust God with their lives.  The example is from Genesis 22, a story where tells Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac.  Ultimately Abraham does not have to sacrifice Isaac but for a while he thinks he is going to, all the way up to tying Isaac up and holding a knife over him on an altar.  God provides an animal at the last minute, but Abraham passed the test by being willing.  The back story is that God had previously promised to make Abraham a great nation through Isaac, so killing Isaac would have seemed to destroy the possibility of God fulfilling his promise.  There was more to the promise though than just a large group of descendants.  God had also promised to “bless” the world through that group of people (Genesis 12:3; 18:18; 22:18).  In Genesis 22:18 it is clear that the “blessing” come because Abraham was obedient to the voice of God, he had faith that God would do what he said even if Isaac was dead.  That’s a lot of faith.  The word blessing includes the idea of kneeling down, I had trouble figuring that out until I remembered that in the Old Testament that fathers would have their children come to them before they died and make a sort of wish for each child.  The child would kneel down and the father would put his hand on their head and ask God to do certain things in the child’s life.  Kneeling down was a sign of respect for the father.  For those earthly fathers the blessing was a hopeful prayer to God but in Hebrews we see that the “blessing” of God on Abraham was a done deal.  Men’s words have only so much power but in the case of God there is no one to overrule him.  According to the author of Hebrews God not only said it but he swore an oath based on his own existence; this gives us the ultimate assurance that God’s plan to “bless” the world will come to pass.  Sin will be dealt with and mankind will be able to live once more with God.

Verses 19-20 get to the ultimate point for these Jewish believers who were being tempted to quit church.  This “Jesus thing” they were believing in and following was as real as and traced all the way back to the promises to Abraham.  This “new” faith was really God’s original solution to the separation between us and him.  The Jewish people were reminded of the separation constantly by the fact that the temple contained a room which represented the presence of God, the Holy of Holies.  This inner room was separated from the outer room of the temple by a thick curtain, the veil in Hebrews 6:19.  Once a year the high priest would enter the Holy of Holies and make an offering for the sins of the people.  On the day Jesus died that curtain was torn in two from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51), the separation was destroyed by Jesus’ death.  Jesus was the ultimate high priest offering the final and ultimate sacrifice for our sins.  Other high priests were ones born into the job but Jesus was like Melchizedek, a high priest appointed specially by God.

God thank you for dying for my sins.  I am glad I do not have to pay the price myself, that would mean an eternity away from you.  Thank you for taking the time to explain the story to me.  Help me be passionate about our relationship.  Let me be as faithful as Abraham.  Help me see and trust and do.