"God Disciplines His Sons"
v1: "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." What a verse you all? Who are the great witnesses that surround us?
We must look in chapter 11 to see who, as my bible study bible calls "heros" of that time. These are the great witnesses that surround us. In order of "heros" from chapter 11: Abel, offered a better sacrifice then Cain, Enoch pleased God, was "taken from this life, so that he did not experience death" ch 11 v 5; Noah, when warned he built the ark to save not just himself but his family, he condemned the world, became heir to righteousness; Abraham, when called he went and obeyed, in turn received the inheritance promised him; Abraham and Sarah given the child promised to them by God, at the age that is so unthinkable today to have a child; when God tested him he went to sacrifice his son Isaac.
"Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their futures." v 20; Jacob, when dying blessed all of the son's of Joseph, he learned and worshiped on top of his staff; Joseph, he spoke of the exile of Israel, gave out instructions about his bones; Moses' parents, for they saw that he was different than the average child, gave him up as an infant; Moses through the refusal of being the adopted child of the Pharaoh's daughter turned from that and chose to be treated like his own kind; the folks that went through the red sea; those that walked around the walls at Jericho.
Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets.....all these mentioned here and above are the witnesses in v1 ch 12. These folks all were examples for us to follow. Why were they the great witnesses, because they all kept FAITH in what God told them to do. They are those that are called in the Greek translation as witnesses but translated to English they are the martyr; which means testifiers, witnesses. They show faith in God and the power within having this faith.
They ran the 100 yard dash in record time. Some ran the two mile and broke the records without error. This is what we must do. We must have the faith like a mustard seed, like those that inspired us throughout the Old Testament/New Testament on what God can do.
We must train like the athlete. When I was a child I lived for every kind of sport I could be a team member of. In highschool, I trained for track for it was me who wanted to win all the races. In doing so I trained each night, running miles after miles to build myself up for the short distance runs at the meets. I trained for the sprints 100 yard dash (record time was 9 seconds +), 220 yard dash (record time was 22 seconds). So if you were a runner for track...went out for basketball, football, or any other kind of sport you had to build your endurance to run the race and finish. Regardless in what place you finished. You sacrificed your time to accomplish this in life.
This is exactly what we must do to win the race with God. WE need to build ourselves up to be apart of the winning team. How do we build the endurance for this team. 1) read the Word, 2) study the Word, 3) memorize the Word, 4) meditate on the Word, 5) apply the Word.
Moving down this chapter to verse two, we see that we MUST fix our eyes upon Jesus. Again great example on how to do this is through the runner. A runner concentrates only on the finish line.....so we need to concentrate on our FAITH to achieve the objective and accomplish it. Look at Philippians 3:12-14 for a second "Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."
Here we can see that what is behind us, what we have done yesterday, the week prior, months past, and years ago; we need to leave them there. If not it tears down the endurance in which we have begun. If we think oh man look what I did yesterday, and dwell upon the past. Isn't this defeating our major goal....to build the endurance to run the race and win at the end with Jesus?
In this race we started with Jesus and He will be there to complete the race with us. Jesus is the "supreme" witness that came before us. He has already won the race. He overcame! One of our goals we are striving for, praise the Lord. He endured the cross so we could run this race to be with Him in heaven.
As my bible study bible says: "the humiliation of our present suffering for the gospels's sake is far outweighed by the prospect of future glory." Turn to study Matthew 5:10-12, Romans 8:18, 2 Corinthians 4:17, 1 Peter 4:13 (hhhhmmm have we seen this before), 1 Peter 5:1 and 10. Let us view Heb 11:26 for a second; Moses here regarded what? "disgrace for the sake of Christ", that was more valuable than the treasure he would have obtained in Egypt, which in King Tutuankhamun's tomb alone was several thousand pounds of gold. The reward he valued was much better than that gold in that dead king's grave.
Encouragement we see here in verse 3. Just like a
coach is here to give the runner the encouragement to
win. Father gives us the encouragement to defeat the
sin that is upon us. We should not grow weary and lose
heart, we should keep trying and trying to build
ourselves to shed the sin that lays within. Look at
Isa 40:28-31, wow what a passage to give us
encouragement. Who is our strength given to us by?
Who will not grow tired and weary, but his
understanding nobody can fathom? Who will soar like
the wings upon the eagles? Who will run and not be
weary, walk and not faint? Who is there to help us?
Look at the verse 28 of this passage....the answer is
the Lord, the Creator, our God.....as long as we have
what HOPE......Faith we will not lose folks. We are
the ones that will soar like the eagle....with Christ.
(I can see why our sister Sandi loves this passage so
well).....this is one in which we all need to implant
within our hearts now. To help us remember we have won
the race with Christ who lives and resides within us.
We just have to keep performing this until Christ comes for us.
In suffering and persecution we should look at it not
in the negative, rejection concept but in a corrective
and instructive way from our Father. In order to build
up our "spiritual development" as the sons and
daughters of God. Take that runner, when the runner says
okay I am good for the upcoming meet, but in this does not
train this runner falls down, didn't cross the finish
line. The coach takes the runner aside, says what
happened? The runner is reluctant to tell the coach
what happened. Once the runner tells, the coach
proceeds to give corrective and instructional training
on how important it is to continue to train even if the
runner deems it not necessary.
As parents with their young children. When a child does
wrong what does a parent do? Let them go and not get
punished? No, that parent will punish that child in
order to help that child grow morally and realize that
what they did was not right. So, the parents are helping
that child grow to know right from wrong. Sure, a child
may repeat the same offense, but the parent does not
stop loving them and encouraging them to break from
that in which was wrong. Just like our heavenly Father
does with us.....in verse 5 and 6 states......: "My
son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do
not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord
disciplines those he LOVES, and he punishes everyone he ACCEPTS as a son."
In the Greek the verb punish means 'to whip'. Guess
this is where our parents and their parents learn that
punishing us was with a whip, belt or twig what do you
think? God chastens us to correct our faults, to show
us that we made a bad choice in whatever we performed.
Teaches us right from wrong in the spirit. If God did
not punish us, this would show us that He did not think
of us as His children. But verse 7 is evident that WE
are HIS children. Thank you Father!!!!!!!
For if we look further in the next verse it tells us if
we didn't get the punishment from God.....the
conviction of the Spirit.....then we are like
illegitimate children.....and not the true children of God.
Verse 9 speaks of our earthly fathers and how we have
respect for them regardless the punishments that we
received from him for doing wrong. "How much more
should we submit to our Father of our spirits and live!"
In the next verse (10)it sums up why our earthly father
punished us....it was for our best interest, so our
fathers thought....versing when our heavenly Father
punishes us it is for our own good, so we may share in
His holiness. Punishment is painful but justified
rightly so. Without it how could we grow, learn, and
become rip for harvesting? Later we see why the
punishment took place......to help us, "it produces
harvest of righteous and peace." For they have been
trained by it.(v11) It is beneficial in the long run.
So last verses for this devotion is telling us what we
need to do. v12 "Therefore, strengthen your feeble
arms and weak knees. v13 Make level paths for your
feet, so that the lame may not be disavled, but rather
healed." We need to keep our focus on the finish
line......which is our home in heaven with our Father.
We must keep reaching to be like the Son of God....to
take the punishment at hand. God loves us and He is
only teaching us and training us in our spirit life to
be righteous to become like Him in holiness.
Psalms 60:12 " With God we will gain the VICTORY and he
will trample down our enemies."
Let's keep training, building up our endurance to win
the race......it is there for us already.....but we can
not take that for grant it.....we still must strive to
remove sin from within. To God be the glory!!!!!! The VICTORY has been won.
