Today’s passage: Hebrews 12:12-17

Helpful thoughts:

• It can be easy to convince ourselves that the path to healing is to sit on the sidelines and remain inactive.  That is not true.
  • Verses 12 and 13 say the opposite.  We need to plan to grow, plan to serve (“Make straight paths for your feet”) and run the race (12:1).  This is the path to healing after hardship.
• Bitterness does not only affect the one who is bitter (Verse 15).
• Following our whims and passions will not lead to holiness (Verses 16-17).

Questions to consider:

1. There is a putting off of the old man and putting on of the new on display in this passage (Ephesians 4:22-24).  What is being put off and what is being put on?  Can you maintain both the old and the new simultaneously or will one displace the other?
2. Reading the context of these verses, what hardships can bring about bitterness and what actions can help remove bitterness?
3. What is the “straight path” you need to set before you?  Who could you talk with to help you discern this and encourage you when you need help to “lift your hands” and “strengthen your knees?”  How does this need for community go hand-in-hand with the instruction of Hebrews 10:23-25?

Today’s passage: Hebrews 12:3-11

Helpful thoughts:

• We have struggles in this life from without and within.  Hostility from without.  Our own sin within.
  • The more we taste and see the goodness of the Lord, the more we yearn for escape from the world and our own flesh. (2 Corinthians 5:1-2)
• God is progressively perfecting us.  When he disciplines us, He always does it perfectly and for exactly the right reasons.
• When discipline does come, we have no need to ask whether it was needed, only if we are willing to learn, change and grow (Verse 11).

Questions to consider:

1. What things make you weary in this life?  What does the writer of Hebrews encourage you to do to avoid growing weary or fainthearted (Verse 3)?  How can Jesus’ endurance strengthen our endurance?
2. Why would God have to discipline His children?  What kinds of sins do we quickly relate to needing God’s discipline?  Why then does discipline sometimes surprise us?
3. Is God’s goal to make you better than other people or to be just like Christ?  How does this answer help us to better accept the Lord’s loving disciples when it does come?

Today’s passage: Hebrews 12:1-2

Helpful thoughts:

• The witnesses who surround us are those who have believed in the promise of Christ before us.  The “Hall of Faith” is rooting us on as we run our race.
• This illustration of running with endurance does not convey a life of ease.  Running requires effort, exertion, fighting through fatigue, overcoming the desire to be give in and quit, etc.
• Christ had his eye fixed on the joy set before Him as He went to the cross.  The joy set before us is Jesus Himself!
  • Other joys will prove inferior and fail to motivate us sufficiently.
  • Christ is our greatest prize! (Philippians 3:14-15)

Questions to consider:

1. If you are running a race and you set your eyes on something that isn’t even behind the finish line, what would happen?  Will looking up at the concession stand help you win a race?  What is the writer teaching us by telling us to look to Jesus as we run?
2. What things do we learn about Jesus in these verses?  What did He do to save us?  How did He do it?  How involved was He/is He/will He be in your salvation and sanctification?  Why does Christ deserve all glory and praise?
3. Do your life’s goals and ambitions line up with this exhortation?  When you set out to achieve goals, what is your target?  What is the “good life” in your mind?  How can this passage help you to think biblically about your purpose?

Today’s passage: Hebrews 11:29-40

Helpful thoughts:

• Today’s passage concludes the section often called, “The Hall of Faith.”
• As we read through this compelling list through the history of man, we also see a compelling list of God’s gracious activity for and through mankind.
  • This is both a hall of faith and evidence of God’s actions and grace given to man.
• All of the amazing “stories” we read in the Old Testament convey inferior experiences to what we have today through Christ in the New Covenant (Verses 39-40).  There were some pretty amazing experiences that a few had during Old Testament times, but what we have today in Christ is far better.

Questions to consider:

1. Which accounts stick out the most to you from this passage?  What makes them so compelling?  How was God’s glorious grace put on display?
2. What is the miracle (Or the amazing event) that occurred which all Christians participate in through faith?  How did Christ bring us into the New Covenant and why is that miracle all we would ever need?
3. What does it mean when it says in verse 38 that, “The world was not worthy?”  Of what is the world not worthy?  Why are we not worthy?  What makes it possible for us to know the truth, to believe it, to be changed by it, etc.?

Today’s passage: Hebrews 11:23-28

Helpful thoughts:

• More examples of faith resulting in action:
  • Moses’ mother – Hid her son, fearing God more than Pharaoh.
  • Moses – Exchanged the temporal pleasures of earthly royalty for the eternal pleasures of being one of God’s people.  Or, from the world’s perspective, he gave up being a privileged royal in order to be mistreated among the Hebrew slaves.
    • This faith resulted in exile, and then leadership of a people who needed atonement (Because they too were sinners).  It was never easy.

Questions to consider:

1. What is written as Moses’ motivation for keeping the first Passover in verse 28?  How does faith give us a proper perspective on love?  Is love what we can get for ourselves from people or is it how we give of ourselves for people?  How does the Gospel and our faith in Christ change our thinking about this?
2. Why wasn’t Moses’ life easy?  And yet, why was it better than if he had remained loyal to Egyptian royalty?  Who does our culture declare to be “royalty”?  Why is following Jesus better (Even though it might get “harder” at times)?
3. After all of these days reading about faith and what it results in, what is it exactly we are placing our faith in again?  What did Christ do for us?  What has God promised to us through Him?

Today’s passage: Hebrews 11:17-22

Helpful thoughts:

• More examples of faith producing life-change:
  • Abraham – Was willing to offer Isaac as a sacrifice, believing God would raise him from the dead in order to fulfill His promise.
  • Isaac – Gave inherited blessings to his sons (And specifically Jacob) that would not have been his to give if he didn’t believe God was going to see it through.
  • Jacob – Did the same, imparting a double portion blessing on Joseph by blessing both of Joseph’s two sons.
  • Joseph – Asked the Hebrew people to take his bones to the Promise Land when God took them back.

Questions to consider:

1. In what way was faith exemplified in these accounts?  What might these men have done differently had they not possessed faith in God?
2. There is a trend that continues in these people’s accounts.  Did any of these examples see the fruition of what they believed was coming in their lifetime?  How might this continue to focus our attention on the future gracious promises of God?  What impact does that focus have on our lives now?

Today’s passage: Hebrews 11:13-16

Helpful thoughts:

• Christians, you are not called to “live your best life now.”  It is only when you consider your best life to be the life ahead that you make this time count the most.  Faith makes eternity far more significant and valuable than the temporal in the heart of the Christian.
  • Being “rich” (Or simply being preoccupied by your material wealth or the lack thereof) is not living your best life now, by the way…  Abraham was rich by the world’s standards and this passage has nothing to do with that.
• Old and New Testament passages remind all of us that we are sojourners (“Strangers and exiles” in this life, just like Abraham and Sarah (Psalm 119:19, 1 Peter 2:11).
• If we believe (Have faith) that heaven is truly a “better country” than what we could have now, it will change our priorities and our plans.  What we believe changes us.

Questions to consider:

1. What are some of the bigger goals you are chasing right now?  What fed the motivations to make those goals significant to you?  How is your pursuit of those goals impacting your other activities/relationships throughout the day?
2. How does this passage help us to think through the concept of trying to do a lot of good things in order to make it to the “better country?”  Or, trying to harness the power of the better country to make things better here?
3. What is God’s view toward those who put their hope/faith in Him alone (Verse 16)?  What is He preparing for us?

Today’s passage: Hebrews 11:8-12

Helpful thoughts:

• The fruits of faith continue in these verses in the lives of:
  • Abraham – Didn’t know where he was going, but trusted in the one who had sent him.  Faith in his eternal inheritance encouraged him to live in a land that was not his own.
  • Sarah – Originally laughed at the idea due to her old age but afterward laughed in joy at the conception and birth of their son, Isaac (Genesis 18:9-15, 21:1-7).
• Faith results in a willingness to obey in the big decisions, and a willingness to obey in the everyday small decisions.  Abraham and Sarah were not done growing when they moved to a foreign land.  Their faith was to be expressed in every facet of their life, as it should be in ours.
• We are reminded today that faith changes our eternal destiny…and our daily actions.

Questions to consider:

1. Sarah did not conceive because she “had enough faith.”  That would be a poor interpretation that would lead to a “health and wealth” style interpretation.  So then, what fruit did Sarah’s faith produce through her actions?  How was Sarah’s faith put on display through that whole time?
2. When we want to know “God’s will,” what kinds of decisions are we usually seeking answers to?  When the Bible says that God’s will is our sanctification (1 Thessalonians 4:3), how does that cause us to shift our perspective?  Is God only interested in changing our circumstances, or in changing us?

Today’s passage: Hebrews 11:1-7

Helpful thoughts:

• After speaking of those who have faith in chapter 10, the writer defines faith in the beginning of chapter 11.
  • “The assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
• This chapter features many people of faith, including these in the first seven verses:
  • Abel – His faith resulted in righteous obedience.
    • God’s commendation means an affirmation.  There was fruit in Abel’s life because of faith, and God is pointing out that fruit.
  • Enoch – His faith resulted in living in such a way that was pleasing to God (2 Corinthians 5:9).
    • Enoch was taken up before death (Genesis 5:21-24), many suspect for a special purpose along with Elijah, who also never died. (Revelation 11:3-13).
  • Noah – His faith resulted in the obedience of building (And entering) the ark.
    • Noah was saved from God’s judgment through faith, a literal reality and an example of our salvation through faith in Christ.

Questions to consider:

1. How does the definition of faith given in verse 1 address the present and the future?  How does what we believe about the future change the way we think and desire in the present?
2. What is the theme of this chapter, awesome people…or faith?  Who is the hero of the Bible?  Where does our faith come from (Ephesians 2:8-9)?  Why will we have to keep this in mind as we read?
3. With that being said, what is being shown in the lives of those who have faith?  If God has graciously opened a person’s eyes and they have faith, what will happen in their lives?  What then should we expect to see in the rest of this chapter, which has been called, “The Hall of Faith?”