Hebrews 6 Study

Hebrews 6

Hebrews 6

English Standard Version (ESV)

6 Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, ² and of instruction about washings,^[a] the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. ³ And this we will do if God permits. ⁴ For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, ⁵ and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, ⁶ and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. ⁷ For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. ⁸ But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.

⁹ Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation. ¹⁰ For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. ¹¹ And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, ¹² so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

The Certainty of God's Promise

¹³ For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, ¹⁴ saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” ¹⁵ And thus Abraham,^[b] having patiently waited, obtained the promise. ¹⁶ For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. ¹⁷ So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, ¹⁸ so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. ¹⁹ We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, ²⁰ where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

Ok so did any of you do your first assignment?  I hope so.  I want this site to be a place where we can all learn more of God’s will for our lives.  This lesson may bleed over into next week too because there is soo much good information here.  Before we get started lets pray......”Father, please use today’s bible reading and message to help me to know your will for my life.”

The very first verse tells us what we are learning to be true.  God never expects us to stay where we are in our walk with Him.  We really serve no purpose to Him if we don’t grow enough in our walk to be able to do –by faith- the things he has planned for us.

Verses 2-8 cause alot of discussion in sunday school classes all the time.  It is not really a do or die type doctrine difference to me so I really don’t worry too much about it.  To me it is very evident that the author is talking about it being impossible to lose your salvation once you have really become saved.  He words it though like he is saying It Is possible to do, but I really think if you read the whole chapter you realize he is saying that once you’ve felt the presence of the Holy Spirit it is almost impossible to turn your back on God.  

I think that this can all be summed up like this......People who think they got saved by just saying a prayer can definitely fall away from God, because they really never had a relationship with Him.  One way you can tell if you are saved is simply to look at your life before you became saved and look at it after you were saved.  There should be a difference in your actions and thought patterns.  If there is no difference in you from pre-post salvation, it is very possible that you just said a prayer and didn’t really put your faith in God and Jesus. I think people that fall into the falling away catagory are those who just go to church and talk a big game.  I used to be one of these.  I talked a lot on Sundays and Wednesdays, but no one at my work even knew what I thought about God.  Why?  I really wasn’t saved.  Remember Jesus didn’t die on the cross just so you could say a prayer and move on about your life.  That wouldn’t make sense.  He suffered and died so that we would have a choice to follow Him and accept Him as our Saviour rather than eternal separation from God.  

So to tie all of this together..........If you really are saved people around you will know it.  Our world is sooo dark and evil that if you are truly saved, you will stand out as being different.  It’s that simple.  If you really are saved, then In my opinion, you could never lose your salvation.  

Read over this chapter again for next week and we will move further into it.  God Bless! 

Remember to send this email link to anyone you know.  They may need to see it.

Off the Milk

Off the Milk

Hebrews 5:12-14

English Standard Version (ESV)

¹² For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, ¹³ for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. ¹⁴ But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

This is something that I feel God laid on my heart a little while back.  My other blog site is still going to be an ongoing devotional that hopefully you continue to learn from and is also a good tool to show the lost.  This blog is going to be a more in depth study of God's word.  I will most likely only update this site once per week.  I will design the studies so that hopefully we all can come to a more full understanding of God's will for our lives.
I ask for prayer in this endeavor and would love to put this blog in book form in the future also.  OK, let's get started.

In the first verse here, it is basically telling us that some of us who should have learned more and grown closer in our knowledge of God are not able.  That is why is says we have to be taught again.  Like I've said a lot of times, God doesn't call us JUST to be saved.  Salvation is a starting point in our journey of faith in God.  We are to yield ourselves to Him and by doing so, we will have a closer relationship with Him.  How do we yield to Him?  A couple of things we are commanded to do is to read His word and pray.  By doing these two things we will, in fact be able to start understanding more of the Bible and more of God's will for our lives.  It's kind of like when 200 years ago, most of Americans had a vast knowledge of our constitution and because of that they were very unlikely to be convinced of something that would harm America.  They knew the truth of what the founding fathers meant, in other words.  Same thing here, we have to have an ongoing relationship with God by reading the bible and praying.  If we do that, we are far less likely to be swayed from our core beliefs.
Look at the next verse.  It tells us that if we stay on the milk, then we are unskilled.  The comparison is to a baby.  Babies need constant direction and supervision.  If we never are able to get away from the milk of God's word, then we can't be fulfilling what God wants from us.  Just like we start this world as babies then grow up into adults, we are supposed to start at salvation as babies in faith then grow into adults capable of doing the works God may call us to do.
The last verse is basically telling us that for those who will learn and grow in their relationship with God, they will be more able to discern between good and evil.  Now think about that for a moment.  It is basically telling us what we already know to be true about alot of believers today.  A new christian will still not be able to completely discern between light and darkness, so it is imperative that we make time in our busy lives to meditate and focus with a real drive to understand God's word.  I have learned in my own life that I am able to understand things I never would have even 2 years ago.  I have learned to be able to discern alot of things that are bad, and it's only because I have placed much emphasis on studying God's word.  I can tell you this, if I had stayed on the milk of the word, I promise I wouldn't be talking to you now via a new blog.  God always amazes me with His will for my life.

This week I would ask all who are interested in doing these studies with me to read Hebrews Ch 6.  Just read a few verses aday and really think about what they are saying.  Think and pray about how they should affect you as a christian.  Pray that God will grant you wisdom to understand His word.

God Bless!!