Your new family and your new name

Building on what he established last time…that Christ is superior in both name (identity) and message, the author tells his readers:

Hebrews 2:1-3
We must therefore pay even more attention to what we have heard, so that we will not drift away.  For if the [previous] message spoken through angels was legally binding, and every transgression and disobedience received a just punishment, how will we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?

Greater value requires greater care.  We know this from our own lives – when something is of great value to us, we handle it differently then something we consider common or of low value.

Since Christ’s message is superior to all previous messages, even the ones delivered by angels, we are encouraged to give it the elevated level of attention it deserves.  The previous covenant between God and Israel contained severe punishments for Israel whenever they deviated and disobeyed either individually (they were excluded from the community, some received the death penalty) or disobeyed as a nation (they were inflicted with plagues, experienced military defeat, and even mass deportation from their homeland).  How much more serious will God be when those within the new covenant drift away and treat Christ’s message as something common or of low value?

But Christ’s superior message is more than a contract between two different parties:

Hebrews 2:11
For the One who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father.  That is why He is not ashamed to call them brothers

When an adoption occurs, the child enters the family and receives a new last name.  Therefore you share a last name with the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of [God’s] being (Hebrews 1:3).

You now belong to the “Holy” family.  Your brother is Jesus Holy.  As an example, instead of being Ken Clouser, my name has become Ken Holy.

Put your name in there.  Let it sink in.  Try saying it out loud.

How did you feel saying that?

If we paid more careful attention to this, I don’t believe we would drift away.

Keep Pressing,
Ken

The superior message of a Superior Messenger

Jesus taught His disciples that there will be significant rewards for those believers who prepare themselves for His return.  One of the best places in all of the Bible to understand what these rewards will be like is found in the book of Hebrews.  But for us to fully understand the implications of living and investing our lives the way God has intended us to, we must start at the very beginning of the letter.

The letter to the Hebrew believers doesn’t start with your typical Biblical greeting and stated occasion for writing.  The author pulls no punches and gets right to his point, almost as if he were giving a thesis statement for the entire book.  He then spends the next 11 chapters fleshing out what he meant by the first verses, before he gets to how it looks when it is lived out.  Once we understand his thesis main point, we will have the correct lens in order to see the author’s intended life-application for his readers.

Hebrews 1:1-2
Long ago God spoke to the [Israelite] fathers by the prophets at different times and in different ways.  In these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things and through whom He made the universe.

The first thing we are to know is that God has upgraded his message-delivery system.  God had previously sent messengers to reach out to the Israelites in a variety of ways – prophets with a wide range of backgrounds, visions, dreams, a talking donkey (seriously!), clouds, a burning bush, even angels – all to get Israel’s attention.  What should really get their attention now is Who has been sent in these last days…the very One that made it all in the first place, the One that owns it all.

For further emphasis, they are reminded of exactly who Jesus is…

Hebrews 1:3
[Jesus] is the radiance of His glory, the exact expression of His nature and He sustains all things by His powerful word.  After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. 

His qualifications far exceed that of any messenger previously sent by God, and, on top of that – Mission Accomplished.  Christ fulfilled the mission God the Father gave to Him.  Jesus brought the good news of reconciliation with God through His sacrificial death on the cross.  Jesus announced that new life was available in Him and proved it with His resurrection.  After charging His disciples to spread the word, Jesus left Earth, and rightfully sat down in the place of highest honor in Heaven.

Hebrews 1:4
So He became higher in rank than the angels, just as the name He inherited is superior to theirs.

Wasn’t Jesus, as the second person of the Trinity, already higher in rank than the angels?  God the Son was always superior in his identity (his essence as God); BUT NOW, His humanity has inherited a superior rank.  While Jesus was living in the flesh as the God-man, we was inferior…he joined us in our inferiority.  But by His faithfulness, Jesus fulfilled the words of the angel Gabriel, when he announced Jesus’ birth to Mary:

Luke 1:32
He will be great
and will be called the Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David.

The author of Hebrews then presses his point:

Hebrews 1:5-6
For to which of the angels did He ever say
You are My Son, today I have become Your Father (Psalm 2:7),
or again,
I will be His Father, and He will be My Son (2 Samuel 7:14)? 

And again, when He brings His firstborn into the world, He says
And all God’s angels must worship Him (Psalm 97:7).

Christ – in His humanity and through His faithfulness to complete His work – inherited the title of Son, and has been appointed heir of all things.  And as such, He is the Superior Messenger with a message that is superior to all previous messages.

The author states this upfront, because it is the key point to understanding the rest of his letter.  If you boiled it down to one sentence, I’m sure he’d say:

DO NOT FORGET WHO IT IS YOU’RE DEALING WITH NOW.

Have we?

Keep Pressing,
Ken

Emotions and prayer (part 2)

Have we ever considered that how we pray to God can have an impact on getting what we ask for in prayer?

Maybe that’s why we tend to sanitize our words and feelings when we pray…we’re afraid that if we’re “too emotional” then we’re being “immature” and then God won’t listen.  To compensate for this fear, we pray in a monotone or sing-song voice that we would never, ever use when talking with anyone else.  However, Jesus trusted God the Father with not only his prayers and appeals, but also with his emotions that came out during them.

Hebrews 5:7 During His earthly life, He offered prayers and appeals, with loud cries and tears, to the One who was able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverence.

The author of Hebrews makes an interesting connection between the reverence of Jesus’ prayers and appeals and those requests being granted.  Jesus talked to the Father with full emotion; however, he remained reverent while doing so.  From this, we see that we have the freedom to be open and honest with our feelings and emotions before God, but we do not have license to be disrespectful in our expression of them. 

Think of a selfish child demanding something he wants from his father.  His request will be self-centered, and he will only view his father as a means to the end he desires.  Even if the son’s request is valid, a good father will be more interested in long-term health of their relationship than the particular request of the moment.  The father may decide to delay or deny the request in order to ensure that the relationship is as it should be.

God always has our long-term best in mind, even if we are consumed by our immediate circumstances.

To be reverent means to have a respectful, healthy fear; to proceed with caution, be circumspect, or to exercise discretion.  From Christ’s example, we see that it’s ok to be real with God…however, it is not ok to be rude.  It was these reverent elements of Jesus’ prayers that ensured his requests were heard…and when we remember who God is, we’re more inclined to make requests that are in line with God’s desires.  

So we must ask ourselves: In what ways are my own prayers “reverent”?  Do I keep God the Father as the main focus, do I keep who He is in perspective?  Or since I’ve been adopted into His family, do I sometimes forget that He is the King of Everything?

Perhaps this connection between being reverent and being heard was the reason why Jesus taught his disciples to begin their prayers with

Matthew 6:9
Our Father in heaven, Your name be honored as holy.
Your kingdom come.  Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Jesus both modeled and taught that we need to reverently remember whom we speak to when we pray.  The main focus of our prayers isn’t us, or even our requests…the main focus is the One we are offering the prayers and appeals to.

So let’s be fully honest and open with God when we pray.  We are free to express our loud cries, our tears, our emotions…but we are not free to forget whom we are petitioning with those feelings.

Keep Pressing,
Ken

Emotions and prayer (part 1)

Eyes closed. 
Head bowed. 
Hands folded or pressed together. 
Clean, calm, impassionate words.

Whether someone directly teaches us to do this, or if we instead pick it up from watching others pray…we have a tendency to sanitize our words and feelings when we pray to God.

From the gospels, we know that Jesus prayed often to the Father, however his prayer time is almost always shown to be him going away from everyone else to pray to the Father.  As such, very few of Jesus’ words directed toward God the Father were recorded for us in the Scriptures…but have you ever wondered how his prayers went?  What would it have been like to hear Jesus make requests from God the Father?  Did he pray silently?  Was he passionate? 

The author of Hebrews gives us an interesting glimpse into Jesus’ prayer time:

Hebrews 5:7 During His earthly life, He offered prayers and appeals, with loud cries and tears, to the One who was able to save Him from death…

From this verse, we see that Jesus talked to God the Father in different ways, offering up both prayers and appeals.  However, what stands out in this verse is what accompanied Jesus’ prayers and appeals, that he spoke to God with loud cries and tears.  When Jesus spoke with God the Father, his words were full with emotion, they were not limited to quiet whispers.  The times when Jesus was moved to tears – like when Lazarus died (John 11:35), or undoubtedly when his cousin John the Baptist was beheaded and he withdrew to be alone (Matthew 14:13) – in those types of moments, he wasn’t afraid or ashamed to dialogue with God. 

From this we see that God the Father can handle our feelings…even the ones that spill over, are messy, or get loud.  We shouldn’t feel the need to “drum up” these emotions in order to effectively pray, but Jesus’ example does show us that there is no need to suppress how we’re feeling before we talk with God.  Knowing that is very comforting!

We bring our prayers and appeals to God because we believe that he has the ability to understand us, and that, if he chooses, he has the authority to act on our requests.  If God has the proper strength and authority to rescue a person from death – and he does – then he certainly can handle whatever mental and emotional state we find ourselves in.

So let’s not be afraid to reach out to God the Father and honestly express our emotions.

Keep Pressing,
Ken