WITH EYES FIXED ON JESUS
Opening Prayer
Thank you, Jesus—your love is unconditional and without limit. Please continue to show me how to reflect that love in the lives and world around me.
Read HEBREWS 12:1–13
For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.
12 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, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
God Disciplines His Children
4 In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5 And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says,
“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
6 because the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”[a]
7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? 8 If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. 9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! 10 They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
12 Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. 13 “Make level paths for your feet,”[b] so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.
Footnotes
- Hebrews 12:6 Prov. 3:11,12 (see Septuagint)
- Hebrews 12:13 Prov. 4:26
New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Meditate
As much as it is in your power, ask God’s help to make the way level and smooth for others in your community.
Think Further
Verses 1–3 complete the list of faithful examples by referring to Jesus, ‘the pioneer and perfecter of faith’ (v. 2). Our life is pictured as a race, probably a marathon rather than a sprint, and while some suggest that this cloud of witnesses is watching from the grandstand, I don’t think this is the whole picture. In the Bible, a witness is someone with a story to tell. The witnesses are the people of chapter 11 who have testified with their faithful living. While we consider their faith, we are to fix our eyes on Jesus, who endured the shameful death of crucifixion and is now enthroned at God’s right hand. When we consider the opposition he endured, it will strengthen us so that we neither grow weary nor lose heart.
Our struggle against sin includes the sin in the lives of the opponents we face, including ‘all that motivates and empowers them to persecute believers in the hope of eliciting compromise.’1 The antidote to growing weary and losing heart is to see it as God’s discipline, even though it comes to us from sinners like those Jesus faced.
The idea that these struggles are God’s discipline comes from Proverbs 3:11 and 12, words that the Father gives to his children to encourage them. Discipline like this is unlikely to be pleasant, but will have a good outcome, ‘a harvest of righteousness and peace’ (v. 11). Therefore, we are to strengthen our arms and knees and, as we have noticed elsewhere in Hebrews, we are to care for others, ensuring that the paths of any lame members of the community are level and smooth, so that they are not disabled, but healed (v. 13).
Apply
Do you know of any troubled people whom you can encourage and whose paths you can smooth today? Lift them in prayer and then find a way to help them.
Closing prayer
Lord Jesus, in all that you call me to do, I look to you to help me persevere. As you encourage me through Scripture and your presence with me, use me as an encouragement to others.
1 Gareth Lee Cockerill, The Epistle to the Hebrews, Eerdmans, 2012, p619
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