“And so, dear brothers and sisters who belong to God and are partners with those called to heaven, think carefully about this Jesus whom we declare to be God’s messenger and High Priest.” (Hebrews 3:1, NLT).
The Hebrews writer is preaching about Jesus to people who are already believers. According to the Hebrews writer, Christians should give careful consideration to Jesus.
But haven’t we already done this when we believed and received His salvation?
“We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.” (2 Corinthians 4:7, NLT).
We’ve all heard the amusing story about the man who falls over a cliff and grabs a branch on the face of the cliff to break his fall. As he is hanging from the branch, he calls up toward heaven, “If anybody is up there, help me!” Suddenly a voice booms down from heaven, “LET GO OF THE BRANCH!” The man hanging from the branch thinks about it for a moment and then calls out, “Is anybody else up there?”
“But Ruth replied, ‘Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us!'” (Ruth 1:16-17, NLT).
Ruth was a foreigner from Moab who married into an Israelite family from Bethlehem.
The Israelite family had moved to Moab during a severe famine in Judah. All the men of this Israelite family died in Moab, leaving behind three widows—Ruth, her mother-in-law Naomi, and her sister-in-law Orpah.
“These are the nations the Lord left in order to test Israel, since the Israelites had fought none of these in any of the wars with Canaan. This was to teach the future generations of the Israelites how to fight in battle, especially those who had not fought before.” (Judges 3:1-2, HCSB).
All the various nations that remained in the land of Canaan after the Israelite conquest were intended to serve as a test for God’s people.
“When you have done all that you were commanded, you should say, ‘We are good-for-nothing slaves; we’ve only done our duty.’” (Luke 17: 10, HCSB)
Slavery in the first century Roman world was much different from slavery in early American history. Roman slaves were either taken as the spoils of war or were slaves because they sold themselves into slavery, called bond-servants.
“But the crowd laughed at him because they all knew she had died. Then Jesus took her by the hand and said in a loud voice, My child, get up! And at that moment her life returned, and she immediately stood up!” (Luke 8:53-55, NLT).
In Luke 8 Jesus calms a storm, commands a large number of evil spirits to come out of a man, heals a woman who suffered from a bleeding condition for twelve years, and raises a little girl from the dead!
“‘Go your way,’ Jesus told him. ‘Your faith has healed you.’ Immediately he could see and began to follow Him on the road” (Mark 10:52, HCSB).
This verse is the conclusion to the familiar story of blind Bartimaeus. Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem accompanied by a large entourage of people. He had just left Jericho when He passed by Bartimaeus, a blind beggar sitting by the road.
When Bartimaeus heard that Jesus was passing by, he began to cry out: “Son of David, Jesus, have mercy on me!”
Bartimaeus was pleading so loudly that people told him to keep quiet, but he just cried out for Jesus all the more.
“
And Jesus stopped and said, ‘Call him.’ And they called the blind man, saying to him, ‘Take heart. Get up; he is calling you.’ And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus” (Mark 10:49-50, ESV).
Have you ever heard the saying, “It’s the squeaky wheel that gets the grease!” This story from the gospel of Mark is a case in point for that saying.
As Jesus was leaving Jericho with His disciples and a large entourage, blind Bartimaeus was sitting by the roadside. When Bartimaeus heard that Jesus was approaching, he cried out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (Mark 10:47).
“And he answered them, ‘O faithless generations, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you?” (Mark 9:20, ESV)
The story of Jesus healing a boy with an unclean spirit demonstrates the dilemma many Christians face when trying to live out their faith. They may find themselves become unbelieving believers!
Jesus finds some of his disciples arguing with some Jewish religious leaders and a crowd had gathered around them. A man in the crowd explains to Jesus that since childhood his son has been possessed by a demon that causes the boy to have seizures, convulsions, and not be able to talk.
Jesus’s disciples were unable to cast out the demon, so the father pleaded with Jesus to help the boy if He could.
“Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy. They weep as they go to plant their seed, but they sing as they return with the harvest” (Psalm 126:5-6, NLT).
Do you sometimes seem to be doing everything right and everything goes wrong?
You are faithful to God, planting seed for His Kingdom by serving and obeying Him in every way. Then, in the middle of your faithfulness and obedience, first one problem or tragedy strikes, then another, and then another.
Steve's Bible Meditations 