The Value of Today: Meditiations on Hebrews 4

Days come and go, some faster it seems than others.  When I was a kid, days seemed to last forever, and weeks, months, or years were insanely long periods of time.  When I look at the calendar today, I’m shocked to see the year nearly spent, and wondering how I will do all I need to do in the remaining couple months before New Year’s Day.  There’s something about age and maturity, that grows our appreciation of the value of a day… and of course, that same age and maturity, can make us leap way beyond the day we’re in, and focus on days either long before us, or long gone behind us.

                This enigma was not unknown in the ancient world, either.  St. Paul writes about the value of a day in his letter to the Hebrews—and not just any day, but TODAY.  Today, the Apostle writes, if you will hear the voice of Jesus Christ and believe His Gospel of salvation for you, you will live in Him by grace through faith.  Today…

                There’s a mystery at work in creation, and St. Paul puts his finger on it in a very inspired way, never having studied advanced physics or cosmology.  Time is a peculiar construct of God, and one of great grace and mercy for us.  In the beginning He created us to be infinite beings in perfect communion with Him, but after the Fall, we suffer with the consequence of our sin and death in ways that are ugly painful.  Most of us have things in our past that we would rather forget, and wish had never happened.  Imagine the pain of having such a past, and knowing that it was always accessible, and always before your eyes—not just in the sense of remembering it, but as if it was always present.  Likewise, many of us worry about the future, and the thousands upon thousands of variables that can either help or harm our endeavors—imagine if all of those future days and moments were present to you, and you had to grapple with them all at once.  It would be a horrible burden to bear, never escaping the past nor the future, as all time pressed upon us in a single moment.

                We should remember, however, that for God, this is exactly how time is.  For Him, all time is eternally present.  Everything we perceive as past, present, and future, God perceives immediately as present.  That means, that when He bears your burdens in this present moment, He is really bearing them right now.  And for all those past moments, where your sin and evil broke forth into the world, demanding the sacrifice of His Son to save you… those moments are all present to Him, too.  And all your future moments, those that are both good and ill, He perceives in His eternal present, preserving you in and through them, though from your perspective, they haven’t happened yet.  Our loving God chooses to bear the burden of our sin, death, and suffering across all time and all space, while He grants a blessed rest to His people:  to us, He gives the gift of Today.

                Today, you can hear His voice of love from the Cross of His Son, speaking forgiveness and life to you forever.  Today, you can repent of the evil you have done, turning from your darkness by the power of His Word, toward the Light of Jesus Christ.  Today, you can be unburdened from your sin, receiving grace from the Son of God, who in His flesh nailed your sins and mine to His Holy Cross.  Today, you can believe and live forever.  Today becomes your first and never-ending day of eternal communion with your Creator, an infinite life of joy and blessedness, found in your Savior, Jesus Christ.  While God bears your burden, you are eternally free, Today… for Today, the love of God in Christ Jesus comes to you, that you might live in Him by grace through faith forever.  Give thanks to God for the blessing of Today!  For Today, the Kingdom of God comes near to you, and this eternal Today shall never end.  Glory be to God on High—The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, who have worked for us so great a salvation, which comes to us Today.  Amen.

The Perseverance of the Saints: A Meditation on Hebrews 3

I’m sure we all know someone who has mused about this subject, whether they knew much about the formal doctrine, or not.  I’ve heard the question posed as, “How do I know I’m one of the elect?” or, “Am I still a Christian if I’ve blown it regarding (fill-in-the-blank)?” or, “Do I really have enough faith, and is my commitment to Christ enough to really be saved?”  At some point in our Christian lives, I think most of us have grappled with this kind of question.  Somewhere near the root of that concern, is whether or not Jesus has really saved me… or, if I’m just deluding myself, and God has already given up on me… or, I think my salvation is hanging by a thread, and I’m afraid that if I goof up just one more time, God will cut His losses on me.

                If it gives any comfort, Christians have worried about these same things, from the time of the Apostles forward.  In the reading from Hebrews 3, St. Paul might even be seen to bait this question, when he points to the ancient Israelites as an example of those to whom the promise of God had come, but who abandoned their faith in God’s promise, and therefore were cut off from that same promise.  It makes one wonder, just what is necessary on my part, to keep God from cutting ME off?  What is the awful thing that I must avoid, so that God doesn’t leave me to die in the desert, like He did an entire generation of Hebrews?

                Like everything with St. Paul, the whole matter comes down to faith and grace… because, at root, salvation isn’t about what we do or don’t do, but rather what Christ does for us.  This was the same rule that God put in place from the very beginning, and it was the rule of salvation to the ancient Hebrews:  the just shall live by faith.  When the Hebrews were called out of their slavery in Egypt, it was God who did the calling and the delivering—the people simply had to believe and trust in God their Savior.  When Christ comes to fulfill the Law, and to save us from sin, death, and the devil, it is He who does the calling and the saving—ours is simply to believe and trust the promise of God in Jesus Christ.  With such faith comes grace, which is the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.  With such faith, comes our triumph over fear, over the devil, and over every evil thing.  With such faith, everything that Jesus won for the world as He hung dead on that Cross, is delivered to us, so that not only have we died with Him, but also our new lives are hidden with Him forever.  The author of Life and Salvation becomes our Live and our Salvation through faith in His loving work of redemption for us.  What we cannot earn, He earns, and gives to us freely.

                So, if Christ has done all to call us and save us, where should we look for the promise of our perseverance to the end?  Where should we look for the assurance that we, too, shall join the ranks of the saints and angels in heaven, eventually to be resurrected unto life everlasting in the New Heaven and the New Earth?  Again, and forever, it is Jesus.  He is the author and the perfector of our faith, and it is He who both began this good work of salvation in us, and shall complete His good work in the time He has appointed.  If we have been saved by grace through faith in the Son of God, why should we look to anyone other than Jesus for our perseverance?  And if we continue to look to Jesus, why should we look to Him with anything but faith and trust?  And if we believe and trust the promise of God in Jesus Christ, why should we expect anything other than grace, which forgives and preserves us unto life everlasting?

                In the formal doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints, we remember the simple truth, that Jesus not only saves us now, but He saves us forever, using the same divine means He established from the foundation of the world:  the just shall live by faith.  Will some stop believing, and find themselves cut off from grace?  Perhaps.  But the same Gospel is preached to those who have fallen, as it is to those who stand:  believe on the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.  Salvation, from Justification through Sanctification and eventually Glorification, is all the work of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  Believe Him when He says to you, that He has come into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.  He has come for you—not to torment or trick or toy with you—but to save you.  Believe Him, and live.  Amen.