Skip to main content

Hebrews 4:1-12: Alive!

As you may or not not know, my children are all vegetarians; I'm not. My youngest is 8 and 9 years younger than her sisters. My eldest used to be quite a 'rabid vegetarian'. It was very important to Rebecca, my eldest daughter, that Heather become a vegetarian. Every chance she got she would tell Heather when she was just a baby - probably before she was even eating any solid food at all - that eating meat was killing animals. 'You're eating Bambi' or 'You're eating a cow, just like your stuffed animal is a cow'. It got a little bit frustrating.  So one day I sat my older two girls down and played 'Carrot Juice is Murder' by the Arrogant Worms for them. They enjoyed that. They were and are big fans of the Arrogant Worms. And I explained to them a basic truth of life. In order to stay alive people have to eat living things. People cannot maintain life without eating things that were alive. You will die. A carrot, an apple, a hamburger, and even various parts of a hot dog were all alive at some point.

As this is true for our body, so it is true for our souls and our minds. Paul says (2 Timothy 3:16), “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,” and Hebrews 4:12, “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”

As this is the case, May we always seek to satisfy this hunger by feasting on the Word of God because as Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ explained when He was hungry, “It is written: 'Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'”


Originally presented to the River Street Cafe, 23 June 2017

Check out our new daily blogs at

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Hosanna! The Triumphal Entry into Holy Week (Matthew 21:1-11)

Today  is Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday is when we commemorate the Sunday before Jesus’ death. Jerusalem was occupied then, like it is now; now it is occupied by the Israelis, then it was occupied by the Romans. The Judeans in the first century didn’t like being occupied then any more than the Palestinians like it today. The Romans were harsh, not nearly as brutal as modern Israel, but harsh enough that the first century had their version of … (Remember the suicide bombers of the ‘70s and ‘80s?) …suicide bombers: the Sicarii (zealots), Judean terrorists / revolutionaries would walk into crowds with daggers looking for Romans to kill –. One of Jesus’ followers, Simon, was arguably a Sicarii or zealot.   Passover is the commemoration of ancient Israel’s birth as a nation. The Angel of Death passed over Egypt and the nations of Isreal and Judah were created through the Exodus. Passover, in the Roman period, was a time when many people of Judean descent descended upon Jerusalem. I ...

Lanterns (Matthew 25:1-13, Psalm 146)

  The topics I chose from our Lenten list for today are “God has rescued us from the Dominion of Darkness”; “He has Freed Us from the Power of Sin”; the Kingdom of God is at hand. Do we believe that? Do we live that?   In theology we use the term ‘prolepsis’ to refer to the time when the Kingdom of God begins, which is now, the time between the resurrection of Christ and His return at the eschaton. This is the time in which we are living and as Christians it is our responsibility to be willing instruments of God to display what it means that He has rescued us from the Dominion of Darkness; He has Freed Us from the Power of Sin, that the Kingdom of God is at hand. But do we even actually believe that He has already done this? And if He has why does it not seem that the Sin and Darkness still reign?   We know the parable of the bridesmaids (holy ones) in the Bible who needed to keep their lanterns lit – because lit lanterns were to be there when the Bridegroom Jesus returns...

Bah Ram You Shaggy Goat (Daniel 8)

This book is written in a couple of different languages as we  have it  tod ay. Ch apter 7  that Susan looked at with us  is the last Aramaic chapter - if that is on purpose then chapter 7  probably concludes  the first  section  of Daniel  rather than  beginning  the  next  section   but Ch apter 8  that we are looking at today  (and everything flowing from it)  is obviously connected to  Chapter 7  as Da n iel  refers to the first dream when relaying the second one.   Chronologically speaking,  Chapter 8 and  Chapter 7 take place before  C hapters 5 and 6.  In Chapter 5, Babylon falls, Belshazzar is killed and  the Persians take over. None of that has happened in Chapter 8 which we are about to read .   Verses 1-4   8 In the third year of King Belshazzar’s reign, I, Daniel, had a vision, after the one that had already appeared to me. 2 In my ...