Yesterday & Today's Daily Bread Hebrews 6 & 9

Hebrews 6:1-20
1 So let us stop going over the basics of Christianity F29 again and again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding. Surely we don't need to start all over again with the importance of turning away from evil deeds and placing our faith in God. 2 You don't need further instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3 And so, God willing, we will move forward to further understanding. 4 For it is impossible to restore to repentance those who were once enlightened – those who have experienced the good things of heaven and shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the power of the age to come – 6 and who then turn away from God. It is impossible to bring such people to repentance again because they are nailing the Son of God to the cross again by rejecting him, holding him up to public shame. 7 When the ground soaks up the rain that falls on it and bears a good crop for the farmer, it has the blessing of God. 8 But if a field bears thistles and thorns, it is useless. The farmer will condemn that field and burn it.

9 Dear friends, even though we are talking like this, we really don't believe that it applies to you. We are confident that you are meant for better things, things that come with salvation. 10 For God is not unfair. He will not forget how hard you have worked for him and how you have shown your love to him by caring for other Christians, as you still do. 11 Our great desire is that you will keep right on loving others as long as life lasts, in order to make certain that what you hope for will come true. 12 Then you will not become spiritually dull and indifferent. Instead, you will follow the example of those who are going to inherit God's promises because of their faith and patience. 13 For example, there was God's promise to Abraham. Since there was no one greater to swear by, God took an oath in his own name, saying: 14 "I will certainly bless you richly, and I will multiply your descendants into countless millions." F30 15 Then Abraham waited patiently, and he received what God had promised. 16 When people take an oath, they call on someone greater than themselves to hold them to it. And without any question that oath is binding. 17 God also bound himself with an oath, so that those who received the promise could be perfectly sure that he would never change his mind. 18 So God has given us both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can take new courage, for we can hold on to his promise with confidence. 19 This confidence is like a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain of heaven into God's inner sanctuary. 20 Jesus has already gone in there for us. He has become our eternal High Priest in the line of Melchizedek.
~Lena’s Journalin’~
We are the field. The rain falls on each and every field the same, but what is in each field is what will come forth from that field, what kind of seed is in us, natural seed from what the world has implanted into us? Like things the world tells us that we meditate on and believe in…you’re no good, won’t be able to do anything valuable in life, will never really get anywhere, or you’ll have this sickness forever, your mother and her mother and even your dad’s mother had it, so of course you are designed to have it too…or, I can never seem to get ahead, I may as well settle myself in to and be content where I’m at, God must not want me to get further or I would….etc, etc. All of these kinds of thoughts are not in accordance with God’s written word to us. They are contrary to what God is saying about us. They are seeds of the world and they are set to choke out God’s words when they come. These seeds come everyday. How often does God’s word of truth come? As often as we get a hold of it and chew on it and eat it. If we barely grab a hold of it, when the rain comes and washes off our outer layer, what is left is what was put in daily, what is left is what we believed based on what we eat and chew on. Reading God’s word daily is still not even enough. I must make it my meditation and my life force. I’ve got to ingest it, till it becomes me and who I am to the core of me. I have to apply it daily, that’s when I change and my foundation becomes sure. The 1st six principles in the first few verses are only foundations, we must at least, at the very least, know these. We must know them so well that we practice them and when the rain comes to wash off our dust, these remain underneath, as our very inner core. We are in covenant with God Almighty and in covenants there are vows, and statements of purpose to remember and live. We expect God to keep His word, and because we are in Covenant with Him, he also expects us to keep ours. When we repent and forsake the practicing of sin, we have vowed to practice righteousness. How can we do that if we do not know it? We can’t, so we must know Him and His righteous ways, in order to fulfill our vows to Him, as we expect Him to fulfill His to us. Covenant says yes, period. No, "If’s, and’s or but’s", none at all. "when’s and how’s" will do.
Hebrews 9:1-28
1 Now in that first covenant between God and Israel, there were regulations for worship and a sacred tent here on earth. 2 There were two rooms in this tent. In the first room were a lampstand, a table, and loaves of holy bread on the table. This was called the Holy Place. 3 Then there was a curtain, and behind the curtain was the second room called the Most Holy Place. 4 In that room were a gold incense altar and a wooden chest called the Ark of the Covenant, which was covered with gold on all sides. Inside the Ark were a gold jar containing some manna, Aaron's staff that sprouted leaves, and the stone tablets of the covenant with the Ten Commandments written on them. 5 The glorious cherubim were above the Ark. Their wings were stretched out over the Ark's cover, the place of atonement. But we cannot explain all of these things now. 6 When these things were all in place, the priests went in and out of the first room F38 regularly as they performed their religious duties. 7 But only the high priest goes into the Most Holy Place, and only once a year, and always with blood, which he offers to God to cover his own sins and the sins the people have committed in ignorance.
8 By these regulations the Holy Spirit revealed that the Most Holy Place was not open to the people as long as the first room and the entire system it represents were still in use. 9 This is an illustration pointing to the present time. For the gifts and sacrifices that the priests offer are not able to cleanse the consciences of the people who bring them. 10 For that old system deals only with food and drink and ritual washing – external regulations that are in effect only until their limitations can be corrected. 11 So Christ has now become the High Priest over all the good things that have come. He has entered that great, perfect sanctuary in heaven, not made by human hands and not part of this created world. 12 Once for all time he took blood into that Most Holy Place, but not the blood of goats and calves. He took his own blood, and with it he secured our salvation forever. 13 Under the old system, the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a young cow could cleanse people's bodies from ritual defilement. 14 Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our hearts from deeds that lead to death so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins.
15 That is why he is the one who mediates the new covenant between God and people, so that all who are invited can receive the eternal inheritance God has promised them. For Christ died to set them free from the penalty of the sins they had committed under that first covenant. 16 Now when someone dies and leaves a will, no one gets anything until it is proved that the person who wrote the will F39 is dead. F40 17 The will goes into effect only after the death of the person who wrote it. While the person is still alive, no one can use the will to get any of the things promised to them. 18 That is why blood was required under the first covenant as a proof of death. 19 For after Moses had given the people all of God's laws, he took the blood of calves and goats, along with water, and sprinkled both the book of God's laws and all the people, using branches of hyssop bushes and scarlet wool. 20 Then he said, "This blood confirms the covenant God has made with you." F41 21 And in the same way, he sprinkled blood on the sacred tent and on everything used for worship. 22 In fact, we can say that according to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified by sprinkling with blood. Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins.
23 That is why the earthly tent and everything in it – which were copies of things in heaven – had to be purified by the blood of animals. But the real things in heaven had to be purified with far better sacrifices than the blood of animals. 24 For Christ has entered into heaven itself to appear now before God as our Advocate. F42 He did not go into the earthly place of worship, for that was merely a copy of the real Temple in heaven. 25 Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, like the earthly high priest who enters the Most Holy Place year after year to offer the blood of an animal. 26 If that had been necessary, he would have had to die again and again, ever since the world began. But no! He came once for all time, at the end of the age, to remove the power of sin forever by his sacrificial death for us. 27 And just as it is destined that each person dies only once and after that comes judgment, 28 so also Christ died only once as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people. He will come again but not to deal with our sins again. This time he will bring salvation to all those who are eagerly waiting for him.
FOOTNOTES:F29 Or the basics about Christ.F30 Gen 22:17.F38 Greek first tent; also in 9:8.F39 Or covenant.F40 Or Now when someone makes a covenant, it is necessary to ratify it with the death of a sacrifice.F41 Exod 24:8.F42 Greek on our behalf.
~Lena's Journalin' ~ again
We are the Temple of God and of Christ and of God’s Spirit. We are a three part being as God the father, Son and Holy Spirit are also a three part being. We are Spirit, soul and Body, just as the temple was outer court (body), inner court (soul) and holy place (spirit). There is a way into man’s spirit by way of the order of the man being alie with a human body in and on this earth, he’s a human being, he has a body that God wants to live in by the indwelling of His spirit. God wants to move on earth through us as He did when Jesus walked the earth. This is the reason we had to be cleansed, for God to live in us, God cannot, and will not, live in an unclean vessel. We could not just wash ourselves with natural water that we’d find in any stream, we had to have the new birth waters of God’s spirit washing us spiritually (referred to as water many, many times in scripture). Only by the water of God’s own spirit could human man ever get washed as clean as was needed to have God inhabit his being, and another substance was also needed to completely disinfect man from the dust of this natural physical world, it is covenant blood. There had to be a sacrifice in order for man to be safe enough to have God inside. Someone had to die. God told Adam he'd die for his sin, and he did and so did every man after him. God was showing that without Him there would be far more problems than a natural death, but far worse would be his destiny without God and that was a horrid thing. Man’s blood could be shed and he could die a natural death, but there was a greater death that would occur without God giving His own spiritually natured eternal blood for us. Eternal death and its consequence had to be conquered. It was with the blood of Jesus. If we are God’s temple, what is the way into our inner core? Come into our gates with thanksgiving, and into my courts with praise. Sacrifice, death to natural life and giving up my life to gain His is how he gets in- daily. It’s how I gain intimacy with you. I give thanks, I praise God for you, I give my life for you. I light your lamp, I wash you with His word, and inside of you I find salvation, I find food, I find treasures, I find protection. I find God!