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Be Bold & Persevere (Be Bold Series)

Be Bold & Persevere (Be Bold Series)

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 Be Bold & PersevereHebrews 10:36 "You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.”This was one of the verses I typed for our August discernment notes for the Prayer Group. The message translation came up when I looked up the verse on biblegateway.com to check out different versions. I love the message translation because it puts it in our current terms. It takes what the Bible says and uses common everyday language to tell us what they are talking about. Another thing it does is group verses together. So, instead of having verse 36, it had verses 32-39 all lumped together. This way, you don’t take any verses out of context. I don’t always use this translation when writing the devotional, but I frequently look at it to ensure I understand what is being said. Today, I didn’t intend to look up the message translation; it just came up, and the verses blew me away. When I get a verse, I often read it before and after it. When I do this, I sometimes switch to those verses. The verses before this one give us much more context into what this verse means.Here is the message translation for Hebrews 10:32-36, “Remember those early days after you first saw the light? Those were the hard times! Kicked around in public, targets of every kind of abuse—some days it was you, other days your friends. If some friends went to prison, you stuck by them. If some enemies broke in and seized your goods, you let them go with a smile, knowing they couldn’t touch your real treasure. Nothing they did bothered you, nothing set you back. So don’t throw it all away now. You were sure of yourselves then. It’s still a sure thing! But you need to stick it out, staying with God’s plan so you’ll be there for the promised completion.”I loved these verses because they explain how hard it can be to stick with something. When we start something new, we are excited and go all in, or at least I do. I always want to do it because it is new and exciting. Even if it is hard work, it can still be exciting, and we can still be motivated. However, what about when it is not new or exciting anymore? Think about a hobby you started. You were so excited about it that you bought all the things to go with it and did it all the time. When I got married, my neighbor started selling Creative Memories scrapbooking supplies. To support her, I started a scrapbook for Tony and me. Then, when I had kids, I got more into scrapbooking. I would stay up late doing it. My fellow moms and I would have scrapbooking nights going well into the mornings. I bought more and more stuff, and I loved it. Then, as I had more kids and they got to ages where they were into more stuff, I slowly got away from scrapbooking. Now, I have two bookshelves full of supplies, and I rarely ever scrapbook. I also got into running during COVID-19, and I was excited to go out and run. Not excited every day, but excited enough to get myself out there. I don’t think I ran much at all this past year. Our interests come and go. Our relationship with the Lord should remain a constant in our lives.The letters to the various communities in the New Testament addressed the people of the early church. Jesus came here to set up a new kingdom in this world. This religion was new and exciting. It was familiar in some ways and radically different in other ways. People were excited, and they were all in at first. People were excited about this new religion, and yet it was not an easy life for those who believed in Christ. Nowadays, if you believe in Christ, you may have some persecution, but nothing like they received back at the beginning.Right after Christ died, there was a lot of persecution. Many could not openly worship, and if they were caught, they were put in jail or they were killed. Peter was crucified, Paul was beheaded, Andrew was also crucified, Thomas was pierced through with spears, Philipp was arrested and cruelly put to death, Matthew was stabbed to death, Bartholomew was a martyr for the Gospel, James was stoned and then clubbed to death, Simon, the zealot, was killed after refusing to sacrifice to the sun god, Matthias was burned to death, & John was the only one to die of natural causes. It was not easy to be a Christian when these letters were being written. This is why the early church fathers wrote letters to their people. They wanted to encourage them to keep believing.These verses do just that. “Remember those early days after you first saw the light? Those were the hard times! Kicked around in public, targets of every kind of abuse—some days it was you, other days your friends. If some friends went to prison, you stuck by them.” This reminds them of how they felt when they first came to know Christ. They are reminding them that times were hard even from the beginning, and yet they followed Christ anyway. They were kicked around, and they were abused in all sorts of ways, and yet the Lord was ...
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