Series: Thankful
Hebrews 12:28-29 ESV
In Seminary I was introduced to apologetics.
I was classically trained how to defend the Gospel message. I am ever so thankful for my Seminary journey and especially thankful for the opportunity to study apologetics. Studying defending the Gospel was a key element that relates to communication and logic.
I’m not certain that everyone sees it that way, but because my undergraduate degree was in communication, my brain works in increments…steps you might call it when I am considering a solution. Apologetics added another step.
I was told in Seminary that the book of Hebrews in the New Testament was complex. The language is more complex than the language used in other New Testament works.
Hebrews12:28-29 is a good example of that when we are told, “Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.”
In this scripture we are given perfect steps.
Be grateful.
We receive a Kingdom.
That Kingdom cannot be shaken.
Because that Kingdom cannot be shaken let us make an offering to God.
Let that offering be an acceptable offering of worship.
Allow that worship to include reverence for God.
We revere God alone as great and holy…a fire that consumes!
We are also aware that worship includes awe of God who IS the only God.
There is none like God and we are aware that our God is unlike anything else in the universe and we are speechless.
We include reverence and awe of God because of the consuming fire.
I could break that one verse down more, but you get the idea. Each phrase in this one verse is power-packed and contains logic that advances our thoughts of God to another level.
When we read that one verse quickly we might be inclined to skip past the deeper meaning of the text. However, if we do that it seems like we are skipping from mountaintop to mountaintop and we are missing everything in between.
By slowing the mind and spending time with each short phrase we can begin to absorb the rich content of the words.
The Message from Hebrews 12:28-29 says, “Do you see what we’ve got? An unshakable kingdom! And do you see how thankful we must be? Not only thankful, but brimming with worship, deeply reverent before God. For God is not an indifferent bystander. He’s actively cleaning house, torching all that needs to burn, and he won’t quit until it’s all cleansed. God himself is Fire!”
From the Message we get a greater understanding of WHO God is and how very thankful we should be for the presence of God.
It gives us the reminder of the importance of our thanksgiving for God.
We are reminded that not only should we be thankful we should be so filled with shock and awe that we are bursting through the layers of life to worship God.
We are reminded not only should we be thankful we will fall to our knees to worship God. We are told we need to be mindful of the Holiness of God…so mindful that our knees are shaking and we fall down. We get the idea that we are overcome with the holiness of God.
We are reminded that there is nothing like God anywhere. Seeing God is nothing like seeing another person on the street. Twenty four seven God is actively full of power and love that is being poured out on creation everywhere. It’s not just being poured out on earth. It’s being poured out in our universe and in all the universes. God has no beginning and no end. In and of himself, the beginning and the end of man comes through God.
God is actively burning what needs to burn and that sets re-creation in motion. Just like a plant that dies, it nourishes the soil and the seeds from the plant regrow so the plant has life again. That’s how God created it to be.
With a consuming fire God continues to cleanse and regrow, cleanse and regrow.
Through the whole eternal continuous process, God never stops, never gives up, never gets discouraged and tired. This is not a single act…it’s a continuous act of thousands and millions of actions continuously perpetuated.
That continuous motion of eternally creating is what man cannot comprehend.
That is why we are not God. There is an old saying, “I’m pretty sure God is God and I am not.”
Once we humans come to the realization that we really are not God, we have some concept of who God is.
In the meantime humans who still believe they stand a chance to be God-like really do not know the fullness of God.
They have not yet met the consuming fire.
Spiritual Practice: Contemplate God
Ask God to give you a clue.
In God, Deborah