The author of Hebrews highlights two blessed assurances: our salvation (v 20) and our Saviour (v 21). On the basis of these certainties, he urges the pursuit of faith, hope and love. 

Our walk with God begins as we ‘draw near’ by faith (v 22), and ‘receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need’ (4:16). We do so on the basis of Christ’s finished work – so we are confident of our salvation. But ‘commencement of the Christian life is not sufficient, there must be a continuation and completion’.* Because salvation is not yet fully realised, it’s easy to be distracted, deterred or dissuaded from staying the course. So we are urged to ‘hold unswervingly to the hope we profess’ because ‘he who promised is faithful’ (v 23) – we can have confidence in our Saviour.  

But even drawing close and staying close isn’t enough. The same Jesus who calls, ‘Come to me’ (Matthew 11:28), also commands, ‘Go and make disciples of all nations’ (Matthew 28:19). The moment we begin to journey with Jesus we join a pilgrim community, charged with the demanding and often delicate task of spurring or provoking one another both to love right and to live right (v 24). 

*Thomas Hewitt, The Epistle to the Hebrews: Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, Eerdmans, 1979, p74

I pause to give thanks for the person(s) who has most strengthened me in my faith, who has encouraged me in my journey of discipleship.

With the word ‘Therefore’ the writer begins to spell out the implications of all that he has been teaching in previous chapters. However, since he has enjoyed ‘turning the diamond’ of the excellencies of Jesus our Lord, let me, also, do so once again myself, reading again, perhaps, from chapter 1 – Jesus is greater than the prophets, the angels, Moses, Joshua, David, Melchizedek, Abraham, Levi, Aaron and every other priest. He offers us a better hope, a better covenant, based on better promises; he is a better priest who, through his unique, unrepeatable self-sacrifice, has achieved for us a once-for-all eternal redemption. He is the outshining of the Father’s glory, the exact facsimile of the God we have never seen, the one who always lives to intercede for us, the perfect Mediator. There are still other better things to come in this letter, but for the moment – Jesus, I offer you my praise and worship for all that you have been and are and always will be for me.

Now I turn my attention to the two occurrences of the word ‘since’ and the three occurrences of the phrase ‘let us’ in today’s passage (NIV). ‘Since’ gives us reasons for assurance; ‘let us’ gives substance to the writer’s exhortations. The passage is full of golden words and phrases: living way, sprinkled and washed, hold unswervingly, draw near, spur on. I roll these words around my heart and taste them as deeply as I can. Which speaks to me most strongly today?

John Bunyan wrote that his aim was ‘not to run a little now and then, by fits and starts, or halfway or almost thither; but to run for my life, to run through all difficulties, and to continue therein to the end of the race, which must be to the end of my life.’¹

I renew my resolve to do the same, encouraged by the approaching Day.

¹ G Offor, Works of John Bunyan, Vol 3, 1885, p381