Jesus, The Faithful One

Well, I’m going to continue on with Hebrews chapter 12. I say “continue on” — I think last week, and someone joked in our staff chat — we have a staff chat for stuff going on in the building — I think Jay said, “Okay, in my final installment,” and then someone said, “For the sixth time.” And here we are. Pastor Jay got us through Hebrews, but I had felt — I was not bothered with him, but I’m like, we’ve got to go back to Hebrews. We missed some good stuff. We missed good stuff in Hebrews chapter 12. You skipped to verse 23 in chapter 12. And I was trying to just let it go.

He’s in kids church today. Today’s Pastor Jay’s birthday. It’s the one time for the next few months that we’re the same age, and then I again become the person who’s older in July. But today is his birthday, and he was excited because he got to be in kids church today. So he’s here. If you see him, say happy birthday.

But we’re going to go back to Hebrews chapter 12. I’ve been doing the Bible Recap. I don’t know if any of you guys are familiar with it. Basically it’s a chronological Bible reading plan, and each day she gives about a seven-to-nine-minute historical recap of what you’re reading, and then she kind of says, what is God saying? What’s overarching? I’ve really enjoyed it. It is good for me to slow down and read through genealogy. It’s good for me to slow down and read through Job. There were like three days that I missed, and I’m like, I’m not skipping over this. I’m going to keep going until I get caught up.

So it has been really good for me from a knowledge perspective. I would say I love Jesus. I love reading His Word. I want to feel it. I want to sense it. And sometimes I need to slow down and know it. So the Bible Recap has been really, really great. Now, I write my notes, and I don’t even know if I can read my notes in my writing, so we’re just going to navigate through this.

Consider Him

Hebrews chapter 12 — we’re going to start in verse 3. I’ll tell you why I mentioned the Bible Recap: I felt like the Lord was showing me some things I was reading in Job and Genesis that I was missing — that aren’t necessarily tied to what we’re reading, but help us bring it together. That is my hope.

So Hebrews 12, verse 3 says: “For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself” — so there he’s talking about Jesus — “lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin. And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: ‘My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.’”

Now, I’m going to tell you, when I knew I had to go back, I was like, ugh, I don’t want to talk about this. This is uncomfortable. Because no one ever likes to really talk about discipline or being chastised by God. I would much rather be in the fun part of Scripture that’s like, have faith — like when I was up here with my vest and I was just so excited. I just put my vest back on a few days ago, if you were here for that. I like to experience that. I don’t want to talk about the Lord correcting us. It’s uncomfortable.

But I want us to grapple with this, because we need to understand this. Even when I think about when I was disciplining my children when they were younger, I would always wrestle through what that looks like. And as we culturally continue to shape and form what discipline looks like for young children, we begin to get further and further away from an understanding of why God would discipline us as His children. Why? And I don’t necessarily have all the answers. So bear with me, and my hope is that we will grapple with this together beyond today.

As I was getting ready — I’ve talked about him before — I have a sweet dachshund, Hank. I wanted a dog that was going to be my dog. And generally, if I move, he moves. Even this morning — I get up pretty early on Sunday morning — he was snuggled really warmly in our bed, and I told him, “Just stay.” And by the time I got to the end of our bed, he had already hopped off: “I’m coming. Wherever you’re going, I’m coming.” I’ve kicked him a few times, just on accident, because you don’t know they’re there. So he likes to be really close to me. We went downstairs, and I got a blanket out because I was kind of cold, and he was really close to me.

And I just felt like the Lord was saying, “This is how close I want you to be with me. As we’re walking through Scripture, you need to be this close to me. You can’t veer off. You can’t just look at Scripture and veer off. I want you near me.” As I was walking with the dog, it almost seemed like he was in my way at times. And the Lord’s invitation is: be so close to me that it’s going to feel like I’m in your way. He wants us to know that, because the invitation is “come.” “I stand at the door knocking.” He’s always waiting for us.

So as we are looking through Hebrews, chapter 12 is divided into kind of four sections. The first section of Hebrews chapter 12 is kind of like, look in — look in at what’s going on with you. So in verses 3 through 4 he reminds us of a few things. He says, “For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself.” Would you consider this? Would you consider this, “lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls”?

The reminder here is that in our weariness, in our times of discouragement — or even worse, in our times of suffering, because we need to recognize and realize there are going to be times of suffering, and suffering is going to look different for all of us — in these moments we need to remember that we serve a God who is not far, who is not distant, who is not uncaring towards us. Rather, we hold on to the hope that Jesus also endured pain and suffering, and He knows us, and He wants to be near us in our suffering. We’re not serving a God who is looking at us, waiting for us to be perfect. He’s perfecting us, and that’s the hope we hold on to.

See, the author is saying, in your weariness, in your suffering, would you hold on to the hope that even Jesus suffered? The purpose of all of this, as we were just singing, is that we would be led to His glory and He would be glorified in our life — that we would be led to deeper places of righteousness, which means to be in right standing with Jesus, that we would be led into deeper places with Him in our weariness and in our suffering.

Satan wants us as believers to have this perspective that our difficulties are proof that God doesn’t care for you. He wants us to believe the idea that because of our decisions, God is far and distant. But the reality is, those moments are actually an invitation to draw nearer to Christ. God’s call to us is quite literally the opposite: that in our weariness, in our shame, in our discouragement, we would draw near to Him.

For whom the Lord loves

Verses 5 through 11. Verse 5: “My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”

See, correction and discipline from the Lord is not bad, but it is sometimes necessary. As a parent, like I said, I have wrestled through what this needs to look like with my own children. And I’m sure we’ve all been on the receiving end of some level of correction — maybe when we were younger, as adults, wherever it might be. But it doesn’t ever feel very good. In fact, sometimes I can feel the yuckiness of it. I don’t like being corrected. I don’t like that feeling. But sometimes it’s needed and necessary.

My kids’ world is sports — it’s coaching. And I can hear, when they’re not doing what they’re supposed to be doing, the correction that comes to change the course: get on track, do what you’re supposed to do. It doesn’t always feel good or sound good, but it’s necessary so that they can win the game, get better, whatever it might be. That’s such a low level of it. But correction oftentimes doesn’t feel good in the moment. And the Lord is saying, “When I correct, you know it may not feel good in that moment, but it will yield much fruit.”

Now, some of us, on the other side of this, might have received correction or discipline that was manipulative, abusive. And when we hear these terms, it makes us feel uncomfortable, because the people or adults in our life misused the power or the trust that was given to them. And we have to work through what that actually means. Because what ends up happening all the time is we begin to have a view of who God is through our earthly experiences. It’s our only frame of reference. When we read Scripture, we picture in our mind what we know. We frame it according to our understanding. And so if we have a misguided view of discipline, from someone who’s been abusive with their power, it might be just that much harder to trust God.

Our view of all of this matters, because oftentimes we view God through our experiences rather than looking for Him in the midst of our experiences. I’m going to say that again. Our view of this matters, because oftentimes we view God through our experiences, versus viewing our experiences and looking for Him where He’s at.

They knew of God, but didn’t know Him

So what we want to do — as I was saying, I’ve been using the Bible Recap — we’re going to just quickly look at a story in Genesis. We’re not going to look through all of it, just literally a few verses, and I’m going to explain.

Basically, you have the lineage through which Jesus comes: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob has twelve sons. Of his twelve sons is Joseph — the one that had the coat of many colors. He is basically Jacob’s favorite. His brothers despise that. He has these dreams. His brothers are upset with it. They sell him, and he goes to Egypt. That’s it in a nutshell. And in the midst of all of that, they lied to their dad. They said he was attacked. There’s just all of this chaos surrounding them.

The reality is they didn’t actually know God, and I’m going to show you places where they didn’t actually know God. They knew of God. They knew the God of their father. They knew the God of the stories of Abraham and Isaac. They knew of God, but they didn’t know God. And this matters, because when they’re walking through these experiences, they keep thinking God is trying to punish them for decisions that they made, when really that’s not at all what had happened.

In Genesis 42:28 — we’re picking up in the middle of the story — it says: “So he said to his brothers, ‘My money has been restored, and there it is, in my sack!’ Then their hearts failed them and they were afraid, saying to one another, ‘What is this that God has done to us?’”

So they go because there’s a famine in the land. They end up in Egypt. Joseph is basically running Egypt. He sees them. They ask for grain. They don’t know it’s him. They pay for it. He puts the money back into their sacks, and then they leave. Now, would anyone ever think, “Oh no, this must be God”? They’re afraid it’s God because the money’s back in their account, so to speak. That would be great, right? If money’s back in my account, I’m like, “Lord, thank you. You’re good. You’re faithful.” If I’m finding money, I’m not thinking, “Is He punishing me?” But here, because they don’t know God, they’re like, “Oh my gosh, we’re afraid. What have we done?”

Again, in verse 35 it says: “Then it happened as they emptied their sacks, that surprisingly each man’s bundle of money was in his sack; and when they and their father saw the bundles of money, they were afraid.”

What is happening here is their experiences are interrupting what’s happening. Because of their decisions — the lies, the manipulation, the course of action they had taken in their life — when it came to actually understanding, “Is this God? What is happening?” they were unable to have the correct view of Him. My experience would say if I found money, “Thank you, Jesus, this is a gift.” Their experience is, they found the money and they’re like, “Oh my gosh, is this God? We’re afraid. Is this judgment?” Do you see how this is off? Their view of who God is is altered.

I want us to understand this, because when we go through hard times, or we feel like we’re being corrected, or we are wrongly afraid, we will sometimes attribute it to God, and it’s not God. We need to pray and read the Bible and get to know Him and study His Word, because knowing Him can change our understanding of whether it’s a correction or just a consequence of my own decision.

Job and his friends

The story of Job reminds me that with good intention we can try to figure things out and get it right, and our answers can be very wrong. The invitation of our suffering and our pain is to turn to God, not to turn away from God. But too many times we say, “This must not be going well. God, what are you doing? God, what have I done?” And we blame Him for things instead of looking for Him, for where He is in the midst of everything.

This is so important for us, because as we continue to go forward and grow in our relationship with God, we have to be able to discern what correction from the Holy Spirit is, versus our own guilt and shame.

In Job — we don’t have time for all of Job — but basically Satan comes to God and asks for Job, and all of these things start happening in Job’s life. Job has this beautiful, wonderful life, and everything is taken from him. And in come these four friends, and they all have an idea, words about what they think is happening in Job’s life: “Oh, well, you must have not —” They just go through the list: “You must have been a horrible person. You must have been stealing.” They’re just accusing him. Some of them are even saying it’s in the name of God: “I’m a voice of God.”

And at the end of Job, Job now is having this conversation with God, and he’s saying, “In all of my pain and my suffering, I was wrong.” At the end of Job, chapter 42, there’s this beautiful place that shows me that it is easier for us to cast judgment than to extend grace. Our hearts can have the right intention and be in the wrong place. But in God’s correction and refinement of us, we see that God will always bring things together to restore things to us, because His heart is always restoration — restoration of relationship, restoration of things that have been lost.

We see it here in Job chapter 42, verses 7–10. Job pours his heart out in response to God, and this is God’s response: “And so it was, after the Lord had spoken these words to Job, that the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, ‘My wrath is aroused against you and your two friends, for you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has.’” Remember, in this whole place in Job, they’re accusing Job of being in the wrong. “‘Now therefore, take for yourselves seven bulls and seven rams, go to My servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and My servant Job shall pray for you. For I will accept him, lest I deal with you according to your folly; because you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has.’” — I’m struggling here. So they go, and He accepts. And in verse 10 it says: “And the Lord restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends. Indeed the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.”

As we’re reading in Hebrews, and he’s talking about correction and chastisement and all of these things, we have to understand that as believers, the best thing we could ever do is to come humbly before the Lord and not speak too quickly in judgment of others as people are walking through situations. I think it’s important, because things continue to get a little bit more crazy out there in the world, and it can be so easy for us to say, “That must be God. God must be judging. God must be angry.” And we have to understand we will give account for our words. We’re not here to be the judge of other people. We’re here to humble ourselves before the Lord, and allow the Lord — and trust that He will bring the correction and the direction and the discernment to people as they need it.

If you read through Job, they had such good intentions, but they missed it. Here Job was blameless before the Lord, and people were casting judgment on him. We have to understand that how the Lord corrects and brings alignment in our life is probably not what we think it might look like. Our job is to stay humble and honest and open before the Lord, and to extend mercy and grace to those around us, and to ourselves.

Grace in my dad’s last days

So I went back and forth about sharing this story, because it’s half of my story. My father passed away in 2022. He became very sick, and he chose treatment that would extend his life for as long as he could. And I should say my relationship with my dad was very complicated. He was not a Christ follower for most of his life. The Lord restored everything in His grace and mercy — but I’ll get to that.

So my dad moves here kind of abruptly. He had lived in California most of his life. I left for Peru, and I said, “When I come back, I’ll start looking for places for you.” I land in Chicago — we still text each other when we land, even with my mom: “Hey, I landed” — and then I get a text: “Look at my new home.” And I was like, what? He went and bought this home unbeknownst to any of us. I was gone for ten days. Literally ten days. So he abruptly moves here. And after moving here, he finds out that his illness has reached a point where there’s nothing that they can do.

So we fast forward a year and a half later, or however long it was, and he’s lying on the couch, vulnerable and weak, not anything that I ever pictured of my dad. And I just remember him lying there, and he looked at me, and he said, “Suzie, am I here because of all of the bad decisions I’ve ever made? Is this the result of all of my bad decisions?” And I said, “I think you’re just here because you didn’t take care of your body.”

Every part of me, if not rightfully healed, could probably have made a good case that just maybe this was God’s judgment. I’m not the judge, and I don’t think that’s who He is. In my dad’s vulnerability and his weakness, at his lowest point, extending grace and mercy was more important than ever being right about anything in his life. So I said, “I just don’t think you took very good care of yourself, Dad.” And I just covered him up, and he was sitting with his own stuff.

But I tell you this to say that in that moment, he viewed his suffering as a consequence. And in that moment, I viewed his suffering as grace and mercy. Had my dad not moved when he did, he wouldn’t have been able to have the care he had, and be surrounded by me and my sisters, his grandchildren, and my mom, and be cared for with the dignity and honor and respect that he deserved. So in his suffering, he felt it was judgment. But the Lord had done such a work in me that I saw his suffering as God’s grace and mercy — that I could cover him and say, “Dad, you just didn’t take care of yourself. Let me get you some water.”

We have to be careful when we think about what we think we deserve or others deserve. Whether it’s God bringing correction or not — it shouldn’t matter to us. We should be people who just say, “Okay, God, I need your grace and mercy. Even in my suffering — whether I’m sitting in my own decisions and my own consequences, because our decisions have consequences, or this is you correcting me, whatever it is — I still need your grace and your mercy. I still need to hold on to that hope that in my weariness you will make me strong.”

We have to begin to wrestle through the uncomfortable parts of Scripture. We can’t just bypass them, because it does us no good not to give attention to them. Even though I don’t have the answers, and I’m stumbling through this, and it’d be really great to just talk about something else, we’ve got to talk through: How do I perceive God correcting me? Am I open to it? Am I willing to surrender everything to Him, to the point that when He points something out, I won’t try to hold on to it, but I’ll say, “No, you’re right. I need to let this go. I need to walk away. I need to give this away,” whatever it might be?

This is the life we’re wrestling through. And if we can’t see and have a good perspective of God and who He is, we will always think He’s working against us. We will view every obstacle, every place of suffering, everything that doesn’t feel right as God being mad at us and angry — “You’re just getting what you deserve.” And that’s not who God is. He’s a God of mercy and grace — so much so that He puts it in Scripture just so you know, when you go through this: “I do this because I love you, and you’re my son.” He doesn’t leave us out there wondering. “No, I want my kids to know I’m doing this because I love you.” He needs us to know that He’s delighted in us. And so we have these places in Scripture that are sometimes uncomfortable and clunky, so that we can wrestle through them and have the right perspective of who He is.

There is so much I learned walking through these things with my dad. And I will tell you, every time I ever talk about it, I’m like, it was God’s grace that He brought him here. It was God’s mercy. My mom was there serving him coffee every morning. She is wonderful, but she did that because God did a deep work in her, and she understood: I’ve got to love and forgive and walk in mercy more than ever be right. The only opportunity we have is to extend mercy and grace to other people, and to understand that mercy and grace are extended to us all of the time — that we don’t have to walk in guilt and shame and condemnation. My dad did not need guilt and shame and condemnation. He needed God’s mercy and love and hope in those darkest moments.

This is what it means to walk as a believer: that we would say, “I lay it all down — being right, getting my apology, knowing if this is God’s judgment or not. That’s not any of my business.” I consider everything in those last weeks with my dad an honor — to be able to see how the Lord brought everything —

Okay, I’m going to get off track for just a moment. I’m going to tell you guys that every prayer I think I ever prayed as a little girl, by the time my dad took his last breath, had been answered. And none of it looked the way I thought it was going to look. I longed as a young girl for my parents to be reconciled. And for a few weeks my mom ran interference for me and my sister, and she stayed at my dad’s house. They got along in the end. I remember walking in one day, and they’re both at the microwave trying to figure something out because they can’t see. And I’m like, God, you’re so good. That’s how good He is. I could have tried to figure it out as a little girl, but God has it all working out for us if we’re willing to be submissive and honor Him. I’ve seen my mom do it, and it challenges me to do it over and over and say, “I’m just going to submit to you.”

It blows my mind. When I was with my dad, I felt like the Lord said, “Not one of your prayers.” And as we were going through my dad’s stuff, I found all these cards that my dad kept from me. I would say, “Dad, I’m praying,” and I would write what my prayer was. And reading all of these cards at the end, I was like, “Lord, not one of my prayers was wasted.”

I’m here to tell you that not one of your prayers will be wasted. We serve a God who is full of grace and mercy. It says the goodness of God leads people to repentance. We don’t have to worry. I get that it feels like our world around us is going to hell in a handbasket at a very quick rate. But I’m telling you that our God is faithful. It is not for us to say if it’s hell or not. We don’t even know if it’s in a handbasket. All we need to do is say, “God, I’m going to be someone who gives honor and glory to you. I’m going to be a person who learns how to extend mercy and grace and goodness to people, because you’ve given it to me.”

That’s the beauty of it, when we get to be in such a close relationship. Job knew what he knew. Despite what everyone told him, Job knew his heart and his relationship with God. Let us be people who are so convinced of our relationship with God that no matter what happens around us, we would continue to extend mercy and grace to other people.

Pursue peace with all people

It goes on. So we have this first part of Hebrews 12 where he’s saying, look in yourself. Look at what’s going on. Pay attention to what I’m doing. When I’m correcting you, I want you to look in. Don’t be afraid. You’re my son, so I need you to look in. You’re going to be safe here.

Then in the second place, he begins to have us look at what was. Hebrews 12:12 says: “Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed. Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.”

What he’s saying is, all right, now we need to start making provision and ways — for other people, for yourself, for the places of weakness, for those who are weak. We’re going to clear the way. We’re going to make the way for other people. As we’re rounding the bend of Hebrews, it’s so important to him that we have all of these pieces, so that when we leave, we’re launched forward, and we know how to launch forward correctly.

Proverbs chapter 4 — I would go back and read it — let’s see if it’s going to come up there. We have a screen back here now. Oh, there we go. “My son, give attention to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; keep them in the midst of your heart; for they are life to those who find them, and health to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life. Put away from you a deceitful mouth, and put perverse lips far from you. Let your eyes look straight ahead, and your eyelids look right before you. Ponder the path of your feet, and let all your ways be established.” “Looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God” — oh, wait, that was the next one. I was like, well, that’s really good. That was the verse that came in there, but it goes well. We need to ponder the path of our feet. We need to keep our eyes looking forward.

Now, I can tell you all about grace and mercy very deeply and intimately, but this is where I begin to struggle with Scripture. Correct me — I’m okay. I want to be right with the Lord. Extend mercy and grace to other people that I love — great. Where I struggle, if I’m going to be very honest with you, is this next verse: “Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.”

Pursue peace with everyone. There’s no caveat. He doesn’t say pursue peace with your neighbor, which would probably be a good contextual word to put in there. No, he says, “Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.”

Obviously the Scripture is inspired by God, so He doesn’t just do this on accident. He says: Run this race well. Know I’m going to correct you, and I correct those I love. Start making the way for other people. And as you make the way for other people, you need to pursue peace with all of them. Everyone — not just people who think like you, walk like you, talk like you. Everyone. And holiness. We need both.

We need to protect our heart — like in Proverbs chapter 4, where it says ponder your path, keep your heart. We need to protect it because we need to stay at peace with people. Because when we start getting the most riled up, we start losing perspective of what the Lord wants to do. And then we need to pursue holy living, to live like Christ, being perfected through Him. We don’t need to come to Him perfect.

We want to see greater encounters with the Lord. Genuinely, if you want to see greater encounters with the Lord, I think a great place to start is: How do I view everyone right now? And how am I living? Not in a place of condemnation — it’s just a good marker. I didn’t write this. Like I said, I’m good with all the other stuff until it’s “all people.” Well, wait, what does that mean? No, that means everyone. “Suzie, that person that still annoys you?” Yeah, that person. You need to figure out how to be at peace with them, because you’re not at peace — because you’re annoyed. See how that works?

Don’t settle like Esau

So we looked first at ourselves, and now he has us looking back: “Looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled; lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.”

There’s a lot there. To summarize: God’s grace never fails us, but we can fail to experience His grace. It’s up to us to take advantage of the commitment and grace that He has given to us. What he’s saying is, don’t settle like Esau settled for something to eat. Don’t settle for just what’s right now. God’s promises are so much more for you. Don’t settle for earthly desires and being satisfied in your flesh for right now. You guys all know what that looks like in your life personally. We don’t need examples. We all know when our flesh is being satisfied, because we want what we want and we want it now. And he’s saying, don’t do that. When we do that, we miss God’s grace that’s available to us. We miss things because we’re so busy satisfying ourselves.

An unshakable kingdom

And I won’t go to the scriptures towards the end of Hebrews chapter 12, but he basically tells us to look up to the heavenly city, and then look forward to the unshakable kingdom. We live in a shakable world where things are continually happening around us, and the invitation for us is to respond to a God who is the King of kings of an unshakable kingdom.

We’ve got to keep running the race that is set before us. We need to keep looking for Jesus, and look for Him everywhere. Look for Him in your suffering. Look for Him in the mundane. Look for Him in the good stuff. He is everywhere to be found. We are the only ones who are not looking. He’s everywhere, I promise you. He’s looking. He delights in you, just as we delight in Him. Look for Him.

Keep running the race, because in this time we are in, as we get closer — every day is closer to the end — there’s always going to be an invitation to walk in fear. There’s going to be the invitation to look at what’s going on around you and get caught up in all of the drama and the chaos. And all that does is take us off course from what is available to us, which is a King of kings and Lord of lords who’s unchangeable, immovable, who’s speaking to us, who desires to work in and through His people in the very communities you find yourselves in. It really is that simple.

So we need to remember He is for us. We’re called to live a life of faith and trust, and to take the risk, because following Jesus will feel risky. But He’s always worth it. He never changes. He doesn’t move. Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” That’s a proclamation, and it’s a promise. It means He never changes. He never will. And that’s the God we hang on to.

Would you stand with me so I can pray for us?

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your goodness. We thank you that you love us. God, I just pray that there would be a greater revelation of your mercy and goodness in our lives. God, I pray that you would continue to help us have the right understanding and view of who you are — that as we read Scripture we would be illuminated by your Word, Lord, that it would bring an understanding of who you are and how you move.

Lord, as was said today, we don’t need to be afraid of you looking inward, which is really what the Scripture is saying. When you look in, it isn’t to be angry or mad. It’s to bring freedom and hope. It’s to make sure that we’re not snagged and wrongly hooked and weighed down by things that we don’t need to be weighed down by. God, I pray that we would have a greater revelation of who you are.

Lord, I pray that we would see you this week, that we would see you in the midst of everything. And God, I pray that our hearts would be awakened, and that we would long and yearn to see you throughout our day. But Lord, I also pray over our times of prayer and our devotions, whatever it might be — God, I pray that we would also find you there. Lord, we thank you that you are the same yesterday, today, and forever, and we serve a real and living God who desires a near relationship with us. We thank you for your love and your grace and your mercy. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

Transcribed from the message recording and lightly edited for reading.