The Tuesday after the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on September 24, 2024 by under
Scripture: Hebrews 4:9-13 (NKJV)
4:9 There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. 10 For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.
11 Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience. 12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.
Devotion
This epistle directs us toward faith in the grace of Jesus Christ as our Lord and Redeemer. We are pointed to the Father, who rested from His own work as an example of how we are to live in the age of the Church. As God rested from His work of creation, the believer ceases his efforts to gain salvation by his own works, and rests in the completed work of Christ on the cross. The statement “make every effort” found in verse eleven is not to be mistaken as a call to earn one’s salvation by works. It is an exhortation to enter salvation and rest through faith, and thus avoid following Israel’s sad example in the desert.
Verses twelve and thirteen provide the holy reasons for giving serious attention to the exhortation of verse eleven. Verse twelve is the key to understanding this epistle: the Word of God is everything, for all that this epistle addresses, from chapter one, verse one, to its conclusion at chapter thirteen, verse twenty five, is based directly on the proclamation “God spoke” (God’s Word). Furthermore, His Word is “living and active”—no dead letter, but a living and active written word, just as the Lord is a living and active God who will judge all on the Last Day.
Collect: Lord, we beseech Thee, grant Thy people grace to withstand the temptations of the devil, and with pure hearts and minds to follow Thee, the only God; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
