Tuesday after the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on September 17, 2024 by under
Scripture: Hebrews 10:35-39 (NKJV)
10:35 Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. 36 For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise:
37 “For yet a little while, and He who is coming will come and will not tarry.
38 “Now the just shall live by faith; But if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him.”
39 But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.
Devotion
As we are saved by grace through faith in Christ, the passage from Hebrews 10 teaches us how important it is that we remain steadfast in that faith. “Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward.” There are many who begin in confidence, who allow themselves to be tempted away from the way of life. As our Lord instructs His Church in the parable of the Sower, not all seed comes to maturity: much of that which initially springs up either dies away, or is choked out. Trials and temptations of life are grave dangers to every Christian.
The devil and our sinful flesh want us to be distracted from what really matters. Many people cast away their confidence by being caught up in sins against conscience which, the longer one continues in sin without repentance, the harder it is to return to the way of life. We are given the warning: “For yet a little while, and He who is coming will come and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith; But if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him.”
If you have stumbled on the way, or turned back for a time, it is time to return to that into which you were baptized. Repent of those things which have led you astray, and return to that hope which is ours in Christ Jesus.
Collect: Lord, we pray Thee, that Thy grace may always go before and follow after us, and make us continually to be given to all good works; 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.
