Hebrews 10:35-39
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.
The writer to the Hebrews exhorts his hearers not to “cast away your confidence, which has a great reward.” A Christian has a confidence that can only come from the certain fact of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection for all mankind. We are confident of His work for us – that He has paid for all our sins in His own body on the tree of the cross. We are confident of His love for us shown in that same horrid suffering and death. We are confident that we too will rise on the last Day and have our bodies remade and reunited with our souls to be with our Lord forever in heaven where there will be no more sin, sickness, suffering, sadness, or death. Being with Christ in heaven at the end of all things will be the greatest reward we could ever know.
In the meantime, we need endurance in order that we may indeed receive this great reward. Of course, we have no endurance of ourselves. If left to our own devices, we would fail miserably to keep the faith; we would perish eternally for our sins and never enjoy the bliss and glory of heaven.
For that endurance, we look to Hebrews 12:1-2: “1Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Jesus, therefore, is our endurance. He who is coming again has given us the gift of faith to believe in His work for us, and by that same faith has justified us and made us right with Him. We stand firm in Christ and will be with Him forever in sinlessness and glory.
Let us pray: Lord Jesus, thank You for Your great love and forgiveness. As we struggle in this life, keep us faithful to You so that we may be with You forever. Amen.
