Devotional Thoughts

Hebrews 10:9-10    "Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.  (10)  By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." We finished last Friday with a body that was prepared for the Son of God to occupy when He came to this earth two thousand years ago.  He came to fulfill the first covenant, which was the law. In fulfilling the first covenant, He has now established the second covenant which is grace. What were the promises (covenants) made by God?  The first covenant (promise) declared we could not save ourselves eternally. We could not do enough good works to redeem ourselves. That was a promise.  Please allow me to use my terminology. God said, "I promise you that you cannot do enough to save yourselves; therefore, you deserve eternal banishment from God and heaven's glory."  The second covenant (promise) was this, "I promise you that thou

   2 Chronicles 19:3 –  Nevertheless there are good things found in thee, in that thou hast taken away the groves out of the land, and hast prepared thine heart to seek God. One of the better kings in the Old Testament was Jehoshaphat.  A descendant of David, this king of Judah was an inspiration to many during his lifetime, but he was not without faults.  He did not always do what best pleased God, but neither do we. We should be encouraged that God used such a man as Jehoshaphat.   The word  nevertheless  can be powerful.  Here we see it used to tell the king that despite how he had failed in certain things, God was pleased that he had done away with the idolatry in the nation, and moreover he had prepared his heart to seek God. Through prayer, study, and worship, we can also prepare our hearts to seek God.  I know we have failed Him time and time again. Nevertheless, I pray the Lord will be pleased with us as well as we put away anything that distracts us from following our Savior a

Hebrews 10:5-7    "Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:  (6)  In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.  (7)  Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God." It has been established that the blood of bulls and goats could not take away sins; rather they served as a stark reminder of the sinful nature that we carry with us each day. Those offerings did not give pleasure, that is, they were not counted as valid payment for the debt of sin against us. Isaiah was blessed to write concerning the "pleasure" of God seven hundred years before Christ came to this earth. "Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.  (11)  He shall s

Hebrews 10:1-3    "For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.  (2)  For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.  (3)  But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year." Again I say, I love the convenience of having chapter and verse numbers in the Bible.  But sometimes, if we stop at the end of a chapter, the flow of thought can be interrupted. Chapter 9 concluded with the thought of Jesus having entered once into the Holy of holies and He was "once offered to bear the sins of many." If that thought is not fresh in my mind, I might think chapter 10 begins a new idea; rather, the writer is going into further explanation as to why Jesus only entered once. Until the time of Jesus, the Hebrews