Well, this chapter is replete with opportunities to rethink and relearn until we think correctly.

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1 Growing up in a world seeped in disbelief amid a generation of lovers of self rather than lovers of God, who haven t got a clue what the Word of God says, but are very confident through the genius of 21 st century education that it is no longer relevant. Dr. Dallas Willard of USC lamented walking the halls of academia throughout the world seeing etched in their historic marble walls: You Shall Know The Truth - - And The Truth Shall Set You Free remarking: Oh, really? Jesus, when He lived among us, was a very good Teacher; His first word to his class of students was: METANOIA, meta = change + noia = mind; unfortunately, this Greek word was substituted with that terrible word: re-pent, which literally means re-pain which is not a word I have ever heard used in school. Have you? There is not a first-grade teacher I know who would use that word. Perhaps a buffoon would, but certainly not a teacher; Jesus did not use that word! He said: change your mind, or we can say, change your thinking as Dr. Willard pointed out: only a changed mind can lead to a changed heart. Well, this chapter is replete with opportunities to rethink and relearn until we think correctly. 1 Wherefore / based on what was previously mentioned in chapter 11 about those of whom the world was not worthy. seeing we are surrounded with so great a cloud of witnesses / in Greek: martys those willing to put their life on the line and if necessary, give up their life for this Good News; the writer tells us about a great megas crowd of martys set in the familiar words of an Olympic athlete, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin that does so easily entangles / in Paul s letters to the church he write: put off, strip off, throw down some things. F.B. Meyer wrote: Thousands of Christians are like water-logged vessels. They cannot sink; but they are so saturated with inconsistencies and worldliness, and permitted evil, that they can only be towed with difficulty into the celestial port, and let us run / the speed of the people of God is well beyond dawdling and sauntering and always beyond wandering in darkness while yawning in boredom. Do you know? Life is not boring! If it is for you, well then, unfortunately, your boredom is not something I can help you with because life is not boring! let us run with patience / better, let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus the author / in Greek: archegon, we see the root: arch as in monarch; Jesus is the Prince, the Captain, the Leader the Originator, and finisher / tellioten, the perfecter, the completer of faith; Jesus, who originated and first completed the race of faith: who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, 1 ilibros.net internacional 2015

2 despising the shame / Jesus, never deviated, He kept running the race of faith, and at the right of the throne of the God sat down! 3 For consider Him who endured such contradiction of sinners against himself / there are reasons why Jesus spent time alone with His Father; there was not a day He did not observe goofy people pushing to get to the front of the line; or the envious and resentful wanting to destroy Him, consider him lest you be wearied and faint in your minds / the fact that He stayed when He didn t have to; or more significantly, that He came when He didn t need to is a miracle in itself evidence of His great love for His Father -- something I understand and for us -- something I don t. 4 You have not yet resisted unto blood / for which of us has given a drop of our blood?, striving against sin. 5 And have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to children, My son, despise not the chastening / paideia, which means to instruct, to nurture, to coach, to train continuing the theme of running the race all the way to the finish line. Regarding these 7 verses, we may need to change our traditional thinking, until we think correctly. These lessons of the heart have much to do with training and instructing -- best done by example; and nurturing children -- best understood by fathers who are real fathers and mothers who are real mothers which always includes correction, but not like Neo-Nazis or Roman centurions; not like Hitler or Inquisitor wannabes but from God fearing parents. These verses are not written for loveless people who don t give a crap about the things of God! By the way, 350-pound feeble, obese Health teachers do not make good examples for instruction! But first grade teachers do! They are amazing examples to follow: how they instruct and correct and strengthen and reinforce and fortify students to excel especially when we know most children who I guess will make great adults who would prefer to just sit and eat and watch TV for endless hours and never read an interesting book or write a creative thought -- you know, like the rest of the world My son, do not despise the training and instruction of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved / and corrected of him: 6 For whom the Lord loves He trains and instructs / paideuo, and scourges / even with a tongue-lashing, if necessary, to whip into shape every son who He receives. 7 If you endure training and instructing, God deals with you as with children; 2 ilibros.net internacional 2015

3 for what child is s/he whom the father does not train and instruct? 8 But if you are without training and instructing, of which we all are partakers / the New English Bible says: if you escape the discipline in which all share, then you are bastards, and not true children / wow! That s a bible verse we don t hear much, isn t it? 9 Furthermore we had earthly fathers as trainers and instructors, and we gave them regard / we respected them: will we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? 10 For they train and instruct us for a short time after their own pleasure / society s finest?!! trains us for a short period of time at their whim; but He for our good / for our benefit, that we be partakers of His holiness. 11 Now training and instructing for the present seems not to be joyous, but grievous: yet to those who are exercised by it, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness. 12 Wherefore / why was all this said? Why was this lengthy illustration given? strengthen the hands that are weak, and the knees that are feeble / exercise your weak arms and wobbly knees; 13 and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned from the way; but rather be healed. 14 Follow peace with all / as far as possible, make peace with all our goal; do what we can to help the relationship grow; Jesus said, By this they will know, you belong to Me, if you have love, one for another, and sanctification / Jesus, the night He was betrayed, said His Father s word makes us holy, without which no one will see the Lord: 15 looking diligently / literally, overseeing all these things, lest any man, woman, or child fail / falls destitute of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause you trouble, and by it many be defiled / like a noxious weed ruining the whole effort; 3 ilibros.net internacional 2015

4 16 lest there be any fornicator / any sensuality and sexuality is something God created; when persistent and obsessive pursuits are added it becomes about the furthest thing in an individual s order or disorder from reaching God who is spirit and must be worshiped in spirit and truth, or profane person as Esau / who was the first born, and legitimate heir to the promises God gave first to Abraham and Isaac, who for one morsel of meat / who, not terribly discerning for a bowl of soup; sold his birthright. 17 For you know how that afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place for metanoia / the simple, unadorned ability to change our thinking, to think clearly and correctly, though he sought it with tears. 18 For you have not come to a mountain that may be touched burning with fire, nor to darkness, gloom and tempest, 19 and the sound of a trumpet, and the sound of words; which sound that they who heard begged that no further word should be spoken to them / these words echo what Moses experienced with the people when they receive the 10 commandments and no more written by the finger of God Deut. 5; can you imagine? And the LORD said to these hard heads and fools, your will be done: 20 for they could not endure the command: If even a beast touches the mountain, it will be stoned, or thrust through with a dart: 21 and so awesome was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and tremble: 22 but you are come to Mount Zion, to the City of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads angels / this whole book is about training us to run the race of faith the new and better way until one day we run into Jesus; and nothing is better than JESUS! 23 To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, 24 And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, 4 ilibros.net internacional 2015

5 and to the blood of sprinkling / the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ shed for us Amazing grace! that speakes better things than that of Abel / who was murdered, whose blood was spilt. 25 See that you do not refuse Him who speakes / Jesus said, Heaven and earth will pass away, but My Words will never pass away; He is still speaking today. For if they did not escaped when they refused Him who spoke / and warned on earth, all the more we will will not escape, if we turn away from Him who speakes from heaven: 26 whose voice then shook the earth: but now He has promised, saying, Yet once more I will shake not the earth only, but also heaven / the 6 th great Day of God s wrath foretold by Haggai the prophet, when the LORD says, I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry lands I will shake all nations I will shake the heavens and the earth, and I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the heathen in that Day. 27 And this word: yet once more signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as of those things that are made / all created things of God s creation will be shaken; F.B. Meyer wrote, theological systems are shaken, ecclesiastical systems are shaken, political systems are shaken, character and lives are constantly shaken, so that those things which cannot be shaken, will remain / example of some things that cannot be shaken: God s Word, God s love, God s eternal kingdom. 28 Wherefore since we receive a kingdom that cannot be moved, let us have grace, by which we acceptably serve God with reverence and godly fear / prophet Isaiah wrote: Let the Lord be your fear, let the Lord be your dread; and He will be for you a Sanctuary: 29 For our God is a consuming fire. Dr. Dallas Willard also reminds us God is loving; but you cannot love some things, without hating other things. To love everything, including what is evil, is to love nothing. Proverbs 6 speaks of 6 things God always hates wherever He finds them. God is also powerful, and if His power is anything like electricity, then He is dangerous! And we better learn how to approach Him correctly. 5 ilibros.net internacional 2015