Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
Hebrews 13:7,8
Think back to when you woke up this morning. For the very few who are like me, I wake up like a light switch. I open my eyes and I’m up. 100% awake and raring to go. My mind is sharp and thinking about all sorts of stuff. And then there’s most of the rest of the planet that rolls around and slowly starts to wake up.
No one way of waking up is right or wrong. But no matter how we wake up, we all eventually do. And when our brains start to kick in, what’s the first thing you saw? While I can’t tell you exactly what you saw, I can tell you who you didn’t see. You didn’t see you.
And for that matter, all our senses aren’t pointing inward. They’re not made for looking, listening, feeling, speaking, or even smelling ourselves. We’re given these five great gifts for exploring everyone and everything that’s outside of us. They are a God-given gateway for living. Without them, there’s no interaction with people or the world around us. There’s no way to know or learn anything.
Remember where the Hebrews are? They’re smack dab in the middle of persecution. They’re being arrested for what they think, not what they’re doing. Everyone and everything are against them. In the words of Annie, “It’s the Hard-Knock Life[1].”
Remember how we felt when just one important thing in this life go south? When one thing we’ve been working so hard on goes sour? It’s easy to become discouraged and depressed when one thing falls apart. Is ripped apart. Now multiply that times seven.
These Hebrews are being pushed around and punished because they’ve turned from the traditions of paying for their own sins. Making sacrifices over and over. Day after day. Week after week. Month after month. Year after year. Instead, they’ve turned to Jesus and his once-and-for-all sacrifice for all sin.
As you can see, this is a huge change for them. They’ve walked away from how it’s been done for years. Their whole way of life was built around the sacrifices and sacred holidays. No more bringing sacrifices to the temple. No more buying animals to be given to a priest to pay for their sins.
When you add the persecution to how they’ve uprooted their lives, it’s no wonder that they’re questioning what they’ve done. It would be easier to just go back to the way things were. To stop rocking the boat.
To stop these people from giving up, the writer tells them to look back at the people that told them about Jesus. How they gave up everything to follow Jesus. How they turned away from the past and the emptiness it left inside them. Instead, they looked forward to the cross and empty tomb as the once and final answer to their sin problem.
More than just suggesting, they are being commanded to be actively and constantly remembering. This is the only way not to let something else get into our head. And as we’re remembering, we need to carefully think about all the things that happened and didn’t happen to bring us to Jesus.
When we look back at the people that God brought into our lives, we can’t hit the fast forward button in our brain. We need to play it back at normal speed, looking at all the details and words that God used to bring us to himself. To think through all the smooth and rough roads that God has walked through with us to deepen our faith.
But more than just noodling about these great people and events, we have to become imitators of their faith. And how can we imitate anyone? It starts by looking at them and all they did. All they said. How they acted.
As we look back at the people God used in our lives, the first thing to do is to thank God. Then, we need to thank the people too. Not because they were perfect in their walk with God, but because they invested part of their lives into us.
Even as I think about the words that are coming off my fingers and onto a keyboard, I can’t help but think about the guy God used to bring me to Jesus. He’s almost the voice in my head when I talk and write about who God is and all he’s done for us in Christ. The fact that I write and speak simply is the direct result of how he spoke to me.
Do you have someone like that in your life? Whose example is in your head and heart? Who God has used to teach and motivate you to grow in the faith? If you do, be sure you’ve thanked them. That they know how important they’ve been in your life. How God used them in an important way, changing who you are for the good. If you can’t think of anyone, then you’ve got something to do. You need to start looking right now for someone to help you grow in your faith. To encourage you. To train you. To gently nudge you. And when needed, give you a quick kick to put you back on track. We need to be on the lookout for people that we can encourage in the faith. People that can look to us as we look to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith[2].
Noodling Questions
Are you good at looking for things? Give an example.
What kind of things does God command us to be looking for? Why?
How can we be someone who helps others look for God and find him?
[2] Hebrews 12:2
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