Read Hebrews 5:11-6:12
“But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” 5:14
Some Thoughts…
It is easy to get lost, or to be consumed by this passage of scripture. Every time I read 6:4-6 I am troubled, even frightened at the prospect of a loved one, friend, and even myself “falling away” from God with little to no hope of restoration … but today my fear has led me to God’s wisdom (I hope) as I notice the flow of the entire passage from 5:11 to 6:8; these verses form a parentheses from the author’s main discussion and exposition of Christ’s suffering and mighty salvation-work. They are here to point out a need for maturity, a need to go deeper into real relationship with God and away from religious trappings. Hebrews was written to struggling Jewish believers, some of whom were returning to the comforts of Judaism. They were giving up on Jesus, so the author calls on them to go deeper, to grow, to move beyond the exteriors of baptism, ceremonial washings, laying on of hands, even questions about resurrection and good deeds to receive salvation, and to move to a lifestyle of discipline; a faith-life characterized by obeying God, seeking His truth and putting into day to day use God’s word (“by constant use have trained themselves to…” 5:14).
For without the deeper faith-life, without a relationship with the Creator over a religion of deeds, they will soon turn on all this “Jesus stuff” and openly curse the name of the ONE they claimed to have trusted. They will become active in rebellious slander of the kingdom. “That religious stuff just doesn’t do it for me” will become their catch-phrase. Then the writer of Hebrews gives us this frightening thought in verse 4. That in their resistance to knowing God fully in Christ beyond the religious trapping of “do-this-and-don’t-do-that” religion, they will never be able to find grace; their hearts will grow more calloused. The lie of the enemy will become their truth and their lives will bear the fruit of the futility of their hearts – hearts unwilling to receive God’s word; hearts so hard that the water of life cannot be absorbed. And, the Celestial Gardener will abandon those fields to be burned and never used again. (Reread 6:7-8… Also, see the parable of the soils in Matthew 13:3-29)…. When we choose the comfort of religious deeds over a radical relationship of obedience and faith in the unseen God, we play a perilous game that brings tears to the eyes of our Savior. (see Matt. 23:37-39)
A Prayer…
Father, by Your grace make me grow, help me to feed on the meat of your word, not to continue to be satisfied with the warm milk of Salvation information. Make me go deeper, to accept the “hard teaching” of Your Kingdom and enable me to walk with you in faith as you grow me into a man after your own heart.