Fix Your Thoughts On Jesus

Encourage one another to fix our thoughts on Jesus. For all of us who create our own plans of attack or response to the trials of our journey today, we risk our deceitful human hearts rebelling against God. He has a better word for us: Fix your thoughts on Jesus…

1 Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest. 2 He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house. 3 Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. 4 For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. 5 “Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,” bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future. 6 But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory.

7 So, as the Holy Spirit says:

“Today, if you hear his voice,
8 do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion,
during the time of testing in the wilderness,
9 where your ancestors tested and tried me,
though for forty years they saw what I did.
10 That is why I was angry with that generation;
I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray,
and they have not known my ways.’
11 So I declared on oath in my anger,
‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ”

12 See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.
Hebrews 3:1-13 NIV

So far the writer of Hebrews has reminded us that Jesus is the Son of God, the exact representation of Almighty God who is creator of all things, and greater than angels. He is the voice of God for this age, and he took on human form to defeat the sin which held humans in subjectivity. He comes to our support and aid in our struggles because he identifies with us. Therefore…

Fix your thoughts on Jesus.

At this time in the first century there was much competing dialogue on the nature of truth, religious ideas, future things, the flesh and the soul, and whether this teacher from Nazareth was actually Messiah. Much competing dialogue. In a few ways, this reminds me of today. Followers of Jesus are pushed and pulled, our faith co-opted for political agendas, the history of our faith darkly linked to horrific acts, and with an air that says our time has come and gone in modern society.

Fix your thoughts on Jesus.

Jesus is our apostle and high priest. He was appointed by God and is faithful, just as Moses was. Okay. These are significant statements. The people who received this letter knew exactly what was being said here. This is like when Jesus took on the religious leaders of his day in John 8 and told that that he knew Father Abraham and existed before him. If there was competing thoughts on the truth of this faith and the Messiah, our writer is cutting through the competition to be crystal clear. Jesus is the builder of this spiritual house (vs. 3-4), and we are the house as his followers who hold to our confidence and future hope (vs. 6).

Fix your thoughts on Jesus.

Quoting Psalm 95, with attribution to the Holy Spirit as its voice: Don’t harden your hearts. Don’t be like those who rebelled in the desert when times were tough. Don’t test God by setting aside faith and trust in him. Referring to his people in that desert, God says, “Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.” In fact, if you are drawing any comparisons to life today, note that rather than trusting God, the people were ready to take matters into their own hands and return to Egypt. For all of us who think we need to create our own plan of attack or response to the trials we face on this journey, that is not the teaching of this word.

Fix your thoughts on Jesus.

When you create your own plan and believe that God needs your help to know how to solve problems, direct paths, or redeem situations, reflect on the teaching of the wilderness: ‘They shall never enter my rest.’ People who do not hold to confidence and hope will not enter his rest. We will not participate in the still waters of God. Many of us believe that holding firmly to our confidence (vs. 6) is a call to action or a call to arms, or whatever human idea we create. This is a call to faith and trust. Full stop.

Fix your thoughts on Jesus.

Encourage one another daily (vs. 12-13), so that we don’t revert to, rely upon, or even relish in deceitful, unbelieving human hearts and ideas. Encourage one another to not become hardened, but instead to have great trust and confidence in Jesus, hold great hope in our future because of his promise, and to fix our thoughts upon Jesus alone…

Amen.

Marc Kinna