Hebrews 6:9,10 - Convinced of better things

6:9

The writer now reassures his readers that he does not actually think they are all about to fall away! He calls them “dearly beloved” and says he actually believes that they will receive the fruits of salvation.Yet still severe warnings have been given. This life is real and what we do with it is real and matters. Yet salvation is actually assured. How can we square these two things? Assurance of salvation and our lives really counting, sometimes faced with momentous decisions or choices, where the wrong choice could be fatal? But this is what the Bible teaches. If we rely on human wisdom we tend to have either (i) assurance of salvation, but it doesn’t really matter what we do with our lives for God will save us anyway; (ii) what we do with our lives matters, but we live in fear because we know how frail we are and how prone to error we are. Relying on human wisdom, the second of these is the one we will most likely go for, for the reality of everyday life will quickly disavow us of any notion that the first can be true. But we are not to make human wisdom the foundation of our lives, we make Godly wisdom our foundation. We live our lives in absolute trust in God, knowing that this life is real and the decisions and actions we take are real, and that we can have a wonderful positive effect on the world. This is the way that Christ lived!

6:10

Some of the Hebrews may have been feeling somewhat disgruntled by the writers severe warnings, for they had made real sacrifices for their faith. Later we will read that they had suffered for Christ, here we see that they had given to Christian brothers and sisters, showing practical Christian love. Doing these things affects, positively, our relationship with God. Now some people get all concerned about a works-salvation thinking, and, of course, if we go down that road we are in trouble, but the Bible is clear that what we do matters. We also need to remember that we are in a relationship with God. And in any relationship how we act affects the outworking of that relationship. So it is with our relationship with God.