Word Of Empowerment - Part 1

We conclude this week’s offerings, in two parts, using today and tomorrow, as we return to the text. But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate, and not sons. Hebrews 12: 8.

Will you join me, as we take this moment, to come together as one, to give all praise and thanks to God? Enabled by God the Holy Spirit, we have been made to humble ourselves and depend upon our Father in heaven, for all things and in all things.

Our Father in heaven, we bless You, worship You and honour Your Holy Name. Your Name is Love, for You are Love. Thank You for Your unrelenting grace and mercy to us, in this time of total helplessness. Forgive us the error of our ways Father. Help us to truly humble ourselves before You, that our times of chastening will be of You and not of ourselves. We are truly grateful for the ways You have been encouraging, exhorting and enlightening us, day by day. Continue to stay close to us all Father, and grant us even more longing hearts and spirits, longing and wanting to be more like You. Amen!

From the Word of Scripture, our main text, we now turn to how we are being empowered by it.  

Empowerment

This Word of Scripture empowers, in that it gives us strength to persevere, endure and carry through in the right mind and with the correct attitude, in our chastening. Exhortation, encouragement, enlightening and empowerment all come from no one else but Jesus Himself. Jesus, Son of God the Father, is our Pattern.

Let me hasten to add that Jesus never did anything to warrant punishment from His Father in heaven. Jesus, God Incarnate, Love in all its fullness, came to where you and I were, in order to save us, sinners, from hell and everlasting damnation. Jesus came to this sinful earth, without sin. He was sinless. However, the one and only way for Him to save us from our sins was to take them upon Himself. Do you really know? Do you really believe that Jesus took upon Himself, in His human body, the sin of the entire world? O yes He did and God, His heavenly Father, laid on Him our punishment and chastisement. Isaiah 53: 6 says this. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Our sins have been put on Jesus.

Returning to our main text, we have received that every son and daughter of God must know His chastening. But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate, and not sons. Hebrews 12: 8. We have also seen that we must endure in whatever suffering, pain, hardship and discipline brought to us by our Caring Father. Our perfect example and immaculate pattern of endurance comes from Jesus, Son of God, and Son of Man. In verses before our main text, we read this about Jesus, God’s Son. For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. Hebrews 12: 3.

Jesus, Son of the Father, endured great hostility from those He came to save. Didn’t He come to save sinners? Yet, though we rose up against Him in the meanest of ways, He never quit. He endured to the end. When the path became more and more difficult and He was treated even more shabbily, He never turned on His Father in heaven. He knew, regardless of what was happening to Him, the unshakeable and unmoveable Love of His heavenly Father. Jesus knew without question, that He had a Loving, Heavenly Father with whom He was One. It is this knowledge which helped to propel and encourage Him on, without complaining, murmuring or grumbling. He endure to the end. 

We conclude tomorrow