Hebrews Chapter Twelve, Healing Waywardness

 

Hebrews 12:12 Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, [13] and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.

 

Referencing Hebrews 12:1 once more, the author directs the Hebrew Christians to their walk. They are to heal, strengthen, and straighten their paths. God leads His children through the valley of the shadow of death, not around it. We need fortitude, and that fortitude is found in the person of Jesus Christ, Hebrews 12:2. Our focus as saints is Jesus Himself.

Hebrews Chapter Twelve,The Pain Of Chastisement

 

Hebrews 12:11 Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

 

It would benefit us to remember that the writer is still addressing the same issue he began laying out in verse 1. Christians are to run the race without unneeded weight or the snare of sin that causes us to fall. We are to look to our Lord, whose life was an example of godliness in the face of persecution. Christ our Lord learned obedience by suffering; the notion here is that God’s saints, His children, will learn and learn best the same way our Master did, John 13:16, 15:18, Matthew 10:24, 25.

Hebrews Chapter Twelve, Sanctification Is Profitable

 

Hebrews 12:10 For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.

 

Verse 10 continues to contrast human fathers to our Heavenly Father. They are similar in the sense that both, as our parents (in flesh or in spirit) discipline us with wisdom. For human fathers, this wisdom is limited, sometimes flawed or misdirected.

Hebrews Chapter Twelve, Being In Subjection

 

Hebrews 12:9 Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?

 

The writer continues to elucidate his point. Furthermore, he says, our human fathers corrected us, and we respected them for said correction. Our Father in Heaven corrects us for our spiritual and eternal good, which the author refers to as chastisement. The former two verses created the case explaining that such correction is a characteristic of being part of God’s household. Now he likens that image to human parental correction, and when we receive it not despising or despairing, but respecting it.

Hebrews Chapter Twelve, What Chastening Reveals

 

Hebrews 12:7 If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? [8] But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons.

 

These verses, taken together, provide a stark and succinct answer to Easy Believism. Easy Believism, or license, can be explained thus: if you have made Jesus your Savior, you are safe from sin and are now free (or have license) to do anything you like. Being saved becomes a “get out of Hell free” card.