“For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do.” (Hebrews 6:10)
Most of us, as we labor in life and in ministry and the workplace, and seek to do right, work hard, love hard, will grow weary. We will feel ignored, overlooked, neglected. We will wonder if anyone even notices us and cares that we are there. We will wonder if we’re really needed or wanted. And, when continuing on grows hard, we will wonder if it is all really worth the effort.
In today’s verse, the author of Hebrews reaches out through the pages of History to prophetically voice straight from the Lord’s heart: “Yes! I care. I see you. The efforts you are making to serve and love my people in my name matter to me.”
If you’re where God has called you, doing the work God has given you, keep going. Don’t quit. If we persevere and endure in the faith, he will be our reward when he calls us home.
It is interesting also to note the greater context of this verse. Chapter Six starts out encouraging us to dig deeper into the things of God than the mere fundamentals, lest we fall away. He then laments it is impossible for man to restore the faith of those who fall away after having truly known God, tasted his goodness, his grace, and felt the power of his spirit and the kingdom of God at work in their hearts and lives. His warning comparing such a one to land fit only to be burned is severe to the point of chilling and goes against, frankly, everything the Church teaches today.
Yet Hebrews goes on from this shocking pronouncement of judgment to say:
Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation. For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
Let us take comfort that what was is impossible for man is possible for God. We don’t see into the heart nearly as well as he does. Let’s run our own race well, assured of the hope and the grace within us that has saved us.
Lord, thank you for your finished work on the cross. Thank you for remolding and reshaping sinners such as we have been into the saints you made us to be. May we know your power within us and know your eyes are upon us, and that you will deal justly as well as mercifully. Lead us today where you are calling us and give us hearts that hunger and thirst for your righteousness and love you and your people as you have loved us. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.