PATJOE

Christ's being made perfect was through His death, resurrection and exaltation to being our High Priest, sitting at God's right hand. Christ's total obedience to His Father, brought God's plan for us to completion. Christ was already Holy and without sin and as such was the only one who could ever complete this mission for God. Christ came to earth, took on our human form and suffered on the cross for all of our sins, and His suffering was part of His obedience to His Father, and all for our sake. Christ brought to completion God's perfect plan for us, and He was made perfect, as well as making us perfect in our human form, through our acceptance and faith in God our Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We need to thank Him every day of our lives.

As Jesus progressed through His life on earth,He was in a continuous pattern of making God's will His own. He obeyed God from the moment He was born and through His sufferings on earth, He learned that suffering for God's sake was a part of His obedience. Jesus' learning process was different from ours because He was and is "the Son of God". He was willing to suffer in order to obey His Father, and His obedience kept Him Holy and free from sin. His willingness and deep love, to suffer for our sins, has given us our salvation. Jesus learned through His own Holiness, while we learn through our (forgiven) sins. What a Friend we have!

We can approach God's throne with boldness and confidence because it is a throne of grace He lovingly offers us -- not a throne of judgment. We are promised His mercy, His Grace, His Help and His perfect timing for our lives. He will listen to us and forgive us and strengthen our lives with His solutions for us. On the basis that God is omnpotent, Lord of Lords, King of Kings and our creator that loves us so dearly that He gave His only Son's life on the cross for us, God is able to offer us mercy, grace, forgiveness and eternal life with Him on the last day.

Jesus came to earth to have a common experience with man. He felt our emotions and experienced the same temptations we have had. He felt our joys and also shed tears as we do. During his 40 days in the wilderness, Satan tried tempting Jesus to accept Satan's help and give in to Satan's power. The fact that Jesus was dealing head on with Satan would make one think these temptations were more difficult than ours, but Jesus did not waiver from His obedience to God and had full power over Satan. Those of us who do not yet know that this same power is ours by the grace of God, would have a more difficult time with temptations. There is nothing we go through in our lives that Jesus didn't also go through. We are comforted in knowing Christ has already been where we are, by His own choice, for our sake, and He totally understands us. When we fully comprehend what God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit has done for us, out of immeasurable love, one of our favorite hymns could be "What a Friend we have in Jesus". Thank you Lord.

When we hold fast to our confession and belief that God is our Father Almighty and Jesus Christ is the Son of God, our Lord, we invite God to be close to us in our lives -- a place where He waits to be -- and we are reminded daily through our faith that He is there and we do have the choice of turning away from the lures of the world and trusting God with our lives. We confess that Jesus is our High Priest, appointed by God our Father and Creator, Lord. If we do not give God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit priority in our lives, ahead of all things, we do not have His strength and guidance, His comfort and peace, and in this weakened state we feel self-sufficient and eventually become lost in the world. God is our strength and our peace of mind -- a very present help in trouble.

The preceding verses deal with an invitation to everyone in my opinion, while Heb4:12-13 seem to be the ultimate warning to Christians (the devout and those of us who believe we are devout). We are warned that God sees and hears our innermost thoughts and desires. He knows when we have allowed the world to "talk us out of" the true impact of the truth of God's word. The world about us is very busy at this task and we, being weak in ourselves and gullible, must be busier in God's word or we will not have God's clarity at our disposal.

There can be many different interpretations, but in my opinion, the primary one is that Christians totally trusting God can find this rest every single day. It is not restful when we try to control outcomes for our families, our trials and troubles, but what a relief from these (sometimes daily) problems to know He is waiting and will receive them and handle them for us. This is wonderful rest as to "give it to God" and leave it with Him relaxes our tensions. When we trust God, we can live at rest and know He is in control. We are urged by the writer to hold on to this faith in God and not lose it, so that we do not miss out on God's promise of Eternal Life with Him. If we stay focused on the Cross and what Christ has done for us, in our place, it is a restful truth that we can rely on. Apostasy is a permanent abandonment from what we were originally taught. It is deliberate. When Christians fall into sin from time to time, it is not a deliberate act against God. It is the part and parcel of being human, not having been given the state of perfection yet, but it is coming on the last day when Christ Himself delivers us into the glory of God in Heaven.

We are so deceived by the "luring" element of sin, that if our focus is not firmly on Christ and the Cross, many times we may not even be aware that we are sinning and will be so subtly drawn into the pattern of sin. Each time we sin, and continue in this way, our hearts gradually become hardened to God. As we were referred to Proverbs in this lesson "there is a way that SEEMS right to man, but in the end it leads to death". While we enjoy Christian fellowship, we remind each other of the simple beauty of Christ and how much easier it is to let go, and let Him. He's already done the hard part for us. Christians need each other in their lives to stay in touch with God and form a strong union against the temptation of sin.

Jesus is God's Son. We need to hold on and focus on Him, especially when the world has so many ways to pull is in many different directions. If we do not hold fast to our faith and trust God with "everything", we will drift away - lose all hope (that God offers us) -- lack in courage (our strength is in God alone). We will revert back to our own inefficient "self-sufficiency" and always get into trouble. Through Him alone, we are strong in our weakest moments.

Having been made human in our form, Jesus suffered, and having been tempted like us, He overcame and can now be our true representative to God. Now we have a Saviour that we know understands. He has walked in our shoes and having done so, gives us tremendous peace and encouragement to totally trust Him. He has cleared our path ahead of us, and leads us safely through. He is our High Priest. Thankyou Lord for sending Your Son to us to guide us through the maize of this world and onward toward you.

The purpose of Christ's death was to conquer death (Satan) as well as to free us from our fear of death and judgment. Christ's death and resurrection is the only reason we can know that He conquered death for us and in so doing we have nothing to fear in out future and are free to look forward to our Eternal Life with God -- all because of Jesus and His total obedience to God's plan for us. The final completion of God's perfect plan for us will be on the last day, when all of God's children will be taken up to be with Him. Any remnant left of Satan and his perceived kingdom will be destroyed. The result of this in our lives is, as we love and believe in Him, we have a place to put all of our troubles -- with Him. The job is no longer ours to worry about. We can enjoy the freedom that comes with trusting Him and not ourselves. This is also why we are told to praise and thank God in all things - not just in our blessings, but in our trials and difficulties as well. God wants us to get to know Him personally, and allows our trials so we can learn to trust Him and experience His awesome power that he will bless us with. Without our trials, we would remain self-sufficient and detached from Him in a trouble-free life.

It was Jesus' mission to bring us all to the glory of God; to the redeemed souls we will be in Heaven, by His loving death on the cross and then his miraculous resurrection from death - all so we can marvel in our good fortune to have the chance to believe in Him and trust Him with our lives on earth. Jesus was always perfect, however His gift to us on the Cross had to take place, and as He died, He brought to fruition the perfect conclusion to God's plan for us and Christ entered into His Father's glory. It is so clear in our own lives that we have the opportunity of becoming one of the many sons and daughters that are brought to glory. The implication is we must be so thankful, and put Him first in our lives so we can truly know what it means to love Him, to be loved by Him, to be forgiven by Him,and to eventually be accepted home in Heaven by Him.

Christ is holy and without sin. He lovingly obeyed His father and sacrificed His own life and suffered such physical and spiritual agonies on the Cross for us, in our place.He tasted the death for us, that we deserved, not Him. He felt a total disconnection with His Father during those agonizing hours, so that we would have the choice of never being sparated from, or forgotten by God. Our redemption from our sins throuth the death and resurrection of God's son, could ONLY take place because God willed it. It is only by His grace that it is possible for us to receive forgiveness and redemption, as there is absolutely nothing any of us could ever do to earn this gift. I owe it to our Lord and Saviour to accept my suffering here on earth, to allow it to remind me how loved I am as His child - that He would so willingly suffer so much more so that I can have the privelege, through God's grace, to enter Enternal Life with Him when my last day comes.

Helenmm: Thankyou. What a wonderful way to put it.

Christ is Holy and without sin. He lovingly obeyed His father and sacrificed His own life and suffered such physical and spiritual agonies on the Cross for us, in our place. He tasted death for us, that we deserved, not He. He felt total disconnection with His Father during those agonizing hours, so that we would have the choice of never being separated from, or forgotten by God. Our redemption from our sins through the death and resurrection of God's son, could ONLY take place because God willed it. It is only by His grace that it is possible for us to receive forgiveness and redemption, as there is absolutely nothing any of us could ever do to earn this gift. I owe it to our Lord and Saviour to accept my suffering here on earth and to allow it to remind me how loved I am as His child, that He would so willingly suffer so much more, so that I can have the privelege, through God's grace, to enter Eternal Life with Him when my last day comes.

I believe Jesus suffered during His life on earth each time He witnessed the sins of idolators; the hearts and minds of those not listening to His messages; felt the persecution of non-believers; the agony of betrayal. While dying on the Cross, the physical agonies he felt are unspeakable, and as well, He knew He was totally separated from His Father while He bore our sins - a spiritual suffering. The two values of suffering, in my opinion are: 1) it brings us into total reliance on God to bear us up and through it, and 2) there are many lessons to be learned through suffering, and as Christians, suffering puts us in touch with Christ's love and His willingness to suffer death on the Cross for us. To attempt to live without suffering would mean an attempt to be self-sufficient and in this state one would leave no room for Christ in their lives. There would then be no commitment to Him either -- a fast walk towards condemnation and away from eternal life in Heaven with our Creator.

The truth of salvation is confirmed to me every time I encounter life's problems. When I react switfly on my own, nothing works out and I just become a bigger part of the problem. When I trust God to lead me through it, it is amazing how quickly he turns troubles into blessings, and yes, this is sometimes a slow process as well. I believe He saves us here on earth when we trust Him, so we can readily trust Him with our Heavenly future together with Him. I don't think signs and wonders would make much difference today with a lot of people. We have signs and wonders from God all around us -- the miracle of birth; the beauty of nature; and those who don't want to see it don't look or ponder on anything other than that which is self-serving. It could possibly hinder the Christian movement today, if miraculous events took place, as it seems to be human nature for some, when they witness a "miracle", it frightens them, and they distrust and rebel against it, as found in Acts 14th and 15th chapters. In my opinion, the Easter story of the Cross and Jesus' Resurrection is the most important sign and wonder God has given us.

As we live in this fast-paced, materialistic world, our human wants and desires can quickly surface as our primary goal, which puts us first and we slip away from God. To guard against this happening, we must love God enough to pay close attention to His word and abide by it. In the parable of the sower, Jesus explains that if we hunger for His word because we love Him, we will sow His word in our hearts and lives, and its goodness will be multiplied many times over (compared to the sower's seed falling on good ground). If we just hear His word and do not trust Him so that we live by it, the seed of His word in our lives will wither and eventually we along with it. (compared to the seed falling by the wayside, stony places, or among thorns). It is very serious to believe we can live by bending God's word to our comfort and liking.

Jesus is spoken of as one who sits on the right hand of God. There has never been another to compare to this glorified position, bestowed upon Him by God the Father. He is His divine Son, appointed heir over all things; the radiance of God's glory; a mirror image of His father; co-creator and protector of God's universe through His spoken word; through the Cross. He provided our purification from sin and is now seated with His Father, on His right hand as co-ruler with God over all.

I feel the author uses the word "Son" as being appointed "heir of all things" which speaks of Jesus' Incarnation and speaks of Him as Deity, which took place at the Cross. The prophets spoke from what they had learned, or were told. Jesus the son spoke from a position of "being the Son" - being a part of the Holy Trinity. Jesus' words left no questions unanswered, whereas the prophets spoke as they heard, which includes the question of their personal interpretation.

We will be given the joy of victory over death -- we will be refreshed and renewed. The pain and suffering of our earthly bodies will vanish - we will be in perfect Holiness with God, because of Jesus laying His ife down for us. We will be reunited with our loved ones. We get so involved in self-sufficiency in this world that relyng on God fades out of the picture at times. We need to be involved in God's word through Bible studies as excellent as this one, to reunite us with God's truth and lift us out of our own fallacy. Thank you Lord, and thank you Pastor Ralph.

We will be like God's angels, physically perfect and beautiful in a spiritual element. We must have our glorified bodies in order to live in God's presence. We cannot see His face until we are glorified with Him. That has been His plan from the beginning - why He sacrificed His only Son Jesus, for us, to be able to call us all home with Him. Jesus' death played the major role in our redemption bodies. He took our sins with Him, so that we could be glorified with the Father on the last day. He was resurrected so that we can totally believe and trust in this wonderful gift of grace that we could never earn or deserve on our own.

At our resurrection, our physical bodies will be glorified. Our resurrection bodies will be raised incorruptible, glorified, powerful, and spiritual. We will be transformed out of corruption, dishonour, and weakness. Our bodies will be redeemed and will be like the glorified body of our Lord.

The dead have fallen asleep and are in the presence of God until the resurrection.

The word resurrection is used in the Bible instead of rapture. Immediately upon Christ's return, He will be seen in the clouds and the dead will be raised first. Then all still living will be caught up with them together and will meet the Lord in the air. At that time the judgement of all will take place - At the sound of the trumpet, all will be raised imperishable and will be changed n the twinkling of an eye. The righteous will be taken to live forever in glory with the Lord and the unrighteous will live forever in condemnation.