Semeion

Faith, I believe, is our hope in action. A true testament to our belief in Christ. Sin tricks us by appealing to every one of our senses. The pleasures pleasure us and makes us feel good, to the point that we will believe all is good. The reality is that it hardens our heart against the Lord and becomes second nature. The value of Christian fellowship is highly regarded because we each can encourage and esteem one another to help each other not to fall into the pit. If we are true believers, true Brothers and Sisters in Christ, we shouldn't allow others to fall into apostasy.

We must hold on to our faith in Christ because that is when we will realize we are an active part of God's rest. If we don't hold fast to our faith, we will never enter this peaceful Rest. I believe we may begin to wander in darkness and labor, and toil in it while here on earth as well if we lose faith.

Jesus had to become human like us to understand our temptations, emotions, hunger- and in turn he is sympathetic to us. His humanity allowed him to "see" who we really are and enabled Him to show and know compassion thus leading him to great human understanding, because we can be really complex creatures.

1)Purpose of Christ's death was to destroy Satan and fear of death 2) Christ accomplishes this mission by suffering for us and dying. 3)In its final completion, in the future, we will reach glory with Christ and see no suffering, diseases, or death. 4)The result will be a freed conscious and hope.

To "bring many sons and daughters to glory" means for people to suffer for the cause. The cause? Christ. We are made perfect by suffering for Jesus. Jesus was made perfect by suffering- this is so He can be glorified. The implications for our own lives is that we have glory and continuous joy waiting in heaven if we serve Christ.

Christ tasted death for us by sacrificing himself to the cross. He had suffered torture and slander for all of us. He tasted what death feels like. God's grace was extended to us through this. It is hard to try and figure out why God would do such a thing: send his own son out to die, but he was thinking Big. God's thoughts are not our thoughts- he has Godly wisdom, and in that wisdom He found that sacrificing his Son to the cross, would be grace to us. Christ suffered, then died for our blackest sins to be covered. What does this mean? Well, I believe it means that we are precious and dear to God too. So this means that we can all be saved.

Ways in which Jesus suffered during his life was him being tempted and tried again and again. He wept, he justified, he hungered and in death he suffered by being tortured, for our sakes. He wore a crown of thorns and hands of nails. We are likely to suffer in a similar fashion(if we hadn't already). We suffer in many ways: we are sometimes mistreated for our beliefs, we are tempted, and sometimes feel that things are beyond our control. That can be the frustrating part. But suffering does have value, according to the Word. Suffering means we have endured something. If we live in such a way to avoid suffering, we won't begin to understand Christ's behavior, sacrifice. We also fail to complete the mission of getting others to Christ.

I agree also. I realize that once I get back into the Word, I feel this joy and understanding come over me and I am happy in the Lord once again. But there are times when Life catches up to me, as with anyone, or we approached by culture and media, or maybe just our own thinking and then we find ourselves drifting. It happens bit by bit, not all at once.

Ways in which we are not immune to drifting away is the consequence of pararreo-listening without absorbing. The drifting away from God's words begins with lack of attentiveness to the word, thus taking it as opinions or words to toss away. Jesus illustrated this matter in the "Parable of the Sower". In a nutshell, if someone approaches the word with shallow heart and thinking, their "mind soil" will not be rich enough to sustain the word/seed. Or if approached with spikes and weeds, the life of the seed could be choked, and then die.

The Son is Divine because he is the exact representation of God Himself. he is co-ruler, the universe was "made through him"(Hebrews 1:2). Even John noted that people saw God's grace in Jesus, he is the Only One to provide purification to our souls; only the Divine can render that power.

The author of Hebrews meant "Son" in a spiritual and literal fashion. Let me explain: Jesus is the heir to the throne of God, in explanation format we know that only the progeny of a King can inherit the throne, and then spiritually speaking, we know that Christ has God powers invested in Him. This means that Christ's words carry more weight because his words would be God's words anyway. The authority given by God.