Hold Nothing Back

DEVOTION

HEBREWS

HOLD NOTHING BACK

Heb 12:14

14 Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.

NIV

Make some effort, make a little effort, make quite a bit effort, make as much effort as you are able, no, wait that says make every effort. We cannot simply make a partial effort, or only when it is convenient, we are told to make every effort to live in peace will some people, no wait that say all people and then it says to be holy. But let’s just focus for now on this every effort thing. This is going to require a lot, whole lot of putting self aside. Selfishness may be the one and only motive that keeps us from making every effort to live in peace with all people. Then there are those few individuals which simply grate on us the wrong way, those who are so irritating, so arrogant, so boastful and just plain rude that it is nearly impossible to be at peace with them, so it is alright to exclude them from the all when we figure up how many that means. This making every effort to live in peace with all men is not as easy as it sounds, but it is what we are to do, and then tack on being holy, and are we noticing the warning about being holy? Without Holiness not one of us will see the Lord. Now of course we all know that we cannot have within us any holiness of our own, but is it the holiness of Christ that is referred to here. Jesus, himself, said that no man comes unto the Father except through Him. The only way we can see the Lord is being in Christ. That is the being holy, for God makes us holy. Yet this Greek word used here which is translated holiness carries the meaning of consecration, which is a solemn dedication to a special purpose or service. It literally means “To associate with the sacred”. This is the action, the attitude of our heart toward God. We must be dedication to His service. That would require us thinking that our purpose is to serve God and how could we benefit His kingdom rather than always looking for ways that He would benefit us. We would be asking how we can give to Him instead of always asking for things from Him. If all we think is that God is our provider, our own personal genie in the bottle that we can call out anytime we need something, then maybe, just maybe we may not get to see Him. This whole thing here is about putting self aside to the purpose of doing what God desires. Being a believer is so much better than being a self-centered individual. Let us make every effort, put is all in, give it every last bit of effort we have, hold nothing back.