Be Not Timid or Tame

35 So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.

36 You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. 37 For,

“In just a little while, He who is coming will come and will not delay.”

38 And,

“But the righteous one will live by faith.  And I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back.”

39 But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved. - Hebrews 10:35-39

In the verses preceding these, the description is that the Christians have persevered through public humiliation and persecution, maybe been in prison, and had their belongings confiscated.  Sounds a lot like what Christians in Iraq are going through today, over 2,000 years later, except their children are taken and the boys forced to be jihadists, the girls sold as sex slaves, and the parents beheaded or cut in half in front of the whole village or town where they live.  Just typing that last sentence hurts.  How can that truly be happening to people in our time? How can the average person not see Islam and Muslims as pure evil?

The message here is for us to keep the confidence of our faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior.  Continue to persevere and do not doubt knowing that God is faithful and He has not left us.  He will come again and He is with us even now.  

Further, the text calls out how much our Lord does not enjoy the one whose faith falters.  I am reminded of the verses in Revelation where Christ despises the luke-warm church.  He takes no pleasure in the luke-warm Christian, the one whose faith is kinda there and kinda not, the one who thinks he has faith but if it requires an action its not enough to respond, the one who has faith when alone but around others isn't strong enough to allow it to be shown when the circumstance demands it.

Finally, there is a word of encouragement saying we are not of those who fall back but of those who have confidence in our faith and know we are saved by a faithful living God.  This type of writing reminds me of Teddy Roosevelt's famous speech in Chicago talking about the man to be admired is the man in the fight, daring greatly, who if he fails fails greatly, but he is in the fight and not with the timid and tame souls who are too afraid to enter.  

May we be the brave faithful, ready to enter into His call to action, ready to serve and ever confident in our faith in Him, no matter what may happen - and never to be a timid and tamed believer with a curious faith that is neither testable or believable.