If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.  Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.  How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, “It is mine to avenge, I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge His people.”  It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.  Hebrews 10:26-31 NIV

If you are reading this, chances are you have heard of Jesus Christ.  Chances are you have heard of the wonderful story about how God created the earth.  You’ve probably heard about how God destroyed the earth with a flood because of man’s sin, saving only Noah, his family, and the animals that were brought aboard the ark.  You’ve probably heard about how God sent his one and only Son, Jesus Christ, to live as fully human and fully God.  Jesus suffered a horrible, humiliating death on the cross to save us from our sins.  If you are reading this blog you are probably doing it from a smartphone, tablet or computer.  You have a world of information at your fingertips.  You can bing it, google it, there’s all kinds of ways that you can get information about what God has done for you.  Or you can go completely old school and read a bible.

The question is what will you do with all this knowledge?  Will you doubt it and say that this can’t possibly be true?  Will you make up your own information?  I have even heard people say that they believe that they are living in hell on earth and that no matter what we do here, we will have served our time in hell and be allowed into heaven.  Really? Maybe you have decided to disregard the information totally.  Perhaps it interferes with the way you want to live.

Our scripture passage clearly tells us that once we know the truth, we have to decide what we are going to do with it.  Now in Hebrews 10:19-25, just prior to this scripture passage, we are told that we are to persevere in faith.  We are told that we are to support one another and not to avoid meeting together with fellow believers.  That means going to church.

But today’s scripture passage is very clear on what will happen if we keep on sinning once we know the truth.  It tells us that we can expect judgement.  We can expect a raging fire, that’s hell folks.  We can expect God’s vengeance.  Look around you.  Where we live there is a church on almost every corner.  Many churches sit practically empty on Sunday mornings.  We here in this country have an opportunity to worship our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  We have an opportunity to enter into a close relationship with God our Father.

I was blessed to have a mother that dragged me to church every time the doors were open.  She expected me to love the Lord.  I accepted Christ as my savior when I was 12 years old.  I tended to drift away from God during my college years.  I drew back to him after college, but then lived my life like a roller coaster.  Up with God and then dropped away again.  I would read the Old Testament and the story about how the Israelites would cry out to God, God would rescue them, they would appreciate God and do good for a while, then they would mess up again.  They would turn to their idols and away from God.  I thought how stupid must these people be? What a hypocrite I was.  I was just like these Israelites.  I was wandering around in the desert worshiping my idols thinking God would just look the other way.  What was I thinking?  I grew up knowing the truth.  God was not about to give me a pass on that.

I thought I was “having fun” when I turned away from God.  I would go to church every few weeks just so God still knew I cared.  I would cry out to God when things got rough.  But I was not putting God first in my life.

Once I got sense enough to turn to God and put Him first, He just put everything else into place.  It was just as the scripture in Matthew 6:33-34 tells us it will be, imagine that!

So, consider yourself warned.  You can ignore the Word of God.  You can go about your life as you please and pretend that you will never face judgment.  You can believe, as I did, that God will overlook your “little” sins and allow you to get away with it.  But, let me tell you something, you are kidding yourself.  I implore you today to take time to read God’s Word.  Pray to God, draw near to Him.  When you put God first in your life, all that you need really will be given to you.

We serve such an awesome God.  Enter into a close relationship with Him.  It will be the best thing you ever did for yourself.

Have a great weekend!