24th-30th March 2025
It all begins with an idea.
I love a good story. Like many of us, I’ve been thinking about my story as we’ve been working through the Story Bearer series. I enjoyed meandering through memories of hill-top highlights and reflecting on God’s faithfulness as I trudged some valleys … but it was harder to concisely sum up my answer to Phil Knox’s question, “How does your faith give you an understanding of the world?”
As I thought, and read, I ended up spending some time in Hebrews 10 and a verse I’ve found really helpful. A verse that has reminded me on many occasions of the encouraging truth that starts Ephesians 2 – God has done the work and God is doing the work.
How often I’ve needed reminded of those things, in times when I thought both too little and too much of myself. How encouraging a thought that the God of all creation still commits himself to doing that work of reconciliation and restoration in us and changing our stories as part of his overarching story.
I’d encourage you to read all of Hebrews 10 this week, as we focus our thoughts on verse 14. And, if you have time, Ephesians 2:1-10 as well. I’ve used the International Children’s Bible translation.
Written by Janet Burnside
MONDAY
“By one sacrifice, he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”
Hebrews 10:14
The contrast in verse 11 between the old covenant with God and the new couldn’t be clearer. Sacrifices offered day after day, year after year … but for all that effort still no final resolution, no restoration, no end to the struggle with sin.
But then Jesus.
One sacrifice. Good for all time, for all sin, for all people. “It is finished” … and it was. Let’s never lose the wonder of that moment when Jesus dealt with all that separates us from God.
Father God, fill my heart today with the wonder and joy of remembering that Jesus has done it all. Thank you for his life and death, that perfect sacrifice. Thank you for the moment I first recognised that it was for me; and for that continued reality. Thank you for opening my eyes to see it. Open them again today, and keep them open, to the awesome realisation of what you accomplished on the cross.
TUESDAY
“By one sacrifice, he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”
Hebrews 10:14
If you asked me, or anyone who knows me, to describe me in three words, or ten, or a hundred – perfect is not likely to be one! This verse has been a real encouragement to me and a real counter to the temptation to define my identity by how “well” I’m living as God’s. What a wonder, that when God looks at our lives, the sins we’ve confessed are covered up by Jesus’ sacrifice – and he chooses to see them no more. We stand, as we sang last week, dressed in royal robes we don’t deserve.
Father God, so often I live as if I’ve forgotten that you have given me this new identity – perfectly loved, perfectly forgiven, perfectly restored to you. Thank you that Jesus gave himself, with all that cost, to make me perfect in your eyes. Forgive me for when I wallow in my failures and inadequacy, rather than confessing and standing in those royal robes you’ve given me. Help the joy of what you’ve done for me shine through my life, and my words, to those around me.
WEDNESDAY
“By one sacrifice, he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”
Hebrews 10:14
What a relief to remind ourselves that God’s heart is so different than our own. When God forgives us, he removes our sin from us – as far as the East is from the West. So often we hold on to the memory of other’s mistakes, or they hold on to ours – lingering in the background ‘til the next disagreement, when we drag them out to revisit. But not God. He’s promised that each time we repent the slate is wiped clean, and will always be. We’ve been encouraged recently to realise how much changes in that single moment someone turns to follow God – what a wonder that change is for eternity.
Father God, you are so endlessly good to me. Thank you for promising that my eternal future is secure forever in you. Help me to realise afresh the enormity of that Good News. Help me to want that more and more for those I know who don’t yet know you for themselves. I pray for them now by name ……………………………. - that you would bring them to a place of trusting you, that they too would be made “perfect forever” by the forgiveness Jesus bought.
THURSDAY
“By one sacrifice, he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”
Hebrews 10:14
I loved English at school – writing stories, reading poems, pictures painted by the right words. But not grammar … It’s the thing I most hate being asked about in Conversation Café by our English learners! I have to teach myself at the same time.
But it struck me, as I read this verse again, the two tenses of verb. We’ve thought of the first already – he “has made” perfect. The second – “being made” – an ongoing action performed to us. The “perfecting” is completed, done. But he’s still “making” us, it’s continuous and it doesn’t originate from us – though he won’t do it if we’re not willing participants.
Father God, thank you for your commitment to the process of making me, of shaping my character. Thank you for your patience with me. Forgive me when I resist your lessons and directing. Forgive me for when my attempts to look like I “have it all together” give a dishonest picture of life with you to those who don’t know you yet. Help me today, this week, this year, to be more open to your ongoing shaping of me. Thank you for your daily grace as you work in my life.
FRIDAY
“By one sacrifice, he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”
Hebrews 10:14
There is so much that God wants to do in our lives, and so much of his work in the world that he wants to involve us in. This verse encourages me to see that God’s desire isn’t just for me to be doing good things in this world but that I’ll be wholly devoted to him and the way he’d have me live.
Father God, thank you that my relationship with you isn’t governed by to do lists, but by your work to make me holy, devoted to you. Teach me to make that my priority. Teach me how to discern what’s wise and helpful for that and not to waste time on things that aren’t. And as you do that work, help me be open to sharing that devotion honestly with those in my life who don’t know you yet.
SATURDAY
“By one sacrifice, he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”
Hebrews 10:14
It’s such an encouragement that God’s work of transformation isn’t performed in isolation and that he gives us community to share that process with. Later in this chapter we read how we should think about, help and encourage each other. Hopefully most of us can read those verses and remember specific examples of those experiences.
Father God, thank you for your faithful people around us, in our church family, our families, our friendship circles, home groups and in the areas we serve in church. Thank you for the encouragement we get from sharing our journey through this world together and how you use others to teach us. I think especially of ………………………. and thank you for them.
Help us to be open to each other with our stories. And where situations have been painful and difficult, even among those who love you, we pray for your wisdom and healing. Please help us, even this week, to encourage each other to share the stories of what you’ve done, and are doing, in our lives.
SUNDAY
“By one sacrifice, he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy… Let us hold firmly to the hope that we have confessed. We can trust God to do what he promised.”
Hebrews 10:14, 25
Father God, I am so grateful that my hope is in you. You give me the hope of your salvation, achieved through Jesus’ sacrifice, and held secure forever. And you give me the hope of your transformation, you shaping my life into the image of Jesus.
Help me hold firmly to these truths. Help me to let that hope shine from my everyday life and flavour my everyday conversations. Help me to better bear the story of what you have done, and are doing, to those I love who don’t yet know that hope for themselves. Help them to discover it.
Help me encourage others with that hope, until the day we all realise it fully, as we come face to face with you. Amen.