HEBREWS 3:14

“For we have become partakers of Christ if we keep the beginning of our commitment firm until the end,”

In this day and age, it is a rare thing to find someone who will keep their commitment. One of the most glaring examples of this is the college football scene. In the past, a player would commit to a school, keep that commitment and play for three, four or even five years (if they received a red shirt year). Students didn’t hop from school to school. Now, if a player keeps their original commitment to a school it is celebrated. Gone are the days of loyalty to a school that spent time and energy recruiting that player.

The writer calls us out in today’s verse. He basically says if we don’t keep our original commitment to follow Jesus, we never really belonged to Christ. In Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible it is written regarding this “beginning of our commitment,” “by ‘confidence’ is meant faith, which is an hypostasis, or subsistence, which is the word here used; and is so called, because it gives a kind of subsistence, substance, or being, to things it is concerned with, Hebrews 11:1 and because it is a great support to believers, under their various exercises; and is that by which they have an open, spiritual, and comfortable subsistence, and abiding in Christ:” I know, that’s a mouthful. Gill is saying that this “beginning of our commitment” is our initial faith in Jesus. We cannot desert that.

ASK QUESTIONS (Command to Obey, Promise to claim, Sin to avoid, Application to make, Something new about God)

There is a Promise to claim in today’s verse. Look at the verse again. It says, “we have become partakers of Christ.” The Greek word for “partakers” is métoxos “(from metéxō, ‘share in,’ derived from metá, ‘with change afterward’ and éxō, ‘have’) – properly, change due to sharing, i.e. from being an ‘active partaker with.’” (HELPS Word-studies) Did you get all that? This means we are changed due to sharing. We are changed by Christ by sharing with Christ. Wow!

But this promise is contingent on us keeping the faith, keeping our original commitment. I am reminded of the warning given to us by John in 1 John 2:19. “They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be evident that they all are not of us.” Have you known people like that? They have a religious experience and get involved for a while in church, but the first sign of difficulties and they disappear. They were not partakers of Christ, or they would have been changed.

So, we need to keep the faith. There’s a Command to Obey and an Application to make for you. Can you do that? Lean into Jesus. He is all you need. Reflect back on the excitement and zeal you experienced when you first surrendered to Him. Make that your motivation each day and live for Him. Amen?

Father God, thank You for making me a partaker with Jesus and sustaining my faith day by day.