​2 Corinthians 3
 
Reading through the Biblical account of God’s people in the Old Testament presents an invariable notion that obedience to Yahweh is never a forgone conclusion. God’s language recorded by Isaiah illustrated His frustrations and anger: He called them a rebellious people, deceitful children, unwilling to listen to His instruction, they polluted the earth for they transgressed laws, violated statutes, broke the everlasting covenant, they who execute a plan, but not Mine, and make an alliance, but not of My Spirit, in order to add sin to sin (Is 24:5; 30:1, 39), and on and on. If not for the prophets, Israel never admitted that obedience is one of their indelible weaknesses? The Scriptures informs us that God’s laws are perfect (Ps 19:7-11; Rom 7:12), but the real problem is man’s heart (Jer 17:9). The glaring fact of Israel’s struggle with obedience throughout her history raises the question of what would motivate us to obey?
 
Although the Old Testament in Ezekiel alludes to a time when God would remove the heart of stone and give man a new heart, and put His Spirit within him and caused him to walk in His statues and be careful to obey His rules, read in its context, this prophecy referred specifically to the conversion of Israel (Ezek 36:22-38) and is still future-related. However, it gives us some insight into God’s modus operandi for the disobedient. Despite man’s redeemed state, the Apostle Paul concludes that man still possessed a conflicted nature (Rom 7:4-25), but the arrival of the promised Spirit of God by Jesus Christ at Pentecost had meant that the indwelling of the Spirit will transform man’s heart, sensitizing him towards God’s truths, and refocusing his life’s trajectory. As we all know, the familiarity of these thoughts and claims alone will not produce obedience towards God’s Laws and will. 
 
A close observation of the lives of the prophets and kings of Israel and Judah enlightens us to an important association: the ones who had an ongoing vibrant relationship with Yahweh were obedient to Him and followed His counsel in the long run. These relationships were based on accountability to Yahweh, willingly committed by the individual in submission to Him, with humility and sincerity. Nothing much can be said of others who eschewed this vital lifeline as they govern and apparently spoke at times on God’s behalf; their life turned out to be messy, their rule corrupt, and the nation led astray politically and spiritually. It is also significant that these accountable relationships were personal in nature, in the sense that God looks at each heart and chose to hold them liable to Him. 
 
How did the Apostle Paul describe such a dynamic relationship in the New Testament? He provided a glimpse of this in his Letter to the Corinthian Church, in an interesting exchange when they impertinently sought to question his apostolic credential (although it was the norm in those days for unknown preachers). In a rebuke to the Corinthians, what mattered to him when a genuine heart change had occurred, is a Christ-like transformed life: so that “you are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men; being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (2 Cor 3:2-3). And he rounded his case out by reemphasizing what must have been a shocking indictment on the church, that we all not only have free access to our Lord with our faces now ‘unveiled’ before God, due to the work of Christ, so that our gaze into the mirror, is not a reflection of our narcissistic self, but an image of the Lord, as He gloriously transforms us by His Spirit (2 Cor 3:17-18). Implying that each believer’s Christ-like testimony is not only obvious to others but to themselves. 
 
Not many can claim such a compelling relationship with our God, which remains an ongoing devotional challenge for us in our own authentication to be Christ-like!
 

Hebrews 1: 1 – 13; 13: 5 – 9

Even in a rapidly changing world of increasing uncertainties, with ambiguous outcomes, there is much to be grateful to God. And it is reassuring to realize that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Heb 13:8). His divine constancy is boldly defined by the writer of the Hebrew epistle as God Himself, the eternal One who occupies the same throne as the Father (Heb 1:3,8,12; cf., Mal 3:6). This immutability or unchangeableness of God, compared to man’s earthy finiteness and lack of wisdom, certainly does not preclude His ability to identify with our human predicament (cf., Heb 4:15), as ‘sameness’ (v.8) is imbedded in His perfect foreknowledge and plans as He flawlessly executes all the details concerning our lives with unrelenting love, righteousness, power, and wisdom, to bring about His glorious purpose.

Our humanity often demands that any purposeful relationship is based on mutual trust and stability, and this is no different in our rapport with God. A person’s historical phenomenology and other’s experience of him provide the evidence for forward trust building. Idolatry is devoid of such convictions! Likewise, Jesus’ divine ancient reputation that was referenced as the ‘same yesterday’ provides the secure basis of our present fellowship with Him. This continuous link is borne by the Word, as God’s way of historical self-revelation, and through the work of His Holy Spirit, as He presently indwells us, making our onward journey with Him increasingly affirming and purposeful.

This doctrinal statement (viz., v.8) is not a stand-alone, as its context emphasizes its other-centred practical application (Heb 13:1-7). Firstly, the writer exhorted believers in the exercise of brotherly love which is costly (cf., 1 John 3:16) and the religious obligation of extending intentional hospitality to strangers (with reference to strangers in the Christian community), to be empathetic in serving the outcasts of society (i.e., friends in prison and those who are slaves; cf., 1 Cor 12:26), to chastity and honouring each other’s marriages, to be contented and free from covetousness (Matt 6:24; Luke 12:15), and to imitate the unwavering exemplary conduct and faith of their leaders. Logically, he concluded that as God proved Himself to be trustworthy in the past, and as believers learn to trust Him today and for their future, their anxieties would remain unfounded. 

​The second segment warned against entertaining strange doctrines of certain ritual practices over food, as believers had been set free by Christ’s sacrifice once for all (Heb 13:9-14; cf., 2 Tim 4:3). They have a vague perception that their freedom had been secured, but were unaware how that was applied specifically, thereby hobbling their growth, and certainly crimping their apologetic preparedness to confront materialism and heresy – perhaps the two greatest tests for the church today. The writer’s attitude here in his corrective mode illustrated for us Godly graciousness in handling disagreements. Conviction for sins is the Lord’s prerogative, never ours; hence using Scripture to defend his arguments, the author’s gracious words lack a vindictive and oppositional quality that embraced the potential for the wrongdoer’s restoration and healing. To be like Christ is to appreciate and know Him as being the same yesterday and today and forever.