Hebrews 3:14 – Hold steadfast our confidence – Be made partakers of Christ
For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end;
This verse has led me to some deep reflection on how to restructure my life that I too can hold steadfast my confidence and be made a partaker of Christ. It is my prayer that a similar experience will happen for each and everyone who reads these words.
Positioning is always so important in the scriptures. Where a verse is located is part of its message and power. There are two blocks of scriptures that repeat each other, but with slightly different wording to really teach what needs to be taught.
- Block 1 is 6-13 – Mostly the words of the Holy Ghost to the people.
- Block 2 is 14-19 – Paul’s words rephrasing the same teachings.
Both of these scripture blocks teach the sad tale of the Israelites, that Moses led out of Egypt, who wandered in the wilderness for 40 years and who were not allowed to enter into the rest of the Lord. They are beautifully written and each block starts with a verse (6 and 14) that contains the pleading of the Lord for His people to hold steadfast their confidence and hope in Christ to be saved. Unfortunately, the people rejected Him because of their unbelief and they hardened their hearts, provoked God, and sealed their own fate.
Let’s compare verses 6 and 14:
6 But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.
14 For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end;
When we are made partakers of Christ, we become join heirs with Christ, and thus we are part of Christ’s house.
1 Peter 2:5 explains it this way:
Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
Next comes the big “IF” statement. There are no two ways around it, we must hold fast our confidence and hope in Christ and all that he promised, in order for us to be made partakers of Christ. I love that the word confidence is used, because confidence includes much more than just mindless actions or obedience. For someone to have confidence in something, they must both believe with their mind and believe with their heart and feel that that thing is true. Confidence is built through experience.
Oxford online defines confidence as:
- the feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something; firm trust.
- the state of feeling certain about the truth of something.
- a feeling of self-assurance arising from one’s appreciation of one’s own abilities or qualities.
It is amazing how the Lord works. I recently started posting a short daily video clip on my Spiritual Crusade Instagram page, talking about the quote for that day. Well, yesterday I did something a little different. It was my daughter’s birthday and I let her pick her favorite quote/meme that I made and then we did the video together. It was tons of fun, but the amazing part was that the one she picked has significantly improved my understanding of these verses we are discussing. Here is the quote:
Spencer W Kimball said, “It seems that evil is always about us. It has been speculated by one of the earlier Brethren that there are hundreds of evil spirits working against each of us. Accordingly, we must be alert constantly. We catalogue our weaknesses and move in against them to overcome them. Christ became perfect through overcoming. Only as we overcome shall we become perfect and move toward godhood. As I have indicated previously, the time to do this is now, in mortality.” (Miracle of Forgiveness, Life Seeks Perfection)
Jesus Christ overcame as he put his faith and trust in God, His Father, and then God gave unto him of His grace. Christ grew from grace to grace and thus overcame and became perfect through this process. We too can overcome as we put our faith and trust in Christ and then He gives unto us of His grace. We too must grow from grace to grace, until we become like Him and move toward godhood.
Think about that, Christ relied on a higher power, even God, His Father, to assist Him to overcome. He held fast to His confidence and hope in God, and through that confidence, He received of God’s grace and power and became perfect in that thing. He then gained experience with God’s grace and power and that grew His confidence and His competence to be perfect. He repeated this process over and over again, always holding fast to His confidence in God, which grew stronger and stronger until He truly overcame all things and became perfect.
Is that not the same process that Christ is asking us to take? We too must rely on a higher power, even Jesus Christ, to assist us to overcome. We hold fast to our confidence and hope in Christ, and through that confidence, we receive of Christ’s grace and power and become perfect in that thing. We then gain experience with Christ’s grace and power and that will grow our confidence and our competence to be perfect. We repeat this process over and over again, always holding fast to our confidence in Christ, which will grow stronger and stronger until we too overcome and become perfect and move toward godhood.
This process is not reserved for some future day or for the next life, but it is abundantly clear in both blocks of scripture and the quote by Spencer W. Kimball, it is for us “to day.”
8 To day if ye will hear his voice…
13 But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
15 While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts…
In Spencer’s words, “As I have indicated previously, the time to do this is now, in mortality.”
Elder Donald L. Hallstrom of the Presidency of the Seventy spoke of the danger of procrastinating spiritual matters: “Many of us place ourselves in circumstances far more consequential than embarrassment because of our procrastination to become fully converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ. We know what is right, but we delay full spiritual involvement because of laziness, fear, rationalization, or lack of faith. We convince ourselves that ‘someday I’m going to do it.’ However, for many ‘someday’ never comes, and even for others who eventually do make a change, there is an irretrievable loss of progress and surely regression” (“Do It Now,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2007, 49–50).
Another thing I love, is that it says in verse 14, “hold the beginning of our confidence.” In the words of Alma:
Alma 32:27
But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.
If you put aside or neglect the seed, it may never sprout, it may never grow, you will never enjoy it’s fruit, and it will never bless the lives of your family or others. On the other hand, If you plant the seed and nurish it, then it grows and grows and as it grows, your faith and confidence grow with it. This process continues until it becomes a tree bearing fruit and blesses the lives of many souls, some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred (Mark 4:8).
What is the greatest destroyer of confidence? That’s right….Unbelief!
Unbelief or hardened heart or a form of that is mentioned 8 times in just 13 verses.
8 Harden not your hearts…
10 …They do alway err in their heart…
12 Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief…
13 … lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
15 … harden not your hearts…
16 For some, when they had heard, did provoke…
18 … to them that believed not?
19 So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.
My son has started this new thing, when we consequence him, he repeats it back to us. For example, if I tell him to “go sit in time out,” he then says, “you go sit in time out.” We had a talk with him and told him that he is not allowed to copy us like that and if he did, he will have some sort of a consequence. The next time he copied me, I told him that he had to go pick up like 5 items. He complained and said that he waited till I said another word and then he copied me. He said that we never told him that he couldn’t copy us after we said another word. Kids are funny because they feel that everything has to be spelled out exactly how they do it or they are off the hook. Interestingly, the Hebrew people were no different, Paul had to tell them 8 different ways to not have unbelief because it would lead them away from God. Hopefully they finally got it, but the real question is….DO WE?
The people personally witnessed miracle after miracle after miracle, let alone the daily miracle of the manna. All of these miracles were given freely by the power of God for 40 years, and yet most tragically, they failed to believe in the one miracle that could truly save them and give unto them eternal life, even the living manna. They willingly set aside their confidence in Christ and chose to put their confidence in the world. They failed to believe this process that we have been discussing today, to build upon the beginning of their confidence until they were perfected in Christ. Because they failed to believe this, they sealed their own fate and can never enter the rest of the Lord.
To me the saddest part is to see the willful rebellion. This time is known as the day of provocation, verse 8 says, “Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.”
Provocation is defined as:
- action or speech that makes someone annoyed or angry, especially deliberately.
Similar: goading, prodding, egging on - testing to elicit a particular response or reflex.
The root of provocation is provoke. How did they provoke God? As I pondered this, the question that came to me was, “who would provoke you more, in terms of parenting, the child that did not know the rules or reasons why or the child that knows perfectly the rules or reasons why? In times past, I kept focusing on the how, and now I realize that I must first understand the WHO. They knew better. Every morning when they gathered the manna, what went through their mind? Were they focussing on the blessing of the manna, feeling so much gratitude to God, and knowing that He was constantly feeling after them and desiring to bring them unto Him? I want to believe that this was the case, but scripture tells a different story. There fell upon them a lusting for the meats and foods of Egypt (Numbers 11:4–6). Their belief only went so far, God could provide us with simple manna, but Egypt could provide so much more. “They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways” (vs 10). They erred in their heart because they lusted after the things of this world instead of feeling after and letting their hearts yearn for and seek after a much more glorious life, even life eternal.
Are we any different? We have miracles today that are every bit as glorious as manna was to the Israelites. To mention just one, our manna is the Book of Mormon, which was preserved, brought forth, and translated by the literal power of God. We don’t have to gather it every morning, we just need to turn on our phones and feast upon its words. Do we err in our hearts, reading to just check off a box? As we read its words, do we focuss on the blessing of this book, feeling so much gratitude to God, and knowing that He is constantly feeling after us and desiring to bring us unto Him? Do we lust after the things of this world instead of feeling after and letting our hearts yearn for and seek after a much more glorious life, even life eternal?
Understanding these things we can now read Doctrine and Covenants 84:54–58 with new eyes to see, new ears to hear, and new hearts to feel and comprehend its deeper meaning.
54 And your minds in times past have been darkened because of unbelief, and because you have treated lightly the things you have received—
55 Which vanity and unbelief have brought the whole church under condemnation.
56 And this condemnation resteth upon the children of Zion, even all.
57 And they shall remain under this condemnation until they repent and remember the new covenant, even the Book of Mormon and the former commandments which I have given them, not only to say, but to do according to that which I have written—
58 That they may bring forth fruit meet for their Father’s kingdom; otherwise there remaineth a scourge and judgment to be poured out upon the children of Zion.
When will we open our eyes, when will we awake from our slumber, when will we rise up and be men and women in Christ, obeying, serving, and becoming like him?
Let us hold the beginning of our confidence, in Christ, steadfast unto the end and become partakers of Christ!!! This is my prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen!
Craig
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