So we know because of what the author has just written that we will not be shaken. But that doesn’t mean we parade with arrogance nor that we just take this position as granted or like we deserve it.
“Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, 29 for our “God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12 v 28-29)
Therefore we are thankful. Therefore we worship with deep reverence to Him.
An old man is on the pier feeding the seagulls, they land all around him, on his shoulders, his hat, feeding off what he had in his bag. Why is this man doing this? Why does he come here every week?
The man is Eddie Rickenbacher, a famous pilot in World War 2. His plane the “Flying Fortress” was shot down in 1942 and no one thought he would be rescued. He and eight passengers survived in 2 rafts for 30 days. They fought thirst, the sun and sharks some of which were 9 feet long. But what nearly killed them was starvation, within 8 days they had no more food left.
But in these rafts they would have a daily devotion to God. One day after a devotion Rickenbacher leaned back with his hat over his eyes to get some sleep. Within a few moments he felt something land on his hat. He knew in an instant it was a seagull. They were hundreds of miles from land, where had it come from? In an instant he grabbed the seagull. They all ate the bird and the intestines they used as fish bait. Rickenbacher never forgot that sacrifice. Every week he went to the pier to feed the seagulls, to say thank you.
If the only prayer you said in your whole life was ‘thank you’, that would be sufficient and that would summarise your position.
The Jew spends every day focused on thankfulness. In fact because of a legend regarding a plague that took the lives of 100 people in one day during King David’s reign the rabbi’s came to understand the spiritual reasoning for the plague and thus instituted the need to say 100 blessings of thankfulness to God.
Here is a Jewish prayer: “Even if our mouths were filled with songs like the sea, our tongues with joy like its mighty waves, our lips with praise like the breadth of the sky, if our eyes shone like the sun and the moon, and our hands were spread out like the eagles of heaven, if our feet were as swift as the hind, we should still be incapable of thanking You adequately for one thousandth part of all the love You have shown us.”
He has given all you need to be unshakeable. He gives you His presence. He bridges the distance between Himself and you. He has come to you and the reason why you will not be shaken is because His Spirit is with you. He gives you His power. He untangles your mess; He restores and revives you to go again; He cleans your life and chooses you every day to follow Him and the reason why you will not be shaken is not because you are better than anyone else but it is because of His power within your life.
We are thankfully not shaken and we will be so.
Missions Paul 