Hebrews 12:1-13

v1-2: All “Christians have a race to run.” It is a race that involves obedience to Christ’s commands, service, and likely suffering. It is “marked out for them by both the word of God and the examples of faithful servants of God,” and “perseverance is needed to resist all temptations tot give up or turn aside.” If we are to run this race, we need to look to Jesus, setting “him continually before us as our example and our great encouragement.” We must “look to him for direction, assistance, and acceptance in all our sufferings.”

v3-7: Even “the best of God’s children need discipline” because “they have their faults and follies that need to be corrected.” Suffering and affliction can be a form “of divine correction” which God uses in his wisdom to show “his fatherly love and care” by not allowing us “to continue in sin without rebuke.”

v8-11: “Afflictions are not pleasant, but painful. Our bodies will feel them, be grieved by them, and groan under them.” Yet through them, God is working to “correct and heal the sinful disorders that make us unlike God,” and restore “the image of God in us, so that we may be and act more like our heavenly Father.”

v12-13: Fight against the discouragement that the burden of suffering brings, so that you may better run your race without “wavering and wandering,” and so you “may encourage and not discourage others who are on the same path” as you and help them “move forward on their way to heaven.”