Hebrews 10

"So do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you! Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God's will. Then you will receive all that he has promised." Hebrews 10:35-36. The believers in Italy during this period were witnessing severe and terrible persecution. Suffering for being a Christian wasn't new to them but this was different, the emperor, Nero, was determined to wipe out Christianity and its followers. The least of it was being ridiculed and beaten in public, others were jailed and their businesses, properties and homes confiscated by the government. Until now, they had accepted it with joy but it was gradually wearing some of them out. Some felt it was safer to revert back to Judaism, a religion the emperor favoured, for now and convert back when the temperature cools down. It was to them the writer said, do not throw away your confident trust in the Lord. The truth is, Christians are living through something similar presently all over the world. In some places, instead of the government persecuting the citizens and the church, seeming state sponsored terrorist are, they seem to be asking whether we will give up on our faith or begin to forsake our fellowship with one another. In other places, those who stand for Christian values are cancelled, businesses ruined and sometimes confiscated in the name of wholeness and liberalism. My encouragement is the same as the writer of Hebrews; do not cast away your confident hope in the Lord, "let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near." Hebrews 10:23-25