Saturday, March 14, 2026
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Hebrews 5-6
Key Verse
Hebrews 6:4 — “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,”
Devotional Thought
The writer of Hebrews turns from doctrine to diagnosis, and his diagnosis lands on us: by this time you ought to be teachers, yet you still need milk. It is a searching word for a Saturday in mid-March, when winter’s grip is loosening and the first green shoots push through ground that looked dead a few weeks ago. Soil is on the mind of this passage. Chapter six paints a field that drinks the rain falling often upon it; the question is not whether rain came, but what the ground brought forth. The same shower that yields herbs fit for the gardener also feeds thorns and briers, and the difference lies in the soil itself. The Christian life is not a matter of merely receiving; it is a matter of what we do with what we have received, whether we press on unto perfection or settle into a permanent infancy.
And yet the passage does not leave us to grit our teeth and grow ourselves. Before it ever rebukes dull hearing, it shows us a High Priest who can have compassion on the ignorant and on them that are out of the way, because He Himself was compassed with infirmity. Christ did not seize the honor of priesthood; the Father said to Him, Thou art my Son, and, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec. In the days of His flesh He offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears, and though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered. The Garden of Gethsemane is in view here — sweat like blood, the cup not removed, the will surrendered. Our growth in Christ is not the imitation of a distant example but the response of a people already represented by a sympathetic Priest who has gone before them.
That is why the warning of chapter six is so sober and yet so hopeful. The writer speaks of those once enlightened, who tasted the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and he does not soften the peril of falling away. But he immediately turns tender: But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation. He remembers their work and labour of love toward the saints. Then he lifts their eyes to Abraham, who after he had patiently endured obtained the promise, and to God Himself, who, because He could swear by no greater, sware by Himself. By two immutable things, His promise and His oath, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we have strong consolation.
So the anchor holds. That hope, the text says, enters into that within the veil, where Jesus the forerunner has already entered for us. An anchor, by its very nature, is cast not onto the deck but into the deep, fixed to something outside the ship. Our assurance rests not in the steadiness of our own hands but in the finished work of a Priest who ever lives. The call of this passage, then, is not to drift in the shallows of milk and first principles, but to go on unto perfection, exercising our senses by use, discerning good and evil, and bearing herbs meet for the Master’s use as the rains of His grace fall upon us.
Reflection
- What evidence is there in your life this week that you are moving from milk toward strong meat — from merely hearing the Word to exercising your senses to discern good and evil?
- The passage grounds assurance in God’s promise and oath rather than your feelings; where are you tempted to anchor your hope in your own performance instead of in the forerunner who entered within the veil?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, our great High Priest after the order of Melchisedec, we thank You that You were compassed with infirmity and can have compassion on the ignorant and on those out of the way. You offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears, and You learned obedience through suffering, becoming the author of eternal salvation to all who obey You. Keep us from dullness of hearing and from slothfulness. Feed us with strong meat, exercise our senses to discern good and evil, and let our lives bring forth herbs meet for the Gardener rather than thorns. Anchor our souls in the hope that enters within the veil, where You have gone before us, sure and stedfast, world without end. Amen.