Do you ever feel like the world is shaking and crumbling around you? I do! It’s not a great feeling. God uses that emotional upheaval to stir our hearts and unstop our ears to His voice. When His voice becomes clear in our ears, He will reveal to us those eternal things that matter and help us let go of the temporal stuff of Earth.

Three times the audience of Hebrews is told, “…you have come.” Israel could not come to Mt. Sinai even after days of consecration and abstinence. But this group of Hebrew Christians is set free to approach God in faith. To joyfully come into God’s presence with the angels, the church, and all believers. They are free because God has judged their sin through the mediation of the Son, making them righteous and perfect.

Our pursuit of peace with God, self, and others should be constant and ongoing. But there are hindrances that, if not dealt with, will create roadblocks to discovering and living in God’s peace.

The Kingdom of God is unshakeable because it is built on a peaceful foundation. The King of this kingdom is called “the prince of peace” (Isaiah 9:6). Through the violence of crucifixion, Jesus made peace with God available to all who trust Him as savior (Romans 5:1; Ephesians 2:13-17). In His most famous sermon, Jesus explains that the citizens of God’s kingdom are characterized as peacemakers (Matthew 5:9).

God is our Father; therefore, He has expectations of us. He is not a permissive parent who believes love equals having no boundaries. God is not a neglectful Father who abandons us in our time of need. Neither is God an authoritarian whose commands stretch beyond our capability to fulfill (because He gives us the power to obey every command through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit).

I want to dig deep into Hebrews 12. My goal is to encourage you to put your trust in the One who remains “the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). I hope to persuade you to resist the pull to go back to the old, easier, and more comfortable ways before faith in Christ. In this moment of history, the world is reeling and its kingdoms are shaking; we can put our trust in the Name of the Lord our God (Psalm 20:7).