John 6:35 (NASB1995) says, “35 Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.’”[1] When Jesus describes Himself as the bread of life in this passage, two things should come to mind: (1) the concept of desire, and (2) the concept of satisfaction.

The scariest reality to consider as someone who claims the Christian faith is that one day I might discover that my faith is disingenuous. Jeremiah 17:9 (NASB1995) says:

The heart is more deceitful than all else
And is desperately sick;
Who can understand it?
​
Our hearts can deceive us. They can make us think things that are not true. And they can make someone who does not have saving faith, think that they have it. The heart of a goat can make it think it’s actually a sheep. And one of the foremost fuels for this deception, accomplished by the heart of an unsaved person, is something known as a dead work.

The author of Hebrews is unknown, and the content of the book can be hard to comprehend, especially from your first reading. It really is a text you need to move slowly through, where you can look back to the Old Testament quotations to try and better understand the illustrations the author provides. Today we will look at a small excerpt from Chapter 2 that has some amazing statements about Christ and His people.

One of the most difficult verses in all of Scripture to interpret is James 2:24, “You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.” We see here that James appears to be claiming that our justification in the eyes of God is determined by works, and not merely by faith alone.
 
James’ statement appears to say the opposite of Paul in Romans 3:28, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.” Here, Paul clearly teaches that our justification in the eyes of God is determined solely on faith.
 
How do we reconcile these two verses?

Throughout the Bible, we find numerous commands to protect and honor three vulnerable groups of people: (1) the stranger, (2) the fatherless, and (3) the widow. This is especially prevalent in the Old Testament but is certainly echoed throughout the entire Bible. I believe this consistency is important and has a significant New Testament application to believers. Let us begin by taking a look at Deuteronomy 24:19-21 (KJV):

One of the most interesting (and terrifying) topics in the Bible is the Book of Life. If someone’s name is written in the book, they will go to heaven for eternity, and if their name is not written in the book, they will be thrown into the lake of fire. Beyond just this truth, there is also the yearning of prophets to have people’s names blotted out of the book, and even threats by God for people’s names to be wiped out. The major questions to answer in forming a biblical understanding of this topic are the following: (1) when were names written in the Book of Life, (2) whose names were written in the Book of Life, and (3) will believers names (or anyone's names) be blotted out?