Saturday, February 22, 2025

Buyer’s Remorse

Series on “I am Joe’s Favorite Verses”
Hebrews 12:1-2
 (Click on the link below to read the verses.)
Hebrews 12:1-13 

[Many years ago, there used to be articles in the Reader’s Digest titled “I am Joe’s ___” with the blank being filled with a body part or organ. Over the years, I’ve written down verses that are meaningful to me on 3x5 cards. In this series we’ll be looking at some of my favorite verses. In other words, “I am Joe’s Favorite Verses”.]

  

Have you ever experienced buyer’s remorse? 


Maybe you bought a car or even a house on the spur of the moment, and now you regret it. Or maybe instead of some material thing, it was a relationship. Almost 50 percent of all marriages end in divorce. I’d call that buyer’s remorse.


 

No doubt, in the first century, a Jew becoming a Christian would come at a price. They might lose status in their community. Friends or family might reject them. They could lose income. Eventually, some converts began to wonder if they’d made a mistake… buyer’s remorse. Hebrews was written to those Jewish Christians.

 

Therefore, in the first ten chapters of Hebrews, the author made a systematic comparison of Christ to the staples of the Jewish religion including the prophets, angels, Moses, Joshua, Aaronic and Levitical priests, the tabernacle, the covenant and the sacrifices required by the Law. And his conclusion? Christ was superior!

 

Following this, he made a list of the heroes of the faith. These were men and women from the Old Testament who had lived “by faith”. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses and many others – all of them were pillars of the Jewish faith. Here’s what he wrote about them.

 

13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.     NIV

 

When the word “therefore” is used, it means that what follows is a logical next step to take. In the following use of “therefore”, it not only refers to the heroes of the faith, but also to the systematic comparison with Christ.

 

1 “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.         NIV 1985

 


The paraphrase from The Living Bible helps us to visualize this metaphor and understand how it applied to life, not only then, but now.

 

1 Since we have such a huge crowd of men of faith watching us from the grandstands, let us strip off anything that slows us down or holds us back, and especially those sins that wrap themselves so tightly around our feet and trip us up; and let us run with patience the particular race that God has set before us.           TLB

 

You may not have experienced buyer’s remorse to the point of rejecting your faith. But you may have gone through times when it just felt too hard to keep hoping in a promise when you couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. An emotional valley when no matter what, hope doesn’t help.

 


When that happens, remember the words of Hebrews and ask for the Lord's help.

 

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”         NIV 1985

 

Copyright 2025 Joseph B Williams

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