A sacrifice of praise

My class just finished up with an indepth Precept upon Precept (PUP) study of the book of Hebrews.  For those of you who do the PUP series of books, remember in our homework (of any study) that we are asked to ready the observation worksheets over and over throughout a study?    By the time a study has ended, we will have read the text a hundred or more times.   And even so, when we slow down and start doing the observations, we see things we missed?  And even more so, we start answering the questions in our homework and still see more things we missed?

This happened to me, again, while studying Hebrews.  Consider this verse:

Hebrews 13:15:  " Through Him then, let’s continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips praising His name.^"

It wasn't until I was watching Kay's video that I truly started to understand this verse.  The times I read through it, I realize now it was superficially.  I thought it just meant to give God praise.  But there's so much more to it.

First off -  what's does sacrifice mean?  According to the online 1828 Webster's dictionary, the first meaning for sacrifice is "To offer to God in homage or worship".  Another meaning is "To devote with loss."  A sacrifice costs you something.

So what can a sacrifice of praise mean then?  In Hebrews chapter 12, the author was talking about difficult times. There are times in every person's life that is hard.  A bad medical situation, financial hardship, family issues...  It's easy to praise God when life is good, but how hard is to praise God when life is hard?  It costs you something.  And when life is really hard?  that praise costs you a great deal.  

This is what the author of Hebrews was referring to as a "sacrifice of praise".  And we know that those sacrifices of praise are pleasing to God.  (Hebrews 13:16)

My recap of Hebrews

I'm in a weekly Precepts Bible Study and since last September, we've been studying Hebrews.  It's a book I've never studied in depth before, so I've been so enjoying this.

My personal theme for Hebrews is "Jesus is Better".  He's better than the angels, He's better than Moses, He's better than Abraham, He's better than any earthly high priest.  He's the mediator of the New Covenant, which is better than the Old Covenant.  

And Jesus, God Himself, the Son of God, sinless,  - gave Himself willingly to be our sacrificial lamb.    Jesus' sacrifice was once and for all.  Through His death and His resurrection, He conquered death.  If anyone accepts Him as our Savior, we will live eternally with Him.

Hebrews chapter 11, often called the Hall of Faith, gives us many, many examples of great heroes of faith, whom we should emulate. In fact, the author recaps this in Hebrews 13:7:  "Remember those who led you, who spoke the Word of God to you; and considering the result of their way of life, imitate their faith".

Hebrews chapter 12 is all about God's discipline.  We should look to the heroes of faith in Chapter 11 and how they overcame and were steadfast in their faith, even when there was suffering and hard times in their lives.  God allows difficulties, as a father disciplines a child.  These hard times mature us in our faith.

Let me explain how that's working in my life:

*When I was 39, I had breast cancer.  At the time, my children were ages 12, 6 and 4.  It was hard, chemo was awful.  But that experience changed me.  My faith grew during that time. An analogy would be of a tree - I was 25 years in the Lord, a 25 year old tree,  and my roots started to grow even deeper.  

*About 10 years later, we had to deal with a very difficult issue with one of our children, which lasted about 3 years.  Thinking back to the analogy of the tree - when your roots are deeper, you can withstand stronger and stronger storms.  Because I went through cancer, it made me stronger.  We not only got through this very difficult time in our lives, but our roots keep growing deeper and deeper.

* Fast forward another 8 years to 2023.  Another difficult chapter in our life was upon us.  I called 911 for my husband and it turns out he had a double subdural hematoma.  2 surgeries and almost a month in the hospital and skilled nursing facility.   Again, it was a hard, difficult, agonizing......  And in the midst of it, I heard the Lord through my lovely child's mouth say "We're not doing a good job of keeping Dad safe".  And it's like God said "GO!".  You've been praying for years about where to live and how to live safely, now go and buy the house I have for you.  So I did.  My roots were much deeper.  They allowed me to stay deep in the Lord during this time.  I was able to hear Him clearly and follow His direction, even while emotionally distraught.

Chapter 13 is the closing and final chapter of the book of Hebrews.  The author gives these Jewish Christians final words of wisdom, warnings, and lots of encouragement about how to live the life that Christ promised them and us.