Hebrews 12:3-11 | What's the connection?

A Long Road

6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, 8 whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, 9 receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls.
-1 Peter 1:6-9


This is one of many exhortations given to believers that are suffering trials and tribulations. To many of us, it may seem almost incomprehensible the trials that they were going through, and even more incomprehensible that the Lord would permit such horrible things to happen to His people. We need not look any farther than the Son to see just how far the Lord is willing to go for the sake of sanctifying His people to Himself. The Lord knows the end of the road, though the journey is long to us.

Thus far, the writer to the Hebrews has been focused upon a people who are threatened to lose heart in their pursuit of the Lord. They run the risk of casting off their faith, forsaking the Lord, and returning to the old. While most of the energy has been poured out on showing Jesus as the greatest and as the example to follow, there is undoubtedly another crowd that is faced with their own great discouragement. "Okay, maybe the Lord is with us. But He is just punishing us!" I have been threatened by this very line of thinking. Indeed, I could see that God was with me, but I had been deceived into the belief that God was punishing me with every trial and tribulation He could throw at me. It was only years after the fact that I can look back and see what He was producing in me. In the same way that I look back with thankfulness for my father's discipline in me, I look back and see how God Almighty was training and equipping me.

The Hebrews have had a long road of trial and tribulation. The author of this epistle seeks to encourage and exhort. The trials you are suffering is not to say that God is against you. Actually, it is evidence that He is for you. His desire is to see you yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness. That is good news. What this will lead to is yet another exhortation to be strengthened in the Lord.

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