A summary of the sermon preached at this evening’s celebration, on...


Hebrews 6:9

Things That Accompany Salvation


Although I live in the age of “new men” and role reversal, I am probably one of the least domesticated males in the western hemisphere. The sum total of my culinary skills is knowing how to make a pot of coffee and, in case of absolute necessity, use the microwave. There is a thing in our kitchen called a washing machine, but I haven’t the slightest idea how to use it. I have, it is true, on one or two occasions had a go at sewing on a button, and I think one of my resewed buttons actually stayed in place for very nearly 24 hours.


The fact is, whatever strengths I may have lie in areas other than what used to be called “home economics”. Fortunately, God in his mercy, and knowing that I am marginally more capable of flapping my arms and flying to the moon than I am of looking after myself at home, has provided me with a wonderful companion in life. Thanks to Enid, I am at one and the same time the most useless domestic male and the best looked after. Which is one of the many reasons why I chose to ignore Cliff Richard’s advice to remain a bachelor boy.


Having said that, I’m sure you will be reassured to know that I believe that marriage is about far more than being hitched to someone who knows how to cook chilli con carne. Of course marriage is first and foremost about a relationship of love and trust, about living in a partnership with another person to whom you are totally committed. The man who looks for a wife because he wants someone to cook and clean for him doesn’t actually want a wife – he wants a house-keeper. That’s not what marriage is about.


But it will often – and in my case, it fortunately did – go with it. If I might borrow the phrase from Hebrews 6:9, enjoying regular nice meals because you’re married to someone who is a good cook is not “marriage” – but it is often one of the things that “accompany marriage.” There is the thing in itself: the relationship of love, trust and mutual commitment between husband and wife – and there are the things that accompany it, which includes for example the sharing of the domestic routines and chores.


I want this evening to dwell on the fascinating phrase that we find in Hebrews 6:9, “things that accompany salvation.” Let’s remind ourselves of the context in which the writer says it. He is concerned that some of those to whom he writes may be in danger of slipping away from their total commitment to Christ, because they are coming under pressure from the Roman authorities. Being a Christian was starting to cost – it could lead to persecution. How could you avoid being persecuted? – well, the obvious and simplest way was formally to renounce your Christian faith. Then the Romans would leave you alone.


The writer of this letter writes to these Christians who are tempted to give up, and he urges them not to turn their backs on Christ. If they give up on Christ, they lose everything. And in chapter 6, he speaks of the serious consequences of renouncing Christ: it undoes all the benefits that they received when they first repented, and makes it, humanly speaking, impossible to return to God (verses 4-6) – though we should add that what is impossible for man is always possible for God: God can by his grace restore the backslider. He then (verses7-8) uses the picture of the land: land that drinks in the rain will produce a good crop, whereas soil that is of poor quality will produce thorns and thistles: this kind of land is worthless, and sooner or later the farmer will decide that it’s not worth keeping, and burn it off. The point is clear: so long as believers remain in Christ, so long as they continue to drink in the rain of the Holy Spirit, their lives will bear good fruit for God. But if they give up – if they stop feeding on Christ and being watered by his grace – their lives will stop bearing fruit. And, if that state of affairs continues, God will sooner or later step in – and his judgment will fall. If that sounds harsh, let’s remember that Jesus himself said exactly the same thing. “The branches in me” – note, “in me”: he’s talking about those who are Christians – “that bear no fruit will be cut down and burned.”


Then we come to verse 9. “Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are confident of better things in your case – things that accompany salvation.” The writer is not retracting what he has said – it remains true that the persistent backslider can lose the new life he has in Christ, and come under the judgment of God – but he is saying that he is confident that his readers haven’t yet sunk as low as that. He is writing as he does, not because they have given up, but because he fears that they might, and he wants to urge them not to before it is too late. He is confident because he still sees something in these wavering believers of the good fruit that accompanies salvation. If those “things that accompany salvation” were not there at all, then, he says, he would start to be seriously worried for them.


What does he mean by “things that accompany salvation”? In this passage, he seems to be speaking of two inter-related things. By using the metaphor of land bearing (or not bearing) good fruit, he is referring to the two main areas that are spoken of repeatedly in the New Testament as the “fruit” of Christian faith: godly character and devoted service. He mentions this in the next verse: “your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped [literally: have ministered to] his people and continue to help [= minister to] them.” These are the things that accompany salvation: Christian character (“love”), and Christian service (“work”, “ministry”).


Of course, there are a number of other things that we could mention that “accompany salvation.” In a sense, all the blessings of Christian life – things like healing, peace of mind, a sense of hope and having a future – are things that accompany salvation.


But they are not salvation in itself. That’s the point. Just as marriage is not about having someone cook for you, so salvation is not about having peace of mind, or being healed by God, or developing better character qualities, or working hard at Christian ministry. These things accompany salvation: they go hand in hand with salvation, they are the normal concomitants of salvation, they are the fruit of salvation. But they are not in themselves at the heart of what it means to be saved.


That’s something the modern church – and, dare I say, the modern evangelical-charismatic church in particular – needs to remember. Because there is a tendency to focus almost exclusively on the things that accompany salvation – and forget that they are precisely that: they accompany salvation. They are not Christian life: they are some of the attendant benefits of Christian life.


So we need to define two things: first, what is “salvation” in itself?; and second, what is the relationship between “salvation itself” and “the things that accompany salvation”?


[1] Salvation


The Bible is quite clear about what it means to be saved. We can sum it up under three headings.


1. Relationship with God


“This is eternal life: to know you, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). To be saved means to come to live in a personal relationship with God as our Father, and with Jesus Christ as our Saviour. Just as marriage is not about having a good house-keeper, but about living in a relationship of love and trust with a person to whom you are committed, so salvation is not about having God around to “do things” for you, but rather living in a relationship of love with God.


The relationship between an employer and an employee (such as a house-keeper!) is a contractual relationship – it is functional; it is based on a work contract. But the relationship between a married couple is a covenant relationship – it is personal; it is based on a mutually binding commitment of trust and devotion.


What Jesus makes possible for us is a covenant relationship with God – the relationship in which we can say of the Lord, “I am my beloved’s and he is mine.” It does sometimes seem to me that what many people want is not a covenant relationship with God, but a contractual relationship with God. They want God to be there to do X, Y and Z for them, just as you might want a house-keeper to come at certain set times to do the cooking, cleaning and hoovering. There are no doubt some things that are our responsibility in this contract, just as an employer is supposed to pay his house-keeper. That’s fair enough. So we will do our bit – so long as God does his – and come to church, try to live a Christian life, say our prayers, and so on. Those are the terms of the contract.


But that’s not salvation. Christian life is not a contract, but a covenant. In 1998 the Labour government introduced a package of employment policies which went under the heading of the “New Deal”. The aim of the New Deal was to provide training and reduce unemployment. It was about programmes, laws, policies. But when Jesus was in the upper room with his disciples, he did not say “This is the New Deal” – he said “This is the New Covenant in my blood.”


Faith is not about making a deal with God. It’s about coming into a covenant relationship with God. And we can sum up the difference between a contractual relationship and a covenant relationship very simply. A contractual relationship is not personal – it’s functional, it’s about getting jobs done. The undomesticated bachelor doesn’t hire a house-keeper because he’s looking for companionship. He hires her because he needs someone to cook and do the chores. But a covenant relationship is about the relationship as an end in itself. Of course there is a practical and domestic side to marriage: I’ll do the washing up – you see, there are some things that I can do in the kitchen! – whilst Enid gives her greenhouse plants some TLC. But a covenant relationship is about a relationship between two people who are devoted to each other.


This is eternal life: to know you, the one true God. Faith is not about a deal, in which God does certain things for you on condition that you do certain things for him. It is a covenant, in which we live in relationship with God. It’s about knowing God, and loving God, as an end in itself. It’s about belonging to Jesus because we want to belong to Jesus.


2. Redemption from God


Second, salvation is about being set free from our sins. After all, that’s what the word “salvation” means. It’s about being saved. “[This is] of first importance: that Christ died for our sins.” “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him.” “When the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Saviour.”


People have lots of needs. Some people have financial needs – some have medical needs – some have social needs – some have relationship needs. But there is one supreme need that every man, woman and child on the planet suffers from. “All have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God.”


Sin is the greatest need. It’s the greatest need in three ways.



Not everyone is poor – not everyone is unemployed – not everyone is ill – not everyone is socially deprived.


But everyone is a sinner. All have sinned against God. Not all have sinned in exactly the same ways – I dare say not all to the same degree. But all have sinned.


The Gospel of Jesus addresses the greatest, most universal need in the world. Second...



Jesus saved us – and only Jesus can save us. Other people and other agencies can, up to a point, seek to address the various human needs. But none can set me free from my sin. The social services can give support to deprived families – but they can’t forgive their sins. The NHS can treat my illnesses – but they can’t purify my soul in God’s eyes. Schools and colleges can offer education – but they can’t offer redemption. Charities can feed the hungry and house the homeless – but they can’t give them the eternal life of God.


Jesus can. He is the unique, the one and only Saviour from sin.


Sin is the most universal need – it’s the need to which there is no human solution, but only Jesus can address...



Third, the consequences of sin are the most appalling. Of course, sin has its consequences in this life. It causes pain and misery, it can always undermine the best intentions, it is the Achilles’ heel of every human endeavour.


But it’s the eternal consequences of sin that are most urgent. Being poor will not keep me out of heaven – but being a sinner will. Being socially deprived will not condemn me to hell – but being a sinner will. Being illiterate will not separate me from the love of God – but being a sinner will. Being ill or handicapped will not exclude me from God’s Kingdom – but being a sinner will.


That’s why it matters. That’s why the Gospel is good news. Jesus died for our sins, so that we can be set free once and for all from the consequences of sin, from the judgment and punishment of sin. “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.”


That is what it means to be saved. It’s a relationship with God – it’s redemption from God.


But it’s also a third thing.


3. Responsibility to God


Salvation means being restored to what we were always created to be – people whose lives are devoted to the service of God.


One of the tragedies of living in a fallen world is that we have distorted and degraded the meaning of many words. Things that were, in God’s purposes, always entirely positive, have come to be seen as negative. That has happened, amongst others, to the word “servant”. It’s come to be seen as a demeaning word. To be a servant means to be a person of no significant status, someone who has fewer rights, someone who is lower, someone who is “Downstairs”, not “Upstairs”.


That was never what servanthood was intended to mean. Angels are awesome beings – full of holy fire and mind-blowing glory. On a number of occasions in the Bible, when people encounter angels, they fall to their faces in awe. Yet angels, this letter to the Hebrews tells us, are servants. “Ministering spirits” means spiritual beings who serve God.


To serve God is the highest and most glorious privilege in the world. “I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord, than dwell in the tents of the wicked.” It’s what we were created for. It’s what Jesus redeemed us for. When Paul is describing the conversion of the believers in Thessalonica, he says how “you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.”


That’s salvation. Saved people are serving people. It’s at the heart of what salvation is that we give our lives to serve Jesus as Lord. We do not become Christians simply to have our needs met, but to serve his purposes and his glory. When Mary was told by the angel Gabriel that she would be the mother of the Christ, her reply summed up beautifully what must be every Christian convert’s fundamental confession: “I am the Lord’s servant.”


Jesus said that what God has joined, no man should separate. Unfortunately, we sinful human beings have a knack of separating what God has joined. And I don’t just mean in marriages. God’s plan of salvation has perfectly joined together the fact that Jesus saves us from our sin, and that Jesus makes us servants of the Most High God. But we are far happier to say, “I’m redeemed!”, “I’m born again!”, “I’m forgiven!”, than we are to say, with Mary, “I am the Lord’s servant.” But what God has joined, let no man separate.


That is salvation. It means a new relationship with God as our Father – a new redemption from God, who sets us free for ever from our sins and their consequences – a new responsibility towards God, as we give ourselves unreservedly to serve his Kingdom.


That, and nothing less than that, is what salvation is. As we said, there are also various other things that “accompany salvation” – but that’s the salvation that they accompany.


So we now turn to...


[2] Things that accompany salvation


We mentioned the two key things that the writer to the Hebrews means primarily by “things that accompany salvation” – godly character, and good works. And we also said that there are a variety of other blessings that “accompany salvation”: things like the peace of God, a sense of purpose in our lives, the joy of the Lord, the experience of God’s healing, the privilege of fellowship together in Christ.


So what is the relationship between salvation itself, and the things that accompany salvation?


Let’s start with what these “things that accompany salvation” are not:


1. They’re not the grounds of salvation


Our writer tells us that godly character and good works are things that “accompany” salvation. They do not cause salvation. They are the fruit of salvation, not the root of it.


Our Christian life and faith will never really take off – in fact will never even start – until we fully accept the fact that our good works, our efforts, our religious practices, will never earn us God’s favour. There is nothing in me that can possibly be good enough to atone for my sins, or to buy me a place in God’s perfect heaven.


It’s a remarkable fact that the grace of God is at one and the same time the simplest thing to understand yet the hardest thing to accept. It’s very simple to understand. There’s nothing I can do to save myself. God has done everything necessary to save me, because he loves me. What I have to do is receive what Jesus has achieved for me, as a free gift.


It’s that simple. It’s what you do every time to accept a gift that someone offers you on your birthday or at Christmas.


Yet it’s the hardest thing to accept. It runs counter to our obstinate human desire to do our own thing, to have something – anything! – that we can cling to and of which we can say, “No-one did that for me, I did it myself!” We all want, like Ol’ Blue Eyes, to be able to say, when the end is near, and we face the final curtain, that, whatever else we can or can’t say, “I did it my way.”


Except that I can’t. The Christian version of that slogan can only ever be, when we face the final curtain, that “He did it for me!”


This stubborn resistance to the grace of God gives us the mistaken idea that we somehow have rights before God. I’ve been coming to church for some time now – surely that gives me the right to expect that God will do a bit of something for me?! I’ve done my best to live a decent life – I’ve scratched God’s back a bit – so what’s so wrong with expecting him to scratch mine from time to time?


When the Holy Spirit of God comes and convicts us of sin, righteousness and judgment, all these hideous and blasphemous distortions of the truth should melt away. When I see that nothing I have done or can ever do can possibly earn me any rights before God – that God does everything for me out of sheer undeserved grace and kindness – that everything I have and everything I ever will have from him is a free gift that I can never earn, deserve, work towards or achieve – that’s when my Christian faith and life will start to take off. That’s when my growth as a disciple will start. Until then, I’ve been like the man who’s trying to learn to swim by reading instruction manuals. He may know a lot about the theory of this or that stroke – but he’s never going to become a swimmer until he dives into the water. And you and I are never going to become disciples of Jesus until we abandon the idea that our character and works are the basis of our relationship with God, and dive headfirst into his grace.


So, the first thing is: the things that accompany salvation are never the grounds on which God saves us. We have to let God save us in his own way – by applying the blood of Christ to our lives, as we put our trust in him. Good works and Christian character will follow receiving the free gift of salvation – but they can never precede it.


2. They’re not separate from salvation


But, as always, there’s an important balancing truth. Character and works can never be the grounds of salvation – but they are always the results of salvation. The writer speaks of things “that accompany” salvation. They are never independent of salvation – and they can never be optional extras.


Any real experience of Jesus will always change people. The fruit of the Spirit is a new character, made in the image of Christ. If there’s no fruit growing, there’s no evidence that the tree is alive. If my life and faith are not producing the fruit of Christlike character and committed service, there’s no real evidence that my faith is alive.


Just as there have always been people who want to ignore the Gospel principle of the grace of God – who want to persist in believing that their own good works or religious ceremonies can bring them to God – so there have also been people who want to distort the principle of grace. The worst possible travesty of the truth that we are saved by grace, not by works, is to say that, because God saves us when we can’t save ourselves, we are never expected to do anything. So let’s just sit back and enjoy the fact that Jesus has saved us – and that’s it.


But that isn’t it. That’s just the foundation for it. Jesus saves us in order that he might then go on to grow in us Christian character and develop in us Christian service.


There has been a long-standing debate in the western church about the relationship between faith and works. Granted that we are saved by faith, not by works, what is the place of works in Christian life? And the biblical picture is quite clear. What God gives us – what builds our life as fruitful and positive Christians – what enables us to be effective as his people – is:


Not faith instead of works

Not faith or works

Not faith and works

Not faith without works

But faith that works.


We all know that the person who has been a couch-potato for twenty years, and has lived on a diet of hamburgers, chips and crisps, is going to find it very hard suddenly to start practising vigorous exercise. As Robert M Hutchins said, “Whenever I feel the urge to do some exercise, I lie down until the feeling passes.” Sadly, there are too many people in the western world who are the moral and spiritual equivalents of couch potatoes. They may have a kind of faith – they may even have a real faith in Jesus – but they’re just not exercising it. And over a period of time, their moral and spiritual muscles have grown so flabby that they find it hard even to contemplate the possibility of doing anything different.


Thankfully, what is impossible for man is possible for God. God can stir even the weakest embers into a flame. He can give us both the will and the means to develop those works of grace and those character-qualities of Jesus that are the normal fruits of salvation.


So the challenge for all of us is, of course, have we come to the experience of God’s salvation setting us free from sin? – have we come to Jesus for the free gift of eternal life? But the second challenge is this: are we also starting to show some serious evidence of those things that accompany salvation. Or have we just “got” salvation, pure and simple? If God has planted his free gift of salvation into us – what’s growing from it? Is anything accompanying it?


3. They’re not the essence of salvation


This is something our world needs to hear. It is possible for people to come to Jesus for all sorts of reasons. People can come to Jesus because he can give them peace in their hearts – or because he can comfort them when they are at their wits’ end – or because he can heal them – or because he can answer their questions about the meaning of life – or because... – or because... – or because...


And he can and does do all those things. I’m not for one moment saying that these are improper reasons for coming to Christ. People in the Bible invariably brought what we would today call their “felt needs” to Jesus – and he invariably met those needs.


But all those things that I mentioned are what we might call “things that accompany salvation.” They are not salvation itself.


C S Lewis wrote a wonderful little essay called “First and Second Things”, in which he said that people don’t get “second things” – things that certainly matter, and are of value and importance, but are simply not the most important or central things – by putting them first. You only get second things by putting first things first.


That does not mean that second things are irrelevant, or should be ignored. Everything in the list of examples I just gave – peace, hope, healing – is important, and that is why Jesus provides it. But these things are secondary. They are not ends in themselves. They are the offshoots of something bigger and more fundamental.


And that something is salvation itself. It’s coming to Jesus because you need him to forgive your sins, and because you want to receive his gift of new life in relationship with God. The second things will follow on from that. They will not come independently of that.


These days, cars come with all sorts of extras and features: CD players, air-conditioning, in-seat heating, air bags, and probably lots of other things that I’ve never heard of because I don’t buy cars that are as new as that. Those things are all good and valuable, and they can make driving more pleasant and safer. But they’re not what makes the car go. A working CD and air-con will not get you from London to Brighton. For that, you need other things in your car: things like an engine and petrol.


All the valuable things that accompany salvation are like the air-con and the air bags in the car. They’re good and valuable, and we wouldn’t want to be without them. But they won’t make the car of our life as disciples go. For that, we need the spiritual equivalent of the engine: the essential and foundational experience of having Jesus set us free from our sins and lead us into a new life in relationship with God, and in the holy service of God.


So can I ask all of you who have had experiences of God touching your lives in a variety of ways, such as those I have mentioned: whilst all these things are wonderful, and whilst you are rightly deeply grateful to god for them: do you understand that they are the secondary fruit that grows out of the primary thing, which is being redeemed from our sin by Jesus? Is that what is most important to you? Do you appreciate all these other many blessings as “things that accompany salvation” – but always remember that it is salvation itself that is the great blessing?


From what the things that accompany salvation are not, we turn finally to what they are.


4. They’re the signs of salvation


As I said earlier, fruit growing on a tree is the sign that the tree is really alive. There was an occasion in the life of Jesus when he was hungry, and saw a fig-tree that was full of luxuriant green leaves. But when he went up to it, he found that there was no fruit on it at all.


Leafy Christians are never going to make much of an impact on the world. There are a number of things that we might describe as the leaves growing on the tree of Christian life: being able to use the right churchy jargon (proper charismatic “God-speak”) – getting all lively and bouncy when we’re singing a lively praise song – remembering to say “Praise the Lord!” every third sentence. But none of that proves that our faith is alive. It just means we’ve picked up spiritual behaviour patterns.


The evidence of a living faith is growing fruit. The fruit of a developing character – of love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness and self-control – and of godly service for Jesus and to other people in Jesus’ name. That’s what will reach our community for Jesus. That’s what brings more of God’s Kingdom to more of this world.


In other words, the things that accompany salvation are the signs that we are genuinely saved. People can’t normally “see” salvation – people can’t see you being forgiven, or being born again, or being adopted by God as his child. But they can see the fruit that will follow from that, the things that accompany salvation.


That’s why the writer of Hebrews can say he is confident that his readers haven’t yet passed the point of no return in drifting away from Jesus. He can’t see into their hearts, to discern whether or not they have real saving faith. But he can see the fruit of their faith – he can see the character and the works that are the things that accompany salvation.


When your faith is real, you shouldn’t actually need to tell anyone that you’re a Christian – at least, anyone who is close to you and knows you fairly well. They should be able to see it, from the evidence of the things that accompany your salvation. “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and praise your Father in heaven.”


5. They’re the outworking of salvation


Allowing Jesus to grow his spiritual character in us, and committing ourselves to devoted service, are the Christian’s exercise. They build our life in Christ, and they strengthen our faith.


People will sometimes ask the question: suppose I never really make anything of my Christian life – suppose that I believe in Jesus, but never develop a truly Christian lifestyle or bear much of the fruit of the Spirit – suppose that I never give myself to any useful Christian service – can I still be saved and go to heaven?


The first thing to say in response is that it’s a pathetic question. It suggests what I would describe as the “bare minimum” approach to God. What is the absolute bare minimum that I really have to do to be sure of getting saved? Because I don’t want to do anything that I don’t absolutely have to. That’s rather like the student who doesn’t have any interest in doing a jot of work, or looking at any material at all, except what will be essential to pass his exams. Even suggest that he might, say, read a book on something that might not come up in his finals, and he’ll laugh in your face.


Well, such a student might, in fact, get his degree – but his attitude hardly suggests that he values learning and knowledge as worthwhile in themselves. What he wants isn’t an education – it’s a qualification. And the Christian who never develops in life or service, but is concerned to be assured that he’ll still “get to heaven” is tragically similar. He’s not interested in Christian life. He’s only bothered about scraping by when it comes to the great Final Exam.


So, will he pass? Well, maybe. So long as someone continues genuinely to believe in Jesus, even though, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3, they never manage to build anything of value in their lives, they themselves will be saved – but only as one escaping (by the skin of his teeth) through fire. The problem is, how can you be confident that you really will continue to hold on to Jesus by faith, unless you are actually doing those things that will strengthen and build your faith?


The things that accompany salvation do just that. They grow out of true faith – but they also strengthen true faith. That’s why they are like the exercise and the practice that an athlete goes through. If someone is planning to run a marathon next year, they would be very foolish indeed if they said, I’ve done long runs before, so I know I can do it – so I’ll take the rest of the year off, enjoy myself, and, when the day of the marathon comes, I’ll prise myself out of my armchair and go and run it. Really? Without having done any exercise all year? Without having done anything at all to keep your body even more or less in shape, let alone at the peak of its potential condition? Are you really confident that you’ll even make it to the end of the first couple of miles, let alone all 26?


Of course, such a person might – just possibly – make it to the finishing line. But you can’t be confident that he will. And the believer who never “exercises” as a Christian – who drifts in and out of church fellowship according to how he’s feeling – who sees no urgent need to develop a lifestyle that comes even close to that of Jesus – who is holding on to salvation by the skin of his teeth, but who is displaying none of the evidence of the things that accompany salvation – such a believer might indeed hold on to faith in such a way that he will come to the end of his life and die in the grace of God.


But I can’t say that I’m brimming over with confidence. And, more to the point, neither can he.


The things that accompany salvation – godly character and good works, which Jesus grows in us as we allow his Holy Spirit to work in us – are the very things that will not only accompany salvation, but will consolidate it, strengthen it, build it, give it those qualities of resilience and backbone that will get us through the tough times. That will keep us going to the end.


So here’s the challenge of Hebrews 6:9 – are we allowing the Spirit of Jesus to work in us, so that we’re not only saved, but are also growing and developing in those things that accompany salvation?