Challenge from Hebrews 6

I love the story my missionary friend told me of a man who had just begun to believe in Jesus.

The man said to my friend, "I don't feel any different. I want Jesus to make me feel different." My friend thought for a moment and then said to the man, "Oh, I think you're misunderstanding. Jesus is the Great King. You don't tell him what to do, he tells you what to do."  To this, the new believer responded, "Oh I feel very different!" 

I can't help but notice lately as I read the Bible that Jesus really does have some expectations for those who have chosen to follow him. He is so graceful, so merciful and loving, but he is also the Great King and expects his subjects to obey and honor him. In agrarian terms, he expects the fields he waters to do what watered fields are supposed to do: bear fruit. I'm in Hebrews so far this Lenten season, and this stood out to me today from chapter six verses seven and eight: 

"Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned." 

Geez, that's not what I like to hear. As I read, I keep feeling this tension between our response and God's accomplished work. We have an anchor for our souls in the hope that comes from Jesus' finished work on the Cross, but we also are challenged to be 'diligent to the very end, in order to make [our] hope sure". (Heb. 6:11)

Jesus curses the fig tree when it had nothing to offer it's Maker. John the Baptist calls out the Pharisees saying that the axe is already at the root of the tree and they had better start producing the fruit that comes from repentance. Jesus describes the Great King who calls to account the three men entrusted with 'talents' and punishes the one who faithlessly produced no fruit. 

I know it's not popular for Christians to talk about punishment and I absolutely believe in the ridiculous and relentless love of God for helplessly broken sinners such as myself. I really have hungered deeply in my own hopelessness and been fed by the only real hope of Jesus' love and particular saving work at the Cross. Today I'm reminded too that when I accepted the invitation, yes from a loving Father and a brother who died for me, that that acceptance was also an agreement to respond fittingly to the Great King. 

That response may begin with the wisdom of fear, knowing God expects me to bear fruit, but I believe it ends in love, the freedom from fear. Have you heard of the Moravians who sold themselves into slavery? They would never see their families again. They signed away their lives in order to gain access to a slave colony and so bring the Gospel to those slaves. As they sailed away their shouts sped across the waters, "May the Lamb who was slain receive the reward of his suffering!"