Devotional 20 June 2025

June 20, 2025 • Steve Torres

Hebrews 6:10-12.jpg

"For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises." (Hebrews 6:10–12, ESV)

God is astonishingly generous. He not only calls us to serve, empowers us to do so, and sanctifies us through the process, He also rewards us for it. Hebrews 6:10 reminds us that God will not forget the work we do in His name, especially the love shown in serving fellow believers. This is not a transactional relationship, it’s a reflection of His character: to bless and reward what He has Himself produced in us.

This truth echoes Paul’s words in Philippians 2:12–13, where he urges us to “work out our salvation,” even as he reminds us that “it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” Our obedience is the fruit of His grace, yet God, in His faithfulness, treats it as our offering of love and trust.

Hebrews 6:11–12 warns us not to grow sluggish. The Christian life is not static. We are called to earnestness, to pursue the full assurance of hope until the end. This persistence in doing good, especially in serving others, is the fruit of sanctification, the evidence that our faith is alive. As James wrote, “Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works” (James 2:18).

The author of Hebrews continues the argument from earlier in the chapter: that those who truly respond to God’s Word will bear fruit. Jesus Himself taught this principle, especially in Matthew 25:34–40, when He commended those who cared for “the least of these,” saying they had done it unto Him. Likewise, Paul urged believers to “outdo one another in showing honor” and to “contribute to the needs of the saints” (Romans 12:10, 13), and he praised the Thessalonians for their “work of faith and labor of love” (1 Thessalonians 1:3).

These are not mere moral actions, they are the proof of Spirit-wrought transformation. As Galatians 5:22–23 teaches, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and more, all qualities that overflow in service to others.

We were created for this. As Ephesians 2:10 says, “we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Every act of service we do in Christ’s name is one of those preordained works. And Hebrews reminds us that God is not unjust, He will remember.

So let us not be weary in doing good (Galatians 6:9). Let us serve the saints in love, not for reward, but because we believe Him who called us. As Hebrews 6:12 says, we inherit the promises through faith and patience. And true faith? It’s faith that works.