Welcome to Nancy Guthrie’s guided journal “Hoping for Something Better,” which she based on her book of the same title (Tyndale 2007).
New journal entries will appear in your profile Monday-Saturday for 6 weeks. If you missed any so far, stay subscribed to this feed and you can begin when it starts over. Be sure to start your own journal within your Beliefnet profile or in a notebook to respond to Nancy’s prompts.
Day 25
There is something better than the status of being an insider. It is the satisfaction of being rejected by the world but connected to Christ.
Read Hebrews 13.
We were hoping to turn heads with our beauty and brilliance, and instead he is telling us that real satisfaction is found in sharing in the disgrace of Jesus on the cross—like a common criminal on the outskirts of town. We’ve dreamed of acceptance, and he is calling us to a life of being rejected because of our identification with Christ. He is calling us to a life of being an outsider when we so love the power and thrills that come with being on the inside track. While we thought that our dreams would come true by being applauded and lauded by the crowd, he calls us to share not the applause but the reproach of Jesus.
We are asked to trade in acceptance in the here and now, the city of this world, for the welcome we will receive in the next life, in the city to come. When we walk into that city, nothing we have sacrificed will seem like a sacrifice. It will have been worth it. Jesus will be worth it. He will be worth leaving behind everything we walk away from so that we can draw near to him outside the camp—outside the boundaries of acceptance drawn by this world.
According to Hebrews 13:1-6, what are at least five qualities that should characterize us as Christians in our day-to-day lives?

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Which of these qualities would you like to develop more fully in your life? What could you do to make them more of a reality in your life?
What are some of the costly ways the writer of Hebrews exhorts us to follow Jesus?
–Nancy Guthrie