As the Spanish philosopher George Santayana so wisely said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Quoting from Psalm 95, the writer to the Hebrews here calls to mind a tragic episode in Israel’s past by way of encouraging steadfast faith and believing hearts.

I wonder how rest features in your life. Do you suffer from the modern epidemic of workaholism? Do you struggle to wind down at the end of the day? Do you check your email as soon as you wake? Do you write ‘to do’ lists in the shower and take your laptop on vacation? So many of us lead lives with very little margin …

Jewish worship from the earliest times was mediated by a priest, set apart to offer gifts and sacrifices on their behalf. When Jesus is referred to as our “great high priest,” what we are meant to understand is that he is our representative before God. And when he’s called a high priest ‘like Melchizedek’ …

You can hear the frustration here, echoing down the centuries and bursting from the page: when will they make some progress? When will these baby Christians do what it takes to mature? As with all the other New Testament letters, we only have one side of the correspondence, so we have to make some assumptions.

My high school year group was known to be particularly troublesome. We were often gathered together to receive harsh words from one teacher or another and as someone who generally tried hard to abide by the rules and do my best, all these reprimands could feel very unfair.

When I was a child, I would often try and find “reasons” not to go to church. I remember even attempting to convince my parents that I would gain a lot more by staying at home and watching the latest televangelist. However, to my dismay at the time, my parents insisted that we would gather with the rest of the church to worship God.

It is not every day that we stop and wonder just what grosses God out. The writer of Proverbs spells it out very clearly in these verses.

While the writer gives to us a whole list of seven things to consider, I was challenged by the first thing God hates – “haughty eyes