So, once we admit that Jesus is in fact the Messiah, the One Who fulfills all the Old Testament sacrifices and prophecies, and once we determine to trust Him completely, allowing Him to bless us in His way and in His time, how do we express that faith in Him and submission to Him in our daily lives?

In the first place, by accepting His discipline. For our author insists that, just as good earthly parents impose unpleasant discipline on us in order to help us grow up (12:9), so God allows us even the greatest of suffering to come into our lives precisely in order to help us share in the holiness and righteousness of Christ (12:10-11).

And as we suffer for the sake of Christ, that will inevitably change the way we interact with one another. For just as Jesus endured the pain and the shame of the cross for our salvation (12:2), so as we also put our own desires to death in order to meet the needs of others, our conflicts with them will be diminished. As we follow Jesus’ example of self-denying, self-sacrificial love we will truly have peace with one another (12:14).

But we can also have such peace within ourselves. For as we abandon our self-centered expectations of comfort and convenience and security, as we embrace God’s will for us regardless of how painful or confusing it might be, we’ll have no room for disappointment or the bitterness it produces (12:15).

So, let’s put aside our insistence that everything make sense to us and feel right to us all the time. Let’s trust the love of the Christ Who died for us. Let’s trust the power of the Christ Who is seated at the right hand of the Father, possessing all authority in Heaven and on earth. And even if He calls us to suffer for His sake, let’s follow Him, trusting that He knows what is truly best for us, no matter how much it might hurt.

Hebrews 12:1-17 (ESV)

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.
4 In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
5 And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him.
6 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”
7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?
8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?
10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.
11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
12 Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees,
13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.
14 Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.
15 See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled;
16 that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal.
17 For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.