Some days feel steady; others feel like everything is shifting at once—plans, relationships, health, finances, headlines. Hebrews 12:28 lifts our eyes above the movement and reminds us that what God gives His people is not fragile. Our response isn’t panic or numbness, but grateful, reverent worship that fits who He is.

Receiving What Cannot Be Taken

We spend a lot of energy trying to secure what can still be lost: approval, comfort, control, even “certainty.” But God is giving us something of a different category. “Therefore, since we are receiving an unshakable kingdom, let us be thankful…” (Hebrews 12:28). Notice the present tense: receiving. The King is not teasing us with a distant promise; He is actively bringing us into His reign right now, and nothing—no election cycle, no diagnosis, no betrayal—can revoke His rule.

That doesn’t mean life won’t shake; Hebrews 12 actually assumes it will. Yet the shaking has a purpose: to expose what is temporary so we cling to what is eternal. When you feel the ground move, ask, “What am I holding that isn’t meant to hold me?” Then remember what is already true: “He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of His beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13). You are not scrambling to earn a place; you are learning to live like someone who already belongs.

Thankfulness That Changes the Atmosphere

Thankfulness isn’t a personality trait; it’s spiritual sight. Gratitude says, “God is real, God is good, and God is present—even here.” Hebrews connects receiving the kingdom with giving thanks because gratitude is what happens when you finally stop treating grace like a vague idea and start treating it like your lifeline. And when thanksgiving rises, worship stops being a performance and becomes a response.

An anxious heart scans for threats; a thankful heart scans for faithfulness. Scripture gives that connection plainly: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (Philippians 4:6). Thanksgiving doesn’t deny the request; it puts the request in its proper place—under a Father who already knows, already cares, already reigns. Try naming specific mercies today: forgiveness that holds, promises that don’t expire, guidance that meets you step by step.

Reverence and Awe That Shows Up on Monday

God welcomes us close, but He never becomes casual. Hebrews calls us to “worship God acceptably with reverence and awe” (Hebrews 12:28). Reverence isn’t stiffness; it’s the happy weight of knowing who you’re talking to. Awe is what happens when you remember you’re not dealing with a “higher power,” but the holy God who speaks, saves, and sustains—and still invites you to draw near.

That kind of worship doesn’t end when the song fades. It moves into obedience, choices, speech, and purity. “Therefore I urge you, brothers, on account of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship” (Romans 12:1). And Jesus makes worship unmistakably real: “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth” (John 4:23). Today, let reverence look like truthfulness when a lie would be easier, gentleness when irritation feels justified, and seeking His kingdom first when your schedule argues back.

Father, thank You for Your unshakable kingdom and for rescuing me by grace; teach me to worship You with reverence and awe, and help me live today in thankful obedience. Amen.

For clarification, what is the church? When I say that a church gets into the rote and then onto the rut and finally to the rot, what am I talking about? For one thing, the church is not the building. A church is an assembly of individuals. There is a lot of meaningless dialogue these days about the church. It is meaningless because those engaged in the dialogue forget that a church has no separate existence. A church is not an entity in itself, but rather is composed of inidvidual persons. It is the same error made about the state. Politicians sometimes talk about the state as though it were an entity in itself. Social workers talk about society, but society is people. So is the church. The church is made up of real people, and when they come together we have the church. Whatever the people are who make up the church, that is the kind of church it is--no worse and no better, no wiser, no holier, no more ardent and no more worshipful. To improve or change the church you must begin with individuals. When people in the church only point to others for improvement and not to themselves, it is sure evidence that the church has come to dry rot. It is proof of three sins: the sin of self-righteousness, the sin of judgment and the sin of complacency.

For Thou, O Lord, art my Refuge! - Psalm 91:9

This cry of the devout soul, recognizing God as its Asylum and Home, comes in response to a revelation of God’s blessing and to large words of promise. Let us be sure that we are hearkening to the voice with which He speaks through our daily circumstances as well as by the unmistakable revelation of His will and heart in Jesus Christ. And then let us be sure that no word of His that comes fluttering down from the heavens, meaning a benediction and enclosing a promise, shall fall at our feet ungathered and unregarded, or shall be trodden into the dust by our careless heels. The manna lies all about us; let us see that we gather it. Turn His promises into your creed, and whatever He has declared in the sweet thunder of His voice, loud as the voice of many waters, and melodious as harpers harping with their harps, do you take for your profession of faith in the faithful promises of your God.

This cry of the devout soul suggests to me that our response ought to be the establishment of a close personal relation between us and God. " Thou, O Lord, art my Refuge." We must isolate ourselves and stand, God and we, alone together - at heart-grips, we grasping His hands, and He giving Himself to us - if the promises which are sent down into the world for all who will make them theirs can become ours. They are made payable to your order; you must write your name on the back before you get the proceeds. There must be what our good old Puritan forefathers used to call, in somewhat hard language, "the appropriating act of faith," in order that God’s richest blessings may be of any use to us. Put out your hand to grasp them, and say " mine," not " ours." The thought of others as sharing in them will come afterwards, for he who has once realized the absolute isolation of the soul and has been alone with God, and in solitude has taken God’s gifts as his very own, is he who will feel fellowship and brotherhood with all who are partakers of like precious faith and blessings. The "ours" will come; but you must begin with the "mine" - " my Lord and my God." " He loved me, and gave Himself for me." Just as when the Israelites gathered on the banks of the Red Sea, and Miriam and the maidens came out with songs and timbrels, though their hearts throbbed with joy, and music rang from their lips for national deliverance, their hymn made the whole deliverance the property of each, and each of the chorus sang, "The Lord is my Strength and my Song, He also is become my Salvation," so we must individualize the common blessing. Every poor soul has a right to the whole of God; and unless a man claims all the Divine nature as his, he has little chance of possessing the promised blessings.

This cry of the devout soul recognises God as He to whom we must go because we need a refuge. Only he who knows himself to be in danger bethinks himself of a refuge. It is only when we know our danger and defenselessness that God, as the Refuge of our souls, becomes precious to us. So, underlying, and an essential part of, all our confidence in God is the clear recognition of our own necessity. The sense of our own emptiness must precede our grasp of His fulness.