In our last class we started chapter 12. The first few verses show us that the examples of faith that have come before us are to spur us to take off every weight and every sin and to run this race concentrating always on Jesus. When we concentrate on Jesus, when we choose to make Him our focus in the midst of a world filled with distractions we gain the faith, strength and courage to resist temptation and to battle sin and the joy to desire the will of God more than anything else in life.
Verses 5-11 then begins a beautiful section on our place as children of God and His disciple as our Father. Verse 5 begins with an exhortation that the readers have forgotten that they are sons and then begins to reveal that with the blessings of an inheritance comes the responsibility and weight of discipline. From that exhortation the author quotes Proverbs 3:11 and 12, a beautiful statement that teaches that divine discipline demonstrates divine love.