Treating God's Word like Garbage

35 Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. 36 For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.…
Hebrews 10

Back on September 22, I posted an overview of the tenth chapter of Hebrews. Today, I am looking more specifically at verse 35 from that chapter. At this point, the author is writing in a fairly straightforward manner. He is not being poetical, allegorical, or metaphorical.
He is giving a command:
   Do not throw away your confidence.
…and he gives the reason:
   It holds a great reward for you.

Oh, that KatieLyn, the runaway bride, would have heeded that command! How differently blessed our lives would be today.

The Hebrews, the early messianic Jews to whom this was written, were having struggles which are outlined in verses 32 and 33, a great conflict full of suffering and public spectacle. But they proved their courage in the first round of trials. They were now being told to hang on to the end of this round because the great reward for trusting the Lord was coming. This trust is so important that the author went on to spend another 40 verses in the next chapter expanding on examples of others who had faithful, overcoming trust in the Lord.  

Notice that these verses make a conditional statement. The reward comes only when the condition is met. First, the confidence has to be maintained. Some translations use the term "confident boldness" to capture the right shade of meaning. This was free and uncluttered, valiant and courageous, trust and assurance. It was not bashful, fretful, nor anxious. It was not a reactive emotion. It was a choice made from the heart. They "willed" to trust. They "decided" to not throw away confidence. Tossing away their trust was an option, but they chose to keep it. They chose to believe God was going to do what He said. 

Once you have heard God, it becomes disrespectful and dangerous to continue in doubt. John Gill, writing in the mid-1700s, made the point that losing one's faith and trust here was like a soldier losing his protective shield, "This shield of faith is by no means to be cast away; it was reckoned infamous and scandalous in soldiers to lose or cast away their shield; with the Grecians it was a capital crime, and punished with death; to which the apostle may here allude."
Indeed, within the next few verses the writer of Hebrews quotes the prophet Habakkuk and warns about shrinking back. Doubts that destroy courage are neither astute nor prudent; they are destructive. They destroyed an engagement and prevented a marriage that the Lord had arranged.

The Lesson
Throwing away your confidence in the Lord means that your reward gets tossed out too.