Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are convinced of better things in your case—the things that have to do with salvation. God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them.  We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, so that what you hope for may be fully realized. We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.

Hebrews 6:9-12

This paragraph begins the transition into the next area of discussion in the letter, and it does so on a more optimistic note, showing the love and mercy of God.  Even though our author has just delivered a very serious warning, he believes that the people who read it will heed the warning and remain faithful. Notice he says “in your case” as opposed to in every case, meaning that some others might not be so wise.  Notice also that our attention is now turned to God’s mercy and forgiveness.  This is a really important thing for us to bear in mind, for God is not looking for a technicality to have as an excuse to cut anybody off from relationship. He knows that we will make mistakes He knows that we will slip up, and the blood of Christ is sufficient for those cases.  If we can lose our salvation, we would have to really work at it before God gave up on us; we would need to utterly reject Him and walk away, and to me, this seems like a very rare thing, as opposed to those who might have a season out in the wilderness, or benign neglect of our relationship with Him.

The whole point of the warning bears this out; God loves us, even when we aren’t doing a very good job in following Him.  Yet, it is much better if we hang in there and see things through.