HEBREWS 12: TWO MOUNTAINS

Is it just my imagination or does BJ Fogg's contention that people "change best by feeling good, not by feeling bad" run a broad parallel to the difference between the Old Covenant of the Law and the New Covenant of the blood of Jesus Christ?

At least that is what I am seeing in the description of the two mountains in Hebrews 12.

The first mountain is obviously Mt. Sinai, where the Lord first laid down the Law to his people after he brought them out of Egypt:

18 You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; 19 to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them, 20 because they could not bear what was commanded: “If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned to death.” 21 The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, “I am trembling with fear.”

Mt. Sinai is all fire, gloom, darkness, death, and fear. 

But the author reminds us this is NOT the mountain that believers now come to!

22 But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, 23 to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

This Mount Zion to which we DO come, in complete contrast to Sinai, is all angels, joy, life, perfection, righteousness, and newness!

The gloom surrounding Mount Sinai fills me with fear and I want to run far away. 

And how does one change for the better while running far from his Creator?

Mount Zion, on the other hand, fills me with wonder and gratitude and a real hope that all may be put right between me and the Lord. All through the work of Jesus the mediator! 

If I am approaching Mount Zion, change for the better seems not only likely, but downright inevitable.