BLESSED EXHORTATIONS (PART 1)

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters.

Brothers and sisters, I urge you to bear with my word of exhortation, for in fact I have written to you quite briefly.

Hebrews 13:1

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

After what was a wonderful week of studying the final days of Jesus’ earthly life and then His promised resurrection, we heads back to the letter to the Hebrews and the final chapter where we find a long list of exhortations. We’ll be looking at each of these in what will be a long series of messages to wrap up the study of the writing to the Hebrew Christians of first century A.D.

We begin with the very first verse in chapter 13, nine words centered on the matter of love.

Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters.

Now, any time that we embark on the topic of love as it’s brought forth in the scriptures, we need to beckon back to the words of Jesus who said this when queried on the greatest commandment:

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested Him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:34-40

Note here that the focal point of the greatest commandment was love, an uncompromisingly dedicated love toward God. This commandment is only satisfied when a person devotes all that they are to the One who is their Maker and Master. It requires a totality of one’s heart, mind, and soul (aka the spiritual self) inclined toward the Lord. This leaves no room for love to be directed anywhere else, not to any person which included oneself.

What happens when we love God with every single fiber of our being, physical and spiritual?

Then all the love present in our lives will be perfect as we are intertwined with the source of perfect love and we can then share that love with others. We can become instruments of God’s love toward His beloved people.

Friends, the only way we can properly love one another is to first love God fully first and then, allowing His love to be our love, share that love with everyone else, treating them as family, like our brothers and sisters.

Our first exhortation is to keep on loving like this and by remaining completely focused on loving God first above everything and everyone else, we can do just that.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.