The Word This Week
Hebrews 13:1...
The author of the Book of Hebrews concludes his letter to the Jewish believers in Christ with a series of exhortations based upon their faith – which hopefully by now has been firmly established as a principle not to be trifled with.
We have learned of the superiority of Christ, and that He is superior to the angels, to Moses, to the Law, to religious practice and ceremony, and certainly to anything the world has to offer. Even in the face of persecution, or perhaps death, to cling to Christ by the faith He has authored in your heart is the ONLY reasonable alternative given the eternity that awaits each one of us.
Especially now that we have seen how EVERYTHING given by God pertaining to the rituals and practice of the Hebrew faith were designed specifically to portray the coming Christ, it is left to us to live according to the liberty found in Christ rather than the restrictions of religious practice.
And so, the exhortations to life in Christ, rather than appeasing of the flesh by any means.
Much of life in Christ is going to be invisible to anyone but you and God, but the affects upon all those around our lives will be tremendous. The motive for Godly living must be pure – and never for personal gain. But by Godly living there is much profit – and the gain is primarily in our eternal accounts.
It is possible some of the observers of our lives may be angelic. Can you imagine – as the Bible teaches, the fascination the angels of God must have with our lives as we walk by the grace of God? Grace is eternally fascinating to the angelic host because we who experience and live according to God’s grace have been made in the image of God, yet lower than the angels. The angels have not been saved by grace according to faith as we have been, and those angels who fell with Satan had no opportunity to repent as we have.
Our motive to extend God’s grace to all we encounter is possibly being observed by some of those angels come to earth – appearing as humans to our eyes. This seems incredible – but is not without Biblical precedent. (Remembering the account in Genesis when the angels, including a pre-incarnate Jesus, visited Abraham to declare both God’s judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah, and also the birth of Isaac.)
What greater motive may we have to be cordial and nice and helpful to those we meet than to understand they just might be angels – even though we may be completely unaware.
Receiving God’s grace is one thing. Giving it to all we meet and know is the true manifestation of it. You cannot freely give what you have not freely received. When the motivation is to give undeservedly as Christ has given, true contentment follows.
Pastor Bill
The author of the Book of Hebrews concludes his letter to the Jewish believers in Christ with a series of exhortations based upon their faith – which hopefully by now has been firmly established as a principle not to be trifled with.
We have learned of the superiority of Christ, and that He is superior to the angels, to Moses, to the Law, to religious practice and ceremony, and certainly to anything the world has to offer. Even in the face of persecution, or perhaps death, to cling to Christ by the faith He has authored in your heart is the ONLY reasonable alternative given the eternity that awaits each one of us.
Especially now that we have seen how EVERYTHING given by God pertaining to the rituals and practice of the Hebrew faith were designed specifically to portray the coming Christ, it is left to us to live according to the liberty found in Christ rather than the restrictions of religious practice.
And so, the exhortations to life in Christ, rather than appeasing of the flesh by any means.
Much of life in Christ is going to be invisible to anyone but you and God, but the affects upon all those around our lives will be tremendous. The motive for Godly living must be pure – and never for personal gain. But by Godly living there is much profit – and the gain is primarily in our eternal accounts.
It is possible some of the observers of our lives may be angelic. Can you imagine – as the Bible teaches, the fascination the angels of God must have with our lives as we walk by the grace of God? Grace is eternally fascinating to the angelic host because we who experience and live according to God’s grace have been made in the image of God, yet lower than the angels. The angels have not been saved by grace according to faith as we have been, and those angels who fell with Satan had no opportunity to repent as we have.
Our motive to extend God’s grace to all we encounter is possibly being observed by some of those angels come to earth – appearing as humans to our eyes. This seems incredible – but is not without Biblical precedent. (Remembering the account in Genesis when the angels, including a pre-incarnate Jesus, visited Abraham to declare both God’s judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah, and also the birth of Isaac.)
What greater motive may we have to be cordial and nice and helpful to those we meet than to understand they just might be angels – even though we may be completely unaware.
Receiving God’s grace is one thing. Giving it to all we meet and know is the true manifestation of it. You cannot freely give what you have not freely received. When the motivation is to give undeservedly as Christ has given, true contentment follows.
Pastor Bill