Hebrews 13 (New King James Version)
The intended audience for the book of Hebrews at the time it was written were Jews who had decided to follow Jesus but were suffering intense persecution from others in their religious sect who rejected Yeshua (Jesus, in Hebrew) Hamashiach (the Messiah).
Family, traditional, and religious ties are typically the hardest ones to break. However, nothing is impossible with YHWH. If you want to make him laugh, show him your plans. He will humble you very quickly. Paul, the author of the epistle, started off as someone who intensely persecuted the the kind of people he was now writing to. Talk about a humbling experience. If life was all about religion, Paul would have been justified in the religiosity of his day. The Pharisees believed you followed the law, and that’s it, you’re going to heaven. If you went through the motions and did the bare minimum, that was good enough. However, God doesn’t ask for good enough… he requires holiness, righteousness, and good fruit (at one point he even asked for perfection in the New Testament, for He Himself is perefect). This is not something that comes by our own doing. How can we be the perfect self that He desires us to be for His glory?
Well, Jesus came and changed the game. When the Messiah came, He showed us what perfection is — God’s love for us. Not that we deserved it, but because of HIS GRACE, our sins are completely washed away. We have a clean slate. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the summation of the Law and the Prophets. But Jesus spoke of an even greater one that He would send after He returned to the Father: the Holy Spirit.
Galatians 5 speaks to the freedom we have in Christ & how there is no law outside of the Fruits of the Spirit. What the Lord is trying to show us in verses 22 through 23 is that on the Day of Judgment, the righteous will be judged by the fruits of the Spirit that they so desperately sought to exude during their time on earth. Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control (if you ever need to count to 10, there’s the first 9).
In short, these fruits show us exactly how to live. The Spirit did not come to abolish the 10 commandments, nor did Jesus. Rather, both came to provide clarity as to why the Law was given, how the Prophets declared the coming of both Jesus and the Holy Spirit, and how we are to then live in the light of the TRUTH delivered by Jesus and thereafter & now by the Holy Spirit.
So now to the “common sense” myth buster segment. Hebrews 13:2 says this, “Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels.” It is by far my favorite verse in the New Testament & it truly harps upon who I try to be in my every day life.
What would the average person do to a stranger or a homeless person? Ignore them? Think to themselves, “sucks to be you?” Be afraid of them? Pity them but do nothing? To be honest, there are probably a million and one answers to that question.
What I am trying to say is that going out of your way to be kind to a person you don’t even know is not natural. It’s outside your comfort zone. There is a reason why family, traditional, and religious ties are so hard to break. They are three things that we grow comfortable being a part of. Most people like the comforts of home and knowing they have family that care about them. However, all of those things are temporary compared to the eternal cause of reaching people for the Coming Kingdom of Jesus Christ. I firmly believe in my spirit that we are on the verge of a global revival for the One True and Living God unlike anything we have ever seen. What we need to do is go back to the basics and tend to people’s heart’s and NOT allow people to remain comfortable. Being a follower of Jesus Christ should be like living life on the edge. Now that we live in the age of the full gifting of the Holy Spirit and the New Covenant of Jesus’ broken body and blood shed on the cross, we have the Freedom in Him to fulfill the greatest action story every told, the Great Co-Mission by the Power of the Holy Spirit.
But we can’t fully do that until we step out in faith and FINISH the RACE that God has set before us. Do not be afraid, the Lord will never leave you or forsake you. Fear can be the most dangerous thing that will attack your faith. Fear can lead to doubt, and doubt can lead to your destruction. However, PERFECT LOVE drives out all traces of fear, and the enemies plan is crushed. Jesus accomplished everything we that we needed to go out into the world and SHINE HIS LIGHT for all to see.
This Christmas & Hanukkah (the Festival of Lights), I would encourage you to step out of your comfort zone, be faithful in how you give your time to those who are hurting and in need of encouragement & support, and get excited because if you believe this in your heart, it will transform your thinking, “It’s Christmas (more of Christ) every day!”
God Bless, God Speed, Merry Christmas, & a Happy New Year to each and everyone of you who read this (and, yes, those who decided not to). “The best is yet to come.”
Luke 21 Ministries 