(February 27, 2024) Brian Bell shares…

This is the last in a short series of articles I’ve been sharing from the book of Hebrews.

In this meditation I draw our attention to the concluding chapter, Hebrews 13:15-25NLT and share five brief thoughts to encourage our hearts…

1. Live
I see these as the emphasis of verses 15 and 16…  ‘Therefore, let us offer through Jesus a continual sacrifice of praise to God, proclaiming our allegiance to His name. And don’t forget to do good and to share with those in need. These are the sacrifices that please God.’ 

Notice that the text indicates that we should –

• Operate with Jesus’ help.
• Proclaim the glory of His name.
• Always do good.
• Share what we know with the needy.
• Please the Father.

While I am not a ‘performance based’ Christian, how I – any of us – live for the Lord is important!

Let me explain… my salvation is a free gift of God’s grace that I did not and could not earn. My performance as a believer is not like a maintenance policy on which my salvation depends. My performance. or some might prefer to say ‘works,’ should be the ‘outworking’ of my salvation and demonstrating my desire to live in a God honouring and Christ exalting manner.

The only performance on which I can fully rely comes from trusting the Lord Jesus. As He taught in the parable of the talents, one day I will be called to account for my stewardship. The characteristics in verse 15 and16 I set out above are some of those I should seek to display as I live for the Lord each day.

2. Learn
The text here in verse 17 refers to ‘spiritual leaders’ and in particular their role as those who teach. The Message version uses the phrase ‘be responsive to your pastoral leaders.’ Christian fellowships with or without a denominational identity, may use various terms (such as elder for example) to describe the role of those in leadership.

From my understanding of scripture, anyone in a role of leadership must conform to the ‘servant model’ set out by the Lord Jesus in Matthew 20:25-28.

In Acts 17, Luke records how the Berean Jews listened to Paul… but also ‘searched the scriptures day after day to check up on Paul and Silas to see if they were really teaching the truth.’

So in the context of verse 17, the obedience or responsiveness encouraged is not a slavish surrender. But should come as a response to the lives of leaders who are respected and whose teaching is not motivated by having things their way and expecting others simply to conform to their whims!

3. Love
In verses 18 and19 the writer asks for prayer – what an excellent way to demonstrate our love for each other. It is good to remember that ‘love’ in the scriptural context is not an airy fairy feeling, but a deliberate choice to consider the well-being of others.

Speaking to His disciples, the Lord Jesus said it would be the difference in the way they love each other that would mark them out as His disciples. Eugene Peterson says, ‘The two most difficult things to get straight in life are love and God.’

Peterson also says, ‘Christian churches are not, as a rule, model communities of good behaviour. They are rather, places where human misbehaviour is brought out into the open, faced and dealt with’and that is what I would suggest respectfully is ‘love in action.’

4. Look
Verses 20-21 encourage us to look to Jesus who is described as ‘the great Shepherd of the sheep.’

These verses remind me Jesus is a living Saviour. He is the one whose blood establishes an everlasting covenant that enables me to be reconciled to a holy God and that all He does in us and through us is to God’s glory.

Unlike the early disciples who knew Jesus in His earthly body, who heard Him speak and saw Him perform miracles, we today know Jesus and look on Him through the revelation of God’s word to our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

We also know how our prayers have been answered and we see the change and testimony in our lives and the lives of others He has changed.

5. Longing
In verses 23 to 25 we see the desire the author longed for is for others, not himself –

• He hopes to be reunited with Timothy whom he tells us has been released from prison.
• He wants to bring Timothy to visit those to whom he is writing.
• He sends greetings from the Christian believers in Italy from where we may conclude he is writing.

These three verses with the specific reference to Timothy and Italy bring me to suggest the author of the letter to the Hebrews is Paul. However, whoever the author was is incidental to my longing that we too would have a genuine desire for fellowship with other Christian believers, especially those who may, like Timothy, have been in difficult, inconvenient situations.

Prayer
Gracious Lord, thank you for the faithfulness and truth of your word. Thank you for preserving it through the generations of time. and that we are privileged to have it in our possession. Thank you that your word is a living word that can – and has – directed our path of life.

In these days help us to –

• Live life with Jesus’ help.
• Remain teachable.
• Seek to live in love as you love.
• Keep looking to your word.
• Have that longing to share in fellowship with other Christian believers.

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Brian Bell is a diaconate member, Christ Church (Congregational) Abbots Cross, Northern Ireland, and a volunteer with Disabled Christians Fellowship Ireland. Brian describes himself as ‘grateful for the privilege and opportunity given me to serve my Lord.’
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