Let brotherly Love Continue

Hebrews 13:1

 

“Let brotherly love continue.”  Wow, the writer has moved from sharing some heavy stuff, like “a kingdom that cannot be shaken to “Let brotherly love continue.”  That does not sound like a request, it comes to us as a command, do you and I understand the command?  I seem to wrestle with who is my brother, do you do that?   Is it referring to only other Christians, or is it a much larger scope, like “Love your neighbor as your- self”?   I’ve come to understand that my neighbor is anyone who I come in contact with, and I also found that an impossible task in my own ability; I’m learning to ask Jesus to love the ones who seem so unlovable.  Do you understand that we are commanded to love our enemies, and I’m still struggling with the ones I come in contact with as I go down Hwy 281? 

God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts, but they should be to this degree, He has called us to be holy as He is holy.  And in that calling it becomes clear that to be holy is beyond our ability, it requires death to yourself, it requires Jesus who lives in you, to do it all for you. 

If I could only set my mind on the teachings of Christ, and I can because Jesus told us to set our minds on these things, so it is totally in our power to set our minds on anything we choose.  With that said, it is important to set my mind on the fact that the enemy of my soul has a plan to keep me from loving and his hope is to stir up strife, and hatred is one of his tools, see Proverbs 10:12.  But Christ who lives in us tells us that without love we are a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal look at 1Corinthians 13:1.

Each of us who are in Christ have the power to follow this command, and Galatians 5:13, spells that out.  “For you were called to freedom, brothers.  Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.”  You are a saint who sins, that is what God calls you.  The apostle Peter has some good council in 1 Peter 4:8, “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.” 

If your are a seeker of truth, look at what the apostle John had to say in 1 John 2:9-10 and John sums it up in this way; “And this commandment we have from him; whoever loves God must love his brother.” (1John 4:21)  My early confession was, apart from Jesus Christ doing it for and through me, an impossible act, but I do recall that in weakness, in confession we find the answer, God wants to let the world and the demons and the angels see you doing what Jesus did, He who was God in the flesh ran to His Father for everything.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice