Living Sacrifice {Hebrews 13}

October 31, 2017

This chapter is filled with exhortations.  Briefly, an exhortation is urgent advice or recommendations.  We should listen to what it says.

How do we learn to be content?  Hebrews 13 reminds us in verses 5-6 that we become content when we realize God’s sufficiency for our needs.  We see God’s love in what He provides.  We see that we may have to leave our creature comforts and go outside the safe confinements of our past to be completely loyal to Christ (v. 13).  We need to focus on all that we’ve been given in the love of Christ.  A love for others that produces tangible actions like kindness to strangers, empathy for those who are in prison and those who have been mistreated.  We need to have a respect for marriage and be content in what we have.

Many of us have experienced or are experiencing changes in life.  We have matured through the process of raising children and are witnessing the changes in our children’s lives.  We are also witnessing the changes in our parents as they age.  This morning, as I read this chapter, I recalled something my parents minister told me.  I wrote to him not long after my mom was diagnosed with Primary Progressive Aphasia.  It’s a disease which takes your memory and your ability to speak away.  I knew he was aware of this diagnosis and asked him to pray for my parents since I knew each day would bring new and different challenges for my parents, my sister and I.  But above all, I worried that my mom would forget Jesus.  He reminded me that Jesus would not forget her.

What I have witnessed these past couple of years is how my dad, wakes up each day not knowing what hole was created overnight in my mother’s brain.  He simply adjusts to whatever changes come his way.  My dad has told me over and over lately that changes come quickly and are frequent.

The heading in my bible for this chapter is “Sacrifices Pleasing to God.”  The sacrifices we give to God are not the “things” we give, they are our hearts.  This final chapter of Hebrews is another reminder to not only accept Jesus as the perfect sacrifice, but for us to BE that sacrifice.  The more we learn from Him, the more we emulate Him.

I worried about my mom forgetting Christ, but she can’t.  He is with her every day.  What I realized through the reading today and through these experiences with my parents is when Jesus told Paul, “My grace IS enough” (2 Corinthians 12:9), we are also to accept His grace.  Our afflictions may not be removed, but God’s power is displayed in our weaknesses.  Nothing can compare to the humility and love and mercy I see each time I see my parents.  And their minister was right, Jesus has not forgotten my mother, for He has given my dad everything I’ve asked – strength, courage, and above all His love to care for my mom.  I see the love of God in the tender care she receives from my dad.  

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship.”  Romans 12:1

"Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you.  Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.  Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever."  Hebrews 13:7-8 

We are living sacrifices by not being conformed to the world.  1 John 2:15-16 defines it for us as the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. All that the world has to offer can be reduced to these three things.  The lust of the flesh includes everything that appeals to our appetites and involves excessive desires for food, drink, sex, and anything else that satisfies physical needs.  Lust of the eyes mostly involves materialism, coveting whatever we see that we don’t have and envying those who have what we want.  The pride of life is defined by any ambition for that which puffs us up and puts us on the throne of our own lives. 

Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepard of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever.  Amen.  (vs. 20-21)