Hebrews 13:1-17 The Lord is my Helper
Memory Verse Hebrews 13:6(KJV)
“So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear
what man shall do unto me”.
The Author of this book summarizes his
letter and reminds us of some of the basic instructions given in this book. In
Chapter 11, we learnt about faith, chapter 12 taught us about hope now we are
going to learn about love in chapter 13.
Love is a continuous process, we are told
to keep on loving one another. Christians are to love as brothers. The same
love God has made available to us is the same love we should express to other
people.
Let us list chronologically the people we
are told not to forget
• Do
not forget to entertain strangers, verse 2
• Remember
those in prison, verse 3
• Remember
those that are ill-treated, verse 3
We should endeavour to put ourselves in
place of those suffering, only then can we understand the magnitude of their
suffering. As Christians, we are all united in the body of Christ and when one
member suffers, everyone suffers.
Jesus told us in Matthew 22:39 to love our
neighbours. Now some people will think neighbour means only those people around
them, but Jesus gave us a definition of who our neighbour is (Luke 10:25-37).
Our neighbour today could be that homeless
man or woman who needs food or shelter, those people suffering from calamities,
flood victims, refugees, the poor, and the list goes on. We do not need to know
them personally to be able to help them. Apart from your physical presence, you
can also show them love with your resources, money and prayers. The author
cited Abraham’s example in Genesis 18:1-15. It is the love of Christ that will
make us entertain strangers.
Verse 4 talks about honouring the marriage
bed. God instituted marriage when he gave Eve to Adam as a companion. God will
judge whosoever defiles the marriage bed. How does one defile the marriage bed?
By committing adultery and fornication. God wants us to flee from sexually
immorality, our body is his temple; he will be displeased if we misuse our
body. The fact that God keeps stressing on sexually immorality in the scripture
show the great value God placed on us. Many believers struggle with sexual sin
today; it is one of the major devices of the Devil to lure us from our birth
rights. We should stay clear of anything that can make us defile our bodies.
Let us look at verse 5-6 “Let your conversation be without
covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I
will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. 6 So that we may boldly say, The Lord
is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.”
God wants our manner of life to be free
from greed and love of money. God our provider (Jehovah Jireh) is more than
capable of providing for our needs (Philippians 4:19). It is profitable to live
a godly life and it is even a greater profit when we are content with our lives
in Christ (1 Timothy 6:6). God loves us so much and if you are in doubt take a
look at verse 5b, he has promised to never leave nor forsake us. When we think
about this promise, we would be stimulated to live a godly life and go through
persecutions for Christ.
God has given us some spiritual leaders to
lead us and help us in our walk with Christ, we are told in verse 7 to remember
them and imitate their ways, verse 17 also talks about obeying our leaders.
This buttresses the fact that obedience to leadership is very important. When
we obey those in authorities by playing our part, it reduces the burden place
on them. One man isn’t capable of doing everything. In the epistles to Titus
which we are going to be looking at after our study of Hebrews, Paul told Titus
to appoint elders to support him, he knew Titus couldn’t do the work alone
because it will be cumbersome for him. Sometimes, it may be difficult to work
under people we are older than or those we know more than, but we are told here
to obey them nonetheless. There is a reason why God allowed them to occupy
those positions in the first place.
Verse 8 tells us about the status of
Jesus. He can never and will never change. The status of man can change, due to
favourable and unfavourable situations but Jesus never changes. Our
unfaithfulness or weaknesses cannot limit or diminish Jesus. He is the same
yesterday, today and forever.
Now let us move on to verses 9-14 which
talks about false teachings and the sacrifice of Jesus. We are in the perilous
times and right now there are so many false teachers trying to lure men away
from God. The Jewish Christians had a
problem with ceremonial food, the author warned them not to be carried away by
these doctrines of ceremonial food but instead they should strengthen their
hearts by grace. It is not the food that we eat that will make us save or draw
closer to God. Paul said in 1 Cor 8:8 that food cannot bring us closer to God,
so whether you eat meat or not it is not going to affect your relationship with
God. It is the word of God that will bring us closer to God and enable us live
a sin-free life. (See Psalm 119: 11, 18,105,130 and 2 Timothy 2:15)
Verse 10 gives us a comparism of what the
Old Testament folks have in contrast to what we have in the New and better
covenant. Their altar was a throne of judgement and they couldn’t eat of it but
our altar is a throne of grace where we can feed our spiritual being which is
much more beneficial than feeding our bodies. In the Old covenant the High
Priest burnt the bodies of the animals outside the camp after offering it in
the Most Holy place. Jesus our great High Priest didn’t offer animal sacrifices
instead he became our sin offering and he was sacrificed outside the city
(Golgotha).
We are told in verse 13 to go to Christ,
leave your comfort zone and move towards Christ. The Hebrew Christians were
stuck in the temple, they didn’t want to let go of the Old Covenant. Christ had
already redeemed them and all they needed to do was to be separated from the
rituals of the Old Testament unto Christ, to draw closer to Christ. There are
so many religious people around today. We need to break away from religion and
ritual and be separated unto Jesus.
Verse 15 talks about the spiritual life of
a Christians, we are Priests and we can make sacrifices to God. We can offer to
God
• Our
bodies (Romans 12:1)
• Our
gifts (2 Corinthians 8)
• Our
praises and thanksgiving (verse 15)
• Our
performance of doing good (verse 16)
So when we offer our sacrifices of praise
and thanksgiving, keeping ourselves pure and holy for God, helping those people
who are suffering by offering our love and gifts we make God please with us according
to verse 16.
Now we have seen the life of a believer. We
are royal priesthoods (1 Peter 2:9); we are called to serve both God and man,
and our duty to God being uttermost. There are a lot of people suffering today.
A simple ‘hello’ can go a long way in making someone happy. Try as much as you
can to make someone happy as you go about your daily routine today. We have been
separated from a life of sin unto Christ; therefore let us endeavour to live a
holy life for Christ.
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