Others Brethren Need Your Help

IOI CHRISTIAN MORNING MEAL

TOPIC: Others Brethren Need Your Help

Hebrews 12:12-14

TO PERSEVERE, WE MUST HELP EACH OTHER IN RUNNING THE RACE.

The wording of this exhortation allows it to be applied both individually and corporately. He doesn’t say, “Strengthen your own weak hands and knees,” although we must do that. Rather, “strengthen the hands and knees that are weak,” whether yours or someone else’s. You may need to come alongside your brother and help him wrap his sore joints. The word translated “make straight paths for your feet” comes from a word meaning, wheel tracks. The idea is that we’re leaving tracks for others to follow in.

Make sure that your life stays on the course so that someone else doesn’t follow you off course and be disqualified from the race. We aren’t running this race alone, or competing against each other. We’re all on the same team, and we need to encourage one another by our words and example to finish the course.

“But,” we may wonder, “what exactly is the course that we must run? How can we know where it goes?” In 12:14-17, he shows the path which we are to pursue. For now, we can only deal with verse 14.

We must pursue peace and purity to finish the Christian race: Stay on course (12:14)!

The course entails the two great commandments. Pursuing “peace with all men” is the second commandment, to “love your neighbor as yourself”
(Matt. 22:39).

To pursue “the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord” is the first commandment, to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind”
(Matt. 22:37).

Jesus links these two themes (in reverse order) in the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matt. 5:8, 9).

The link between pursuing peace and sanctification shows that we must not pursue peace at any cost. As Paul puts it (Rom. 12:18), “If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.” His words imply the reality of living in this fallen world, that sometimes it is not possible to be at peace with everyone.
Sometimes the other person clings to bitterness and hatred, and you can’t do anything more than you’ve done to be reconciled. At other times, to make peace would require compromising, either morally or doctrinally.

I want you to know this, You can’t sacrifice personal holiness or commitment to God’s truth for the sake of peace. God must be first in our life's
But, Whatever you can do without compromise, the race set before us includes pursuing both peace with others and purity before God.

LET US PRAY
In Jesus Name, you will not be a failure in life.

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Good Morning Friends

Join Us in Wonder Hour this Saturday at, No 22. D God father lodge beside Railway track ikeja Lagos. 9:00am.