In the trying times we are living in we may feel the inspiration to help a friend so,“…let us CONSIDER ONE ANOTHER in order to 1STIR UP LOVE AND GOOD WORKS, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but EXHORTING ONE ANOTHER, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.” (Heb. 10:24-25) 1paroxusmos: to stimulate or provoke. So, we need to stimulate and provoke one another to love one another and to preform good works for one another. This may be a challenge with the social distancing rules in effect.
“These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that YOUR JOY MAY BE FULL. This is My commandment, that you LOVE ONE ANOTHER AS I HAVE LOVED YOU. Greater love has no one than this, than to LAY DOWN ONE’S LIFE for his friends.” (John 15:11-13) Jesus does not ask use to die for Him, but to lay down our life for Him. Peter said to the Lord, I will lay down my life for Your sake, and he meant it. Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, why can I not follow You now? I will lay down my life for Your sake.” (John 13:37) He had a magnificent sense of the heroic. For us to be capable of making this same statement Peter made would be a bad thing— our sense of duty is only fully realized through our sense of heroism. What would we do I the the Lord asked us, “Will you lay down your life for My sake?” It is much easier to die than to lay down your life day in and day out with the sense of the high calling of God. We are not made for the bright-shining moments of life, but we have to walk in the light of them in our everyday ways. There was only one BRIGHT-SHINING MOMENT in the life of Jesus, and that was on the MOUNT OF TRANSFIGURATION. “Now as they came down from the mountain, He commanded them that they should tell no one the things they had seen, till the Son of Man had risen from the dead.” (Mark 9:9)
For thirty-three years Jesus laid down His life to do the will of His Father. “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to LAY DOWN OUR LIVES FOR THE BRETHREN” (1 John 3:16) If we are a friend of Jesus, We must DELIBERATELY AND CAREFULLY lay down our life for Him. It is a difficult thing to do, and thank God that it is. Salvation is easy for us, because it cost God so much. But the exhibiting of salvation in our life is difficult. God saves a person, sanctifies him and fills him with the Holy Spirit, and then says, in effect, “…my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, WORK OUT YOUR OWN SALVATION with fear and trembling; for it is GOD WHO WORKS IN YOU both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” (Phil. 2:12-13)
Your Personal Pastor -Bill Stockham