Father, this life we share with You and in You is remarkably different from the lives we see being lived all around us. You have infused us with holiness, depth and meaning. You have laid out a path of righteousness, marked by the blood of Jesus, drawing our hearts nearer to You every day. Thank You for calling us into this deeper life. Thank you for strengthening us by Your grace. Thank You for sparing us from suffering Your wrath. Thank You for calling us to a new, better suffering as we walk in the light of the Gospel & in the footsteps of Jesus, toward that city that is to come. Amen.

Hebrews 13:1-16
¹ Let brotherly love continue. ² Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. ³ Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body. ⁴ Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. ⁵ Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” ⁶ So we can confidently say,

⁷ Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. ⁸ Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. ⁹ Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them. ¹⁰ We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. ¹¹ For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. ¹² So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.

¹³ Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. ¹⁴ For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. ¹⁵ Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. ¹⁶ Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

It might be easy to be overwhelmed thinking about all the different things we are to do as we walk in Christ. It seems pretty obvious that some people view it as a list of things to do and things not to do, and they live and die by that list they’ve created. You could easily look at this passage and make a quick list:

Love the brothers
Show hospitality
Go visit in prison
Minister to the mistreated
Work on my marriage
Screen & vet all the media that comes into my household to keep my marriage pure
Spend time thinking about how I think about money and whether it’s a priority over God
Schedule time with church leaders so I can learn from them
Take time every day to check up on the things I have been taught to make sure they contain good, sound doctrine
Don’t worship my groceries
Follow Jesus
Get some reproach for myself to go with His
Go to worship services
Make sure to always sing worship songs, all day every day
Say His Name in between each one
Do more good stuff
Seek people out to share with them

And if we are running around every day trying to fulfill everything we write out on these lists, we’ll find rather quickly that we have burnt ourselves to a crisp trying to accomplish all this under our own power. We will be run ragged by this list of expectations, and we will see just how the people living under the watchful glare of the Pharisees felt as each and every one of them failed to meet the expectations of the Law. It would be disappointment upon disappointment and it would lack all grace.

Look at these key components of this passage though:

for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

So we can confidently say,

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace

We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat.

So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.

For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.

These passages remind us of God’s grace, His strength, Jesus’ sacrifice that bring us into holiness. It’s never our efforts that secure our salvation, but the blood of Christ and faith in Him. All those other things, our holy honey-do list, those things are all what come naturally from us as we walk with Christ. The fruit of the Spirit comes as an outpouring of the Holy Spirit working within us, nit because we force some list of religious expectations on ourselves. Jesus saved us from that, and He saved us to an expectation that He empowers us to accomplish. We have been saved so that we might join Him outside the city, yes, bearing that same reproach and walking as He walked. We have been called, not to forge some new pathway to holiness, but to walk the path He has already shown us.  We walk in these footsteps of His, these rhythms of His grace, as we rest in Him in the process.

We must never forget that Jesus also told us, “Come to me all of you who are weary, carrying heavy loads & burdens, and I will give you rest for your very souls.” So let’s keep our eyes on the Master, and may our love that we share with Him create those gifts of service and devotion in the process, the natural outpouring of grace playing out in us.

Father, this life we share with You and in You is remarkably different from the lives we see being lived all around us. You have infused us with holiness, depth and meaning. You have laid out a path of righteousness, marked by the blood of Jesus, drawing our hearts nearer to You every day. Thank You for calling us into this deeper life. Thank you for strengthening us by Your grace. Thank You for sparing us from suffering Your wrath. Thank You for calling us to a new, better suffering as we walk in the light of the Gospel & in the footsteps of Jesus, toward that city that is to come. Amen.