Growing in Love.

I remember when my wife and I attended the orientation course for our term with Overseas Missions Fellowship. Richard, the Canadian director for OMF, was working on his doctorate in cross cultural studies. One evening he asked us about the importance of understanding culture in our host country. One of the candidates said that she wasn’t concerned about knowing the culture because she was just going to love the people. Richard pointed out that we had to have understanding before we could really love the people. For instance, smiling at strangers could be very inappropriate in some cultures while waving your eyebrows says hello in others. Sometimes our attempt to love others can be misinterpreted.

The writer of Hebrews tells us to “keep on loving one another has brothers” but what does that look like in the church? He mentions a number of ways that this is lived out in the life of the church. In the first ten verses he mentions seven ways this brotherly love is shown in the church:

1. Hospitality (v. 2)
2. Sympathy (v. 3)
3. Personal purity (v. 4)
4. Contentment (v. 5)
5. Confidence (v. 6)
6. Intercession (v. 7)
7. Stability (v. 9)

He then goes on to show us how to grow in this love. First, there is separation from the world (v. 13). That is, we must be willing to go where the Son of God went and to suffer reproach as He did. Separation from the world means that we do not live by the world’s values but we have Biblical values.

Second, we are to have a personal testimony, the sacrifice of praise. That is much more than walking around singing praise choruses but every aspect of our lives is to bring praise to our Saviour.

Finally, there is prayer. The author says, “Pray for us” (v. 18). The goal of our prayer should be that “the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd 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 for ever and ever. Amen.”