Do you know the Jewish phrase “ahavat chinam”?
“If we were destroyed, and the world with us, due to baseless hatred, then we shall rebuild ourselves, and the world with us, with (ahavat chinam) love for no good reason. Better I should err on the side of love for no good reason, than I should err on the side of baseless hatred.”
Romans 11:36 For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.
Jesus came with shouts of peace, peace to the people on earth! For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that through Him the world could be saved! By our actions we show others His agape love. We represent the Lord of lords and the King of kings. God is love. Carla
Hebrews 13:20-21 Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 21 make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
The title God of peace is used six times in the New Testament (Romans 15:33; 1 Corinthians 14:33; 2 Corinthians 13:11; Philippians 4:9; 1 Thessalonians 5:23). Whenever the title was used, some sort of difficulty existed among the recipients of the letter. This is also the case here: The readers of Hebrews were wondering whether they should reject Christianity and return to Judaism in the face of increasing persecution. Jesus is the great Shepherd of the sheep, having laid down His life for them (John 10:15) and now continuing to make intercession for them (7:25). The New Covenant is an everlasting covenant; it will never become obsolete like the Mosaic covenant (8:13). The NKJV Study Bible
The author offers a closing prayer on the theme of God raising Jesus from the dead (verse 20) and equipping believers to accomplish His will (verse 21). Such prayers often appear toward the end of New Testament letters (1 Thessalonians 5:23; 2 Thessalonians 3:16).
Metaphors describing leaders as shepherds are common in the Old Testament (2 Samuel 5:1–3; Isaiah 63:11). The Messiah is depicted as a shepherd (Isaiah 40:11; Ezekiel 34:1–31; John 10:11, 14; 1 Peter 5:4). Faithlife Study Bible
Romans 15:33 Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.
Philippians 2:13 for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.
John 10:11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.
Acts 2:24 whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.
It’s too easy to not trust our capacity to choose “love for no good reason”.
So today, I need the story of Kassie Temple.
During the Great Depression, Dorothy Day founded the Catholic Worker Movement. Moved by her story, in the mid-1970's, Parker Palmer began volunteering occasionally on New York City's Lower East Side. At Mary House, the Workers lived with the poorest of the poor, providing food, shelter, medical attention, and other forms of direct aid, as well as advocating and agitating for economic justice.
Kassie Temple was one of the workers at Mary House. A brilliant writer with a Ph.D., she could have been a professor. Instead, Kassie chose to share life with the poor, helping to keep hungry and homeless people from starving, dying of exposure to the elements, aiding people who have been brutalized (as well as engaging in political advocacy on their behalf).
Palmer writes, "I volunteered for a couple of days several times a year. Of course, every time I came back, a new wave of human misery had washed over the place. So one day I asked Kassie the question that had been vexing me: How do you keep doing this demanding work, day in and day out, when you know you'll wake up tomorrow to problems that are as bad or worse than the ones you're dealing with today?"
Kassie told me, "What you need to understand is this. Just because something's impossible doesn't mean you shouldn't do it."
I realize that my feelings of vulnerability—life's uncertainty or cruelty or cheerlessness—is somehow tethered to this notion of scarcity and impossibility. So, when faced with any "impossibility" or the need to love for no good reason or to stand against hatred and intolerance... in my mind or heart, I resort to, "It can't be done. And we are screwed.”
Kassie's story reminds me that throughout history, people, very ordinary people have taken exception—yes, chosen to take exception—to hopelessness and to exclusion. And to hate. And to violence. Very ordinary people have taken on "the impossible" time and time again.
The good news? This isn’t a ploy.
It comes from who we are. It spills from the inside out. Because here's the deal: This capacity—for love, compassion, kindness, truth, forgiveness, justice, restoration—is within.
Every one of us. Sabbath Moments
Hebrews 8:6-7 (ESV) "But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second."
The writer of Hebrews showed that Jesus brought a better, new covenant, which we understand by looking at the old covenant. It says the "first covenant" of the law had a time and place, but it was never intended to be forever (Hebrews 8:7). God's law served a purpose: namely, to remind humanity of His holiness and of our own sinfulness.Ultimately this instills in us a deep gratitude for Jesus, who fulfills the requirements of the law and invites us into a new covenant relationship with Him that is "much more excellent than the old" (Hebrews 8:6).
The author of Hebrews drew on the Old Testament context to help us see how the law served a good purpose; at the same time, he clarified that the old covenant "is ready to vanish away" as we embrace Christ's new covenant (Hebrews 8:13). The law was mediated by Moses, but now Jesus is the greater Moses (Hebrews 3:1-6). 1 Timothy 2:5 tells us Christ is the only perfect mediator between God and humanity.
Consider how Moses received the old covenant on tablets of stone that he carried down from a mountaintop and delivered to the people of God (Exodus 32:15-16). Hebrews 8:6 reminds us that the new covenant brought by Christ, who fulfilled the requirements of the Mosaic Law in perfection, is "enacted on better promises."
The new covenant is carried to us by the power of the Holy Spirit and is now written directly on our hearts (Hebrews 8:10).
When we look at the Bible as one cohesive story, we learn to see these "hyperlinks" that connect us to the brilliance of God's Word by revealing what was first anticipated in the Old Testament and then fulfilled in the New Testament. First5
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