Exhortations for Life

Closing words can carry the weight of chosen emphasis and therefore importance, whether they are the parting words, a closing benediction, or the end of an epistle. Chapter thirteen of Hebrews closes with exhortations. The word “exhortation” doesn’t usually sound inspiring. It can sound a bit like my memory of a parent’s typical farewells when leaving the house as they offer a litany of reminders from chores, brushing of teeth, and no fighting with your siblings.

If we slow down in our reading of this closing chapter, we can find words that are not scolding nor startlingly new but worth pondering. We hear the author calling us to:

Love one another

Remember to share a meal or home

Truly regard the suffering of others and care deeply and actively

Honor your marriages

Keep your lives free from the love of money, be content

And more. (See Hebrews 13.)

Rather than treating this like a list a frantic parent might offer with the hope of obedience, we can hear these words as an invitation to consider the fullness of life God has for us. Essentially, Paul is saying, “In all I have said, please remember this…” Reading this passage prayerfully can provide a spiritual heart checkup. You might consider following these exhortations with reflection questions. Questions can open us up to a healthy curiosity in reviewing our own lives. They can help us hear the sometimes muffled warnings that something is not all it could be. We might include in this practice an invitation for the Holy Spirit to help us honestly answer those questions.

• Where have I loved when it has been challenging?

• How has hospitality been expressed?

• How have I engaged or brought myself close to the sufferings of others?

• How have I honored marriages (my own vows or in the support of marriages around me)?

• Am I content?

This slowing reflection is not for shaming but for moments of listening, breathing, and truth-telling. I find when I regret an action or inaction, words or silence, it is often born out of seasons of busyness, frenzy, noise, distraction, and arrogance.

These exhortations can help our lives shine as witnesses of the life of Christ in us and through us. But they are not grounded on more personal effort. They fall short in their life-giving meaning when they are added to our list of things to do. The reflection comes with a changing of the to-do list and reprioritizing the order. But even more importantly, it comes with a prayerful request for God’s power to be at work in our lives as we receive the promise given at the end of the exhortation:

“‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’ So we say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?’” (Hebrews 13:5b-6)

It can be helpful to print out a chapter like Hebrews thirteen and take a few days (maybe longer) to ponder what God might be calling you to confess, do, activate, release in response to the nudges of the Holy Spirit. When I sit with a passage in this regular way, I can more easily discern if there is a common word arising from the passage. Or perhaps there is some situation that keeps coming to mind as I prayerfully read. A dynamic, alive, and responsive relationship with God only happens in creating stillness—a listening—a humility for space for hearing and responding. We all have so many distractions in our lives. The demands of our work and family and the phone at our fingertips. In this season of Lent, may we carve out space for God’s life to be renewed, that is resurrected, in us making our lives a greater witness to the life of Christ

“Now may 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” (Hebrews 13:20-21).

Dr. Mary Rearick Paul, D.Min, is a minister and Vice President of Student Life and Formation at Point Loma Nazarene University.