The Motive of Love

Before you start todays devotional, ask the Lord to use it to grow you up in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

The love Jesus shows us is the same love that motivates us to love each other.

Love compels us to live our lives thinking about our fellow believers and serving each other’s needs. The love of Jesus holds us all together and fuels our actions and attitudes toward one another. It’s the spiritual glue that holds our lives together in a Christian community.

The love of Jesus applies to every aspect of our lives as Christians. It impacts how we treat one another and how we receive and serve strangers. But it also impacts the marriage relationship. Marriage was God’s gracious design.

He created the bond of marriage in the beginning when He created Adam and then brought Eve to him to be his wife. So marriage is godly and holy. It is perfectly from the Lord. That is why marriage should be kept pure and holy between a man and a woman. There are to be no intimate relationships outside the boundaries of marriage—we ought to value our relationships with our mates with great honor, respect, and purity.

This quality of love reflects the wonderful nature of Jesus—that He remains unchanging in His ways, in His mercy to the world, and in His righteous care over all our lives.

Only the Word of God can bring you to a knowledge of Jesus and enable you to experience His glory. Your relationship to Him, not the keeping of a system of rules and regulations, keeps you in right standing with God.

Sin is our greatest problem. Sin separates us from God and prevents us from experiencing the promise of eternal life. Sin mars our identity as image bearers of God. That’s why Jesus came to take away our sin and offer Himself as a perfect sacrifice—a perfect sin offering—to God for our sin.

Hebrews closes with a moving benediction, a blessing:

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, 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.-Hebrews 13:20-21

In Jesus, we have not only a perfect High Priest but also a Great Shepherd. He cares deeply for your welfare and desires to lead you to places of peace and goodness.

Spiritual maturity aims at bringing you to a place where you humbly accept and pursue God’s will for you and your life. And Jesus offers His power at work in you to bring you to that level of trust and obedience. What is the important thing for a child of God? To do His will—to allow Him to work His will in your life, “working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”

God lovingly and graciously takes great care to provide for you in Jesus so that you have everything you need to stand firm in the faith no matter the circumstances.

He offers His personal power and unchanging presence as a source of both comfort and strength to face life’s inevitable challenges. As God had been faithful to their ancestors in the past, He would prove faithful to these believers in Jesus, as well.

God is faithful. Jesus has accomplished for us our eternal salvation, and we have everything we need to walk faithfully with Him to the end.

“Grace be with you all…” (v. 25).

1. Think about what motivates you. How often are you motivated by love and how often by something else?

2. Much of the book of Hebrews is focused on separating an old life full of sin from a new life in Christ. Take an honest look at your life. How much more of your life needs to be separated from the old way to the new way?

3. Most of us don’t deal with sheep regularly, so the image of Jesus as the Great Shepherd may not resonate. What other pictures for Christ might the writer of Hebrews have used if the book was written today?

Additional Resources:

Trusted Bible teacher, Dr. J. Vernon McGee's, complete audio teachings of Hebrews 12:25-13:8, Hebrews 13:3-16, Hebrews 13:10-25.

For a deeper study of Hebrews, try theHebrews Bible Companion.