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Remember those who are in prison as if you were in prison with them. Remember those who are suffering as if you were suffering with them. ~ Hebrews 13:3
Today, we return to our study of the final chapter of the book of Hebrews which is the climax of this book. Having considered so much doctrine in the first twelve chapters, in this final chapter the writer of Hebrews gets practical and gives us some application of the truths we have learned. Having come into a personal relationship with God, and having experienced His love for ourselves, it only makes sense that we should extend that which we have learned through experience with God to others.
Having commanded us in the first two verses of this chapter to love other believers and to entertain strangers in our homes, today, the teaching given is a bit more difficult. In the first part of today's verse, we read, "Remember those who are in prison as if you were in prison with them."
When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, the bridge for man to intimacy with God was severed and forgiveness became a temporary covering instead of a permanent removal. This infection of sin not only prevented our Creator from indwelling the heart of even the believer, it also hampered the restoration of our relationship with God until the Lord Jesus died on the cross. The crucifixion and resurrection of Christ allowed us to see the magnitude of God's love for us. And, it is clear that God so badly wanted to redeem man, He sent His Son as a ransom for us. Now that we have the ability to see the heart of God for what it truly is, we are positioned to gain His heart for others, particularly those who are in the greatest need of our prayers and attention.
We are instructed to be mindful of those who are persecuted because of their faith in Christ. As believers who are in personal relationship with Christ, God expects us to demonstrate His heart for those who have been imprisoned for the faith. When this passage was written, it was a capital offense to preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus. And, as a result, many bold Christians were suffering persecution. They had even been imprisoned for their faith. So, the writer of this book reminded his audience to remember those who were in prison.
The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ will always take us out of our comfort zone. When gripped by the love of God, we will be compelled from within to go beyond our comfort to those many places where people hurt and are in need of our help. And, there is nothing that is of greater help than our prayers. In fact, we underestimate our prayers of faith.
We do this because there are times when we pray for a person and our prayers seem to make no difference. It is in these moments that we are tempted to stop praying. The enemy would love for us to believe the lie that our prayers make no difference at all. Prayer is the encounter of God's thirst with ours. Prayer is the deliberate act of communicating with God. We must be careful to avoid prayer as a monologue for it is a conversation. We recognize that it is a conversation when we realize that God is quite creative in His responses. Many times, I have noticed that He responds to my prayers by incorporating His creation. He has been known to use even my four year old dog by the name of Millie.
It was Max Lucado who once said, "Our prayers may be awkward. Our attempts may be feeble. But since the power of prayer is in the one who hears it and not in the one who says it, our prayers do make a difference." Prayer has been described as simply pouring out our hearts to God. In the case of today's verse, it is for those who have been imprisoned.
The second half of today's verse reads, "Remember those who are suffering as if you were suffering with them."
Our involvement in the lives of others whom the Lord brings into our lives is aided greatly when we put ourselves in their place. When we put ourselves in their shoes, we begin to recognize how best to pray for them. Did you know that in the early church there were people who actually sold themselves into slavery to get enough money to free people who were in prison?
When we determine to work on getting rid of other people’s problems, we see our problems with a whole new perspective. When we preoccupy ourselves with the burdens of others, we tend to lose sight of our own problems. Self‑pity loses its life source in such contexts. And, perhaps, there is no greater way to combat self-centeredness than by remembering those who are imprisoned and who are suffering for the faith.
In Revelation 12:11 we read, "And our brothers and sisters defeated him by the blood of the Lamb’s death and by the message they preached. They did not love their lives so much that they were afraid of death."
At the end of time, as we know it, we will see the veil peeled back and find that those who have been persecuted, even to death, were actually conquerors through the blood of the Lamb and by the gospel that they preached. And, they were able to do this because they loved not their lives even unto death. This underscores the words of the Lord Jesus in John 12:25 which reads, "Those who love their life in this world will lose it. Those who care nothing for their life in this world will keep if for eternity."
The more and more we are defined by the eternal, we will be less and less defined by the temporal. The further we go in our personal relationship with the Lord, our understanding of eternal values will increasingly restructure our choices. Once we know how to die, it is then that we will know how to live. For those who will be alive during the Tribulation, due to the awful circumstances at that time, they will be granted the clearest perspective on that which is most important. And, their choices will reveal the substance within.
When he decided to go to the cannibals of the Fiji islands years ago, Missionary James Calvert was told, "If you go to those savages, you will surely lose your life." To those most serious words, Calvert replied, "I died before I decided to go.” People who live this way are unstoppable. Let us be unstoppable today for the glory of the One who procured our eternity by laying down His life for us.
