My Jesus Story

By Jenni Ingram
Member, First Baptist Church, Gantt

I got an order from God in worship one recent Sunday. It’s been in Scripture all along but I never recognized it as an order from God. It’s in Hebrews 10:24: “And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works.” It says we are to “provoke” each other toward love and good deeds.

I’ll go ahead and apologize right here because this sounds like fun to me. You see, provoking someone to do something good sounds like such a big undertaking and I love a challenge.

Now how should we go about accomplishing this? For me, it could be as easy as publicly praying for someone when they ask for prayer. Not loud enough necessarily for anyone to hear us, just to see us joined together before God in supplication.

After all Jesus assures us in Matthew 18:20, “For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” This would be an example of a good deed, right?

What if we see someone standing on the corner, weak and weary, asking for food and we take them for a meal and buy them groceries? Look at what Jesus said about it in Matthew 25:40: “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of Mine, you did for Me.”

Now for love. A simple example of this may be to respond with kindness and mercy when someone hurts me. It takes a lot of love and grace not to respond in kind. Just remember how Jesus loves us.

Take the opportunity today and provoke yourself to live in a godly, loving way. You may be amazed at the results.