The counsel and exhortation of the world, even when it looks positive and encouraging, due to it’s unrelenting vacuum and void of God, eventually leads us down to the pit. With the counsel and exhortation of the Lord we gain a hand up, a grip and firm path to set our feet on, for all the promises of God in Him are yes and in Him, amen, all His counsel and exhortation work to the good for those who love Him and are called according to His purposes.
In the O.T., under the law, the exhortation of the Lord was typically a warning, words filled with the idea of “watch out, be careful, and don’t”. In the N.T., under grace, exhortation is comforting, consoling, encouraging, and usually refers to the pursuit of Christian ethics in day–to-day living…..it is letting God’s counsel, the heavenly perception that is most precious, be connected to our heart….friends, let the Lord’s counsel and exhortation in the door of your house.
As believers we areto live godly lives here and now, and there is supposed to be anoticeable difference between our former behaviorand our present existence.
The Lord counsels us to recognize wewere sometimes darkness, but nowwe arelight in the Lord….meaning now that we are children of the Light, then walk like children of the Light.
So, Is the Lord, God or not? Say? Yea, i’m asking you. Say? Is the Lord, God or not? If He is, then act like it.
Friends, God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness, and if we disregard God’s counsel we will soon come to growing shadows in our lives. We are counseled and exhorted to love the Lord with all our breathing, all our thinking, all our feeling and all our forward momentum, and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, which means we have to learn to forgive ourselves that we would also forgive our neighbor. For the glory of God, just like Jesus welcomes us, we should welcome one another, walking in wisdom toward those outside the House of God, and make good use of our time, practicing our prudence. Learn to be the kind of leaders who are always gracious, well acquainted with the values of the Lord so we’ll know how to answer those F from us.
The counsel and exhortation of the Lord is to treat your employees, friends and family well, be kind and generous to them. Open your hand in prosperity to those whom you serve and who you are served by. God’s counsel to us is – if we know anyone in missions or serving in the field in another country or even in your own town, watch the vision of the Spirit, be watchful in your prayers for them, be consistent and repeatable to speak to the Lord on their behalf that He would open doors for them to speak the gospel, declaring the mystery of Christ, that they would be clear, and speak as they ought to speak.
This is God’s counsel and exhortation: pay attention to your own salvation, and do it with dedication, reverence and sensitivity to God’s leading. And when you’re in your work-a-day world, do it all without whining, grumbling, and complaining, dreaming of being somewhere else, wishing God would do something other than what He’s doing. Friends, be morally whole with solid integrity, righteous and just in the eyes of God and the world, as children of God, spotless in the middle of a crooked and twisted people….if we’ll do that we’ll shine like the sun. Above all, the ultimate counsel and exhortation of the Lord is from John 13:34-35, Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”