To Encourage You

Hebrews 10:24-25 “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

Do you struggle with any bad habits?  Are there things you know you should be doing that you just don’t, or things you shouldn’t be doing that you do?  Each New Year we see so many adds for exercise equipment or the next fad diet.  People generally know that they should be exercising and eating well, but so many just don’t. They’ve been caught in a bad habit of neglect.  It’s a rut, and it’s just so much easier to stay in that rut than to break out of it.  

Well, in the Scripture above, we are told that there is a habit for some believers that is not a good one. That is the habit of neglecting to meet together, i.e., to regularly assemble with other believers with the specific purpose to “stir one another to love and good works . . . and encouraging one another.”  We are told that this is something we should do more and more as we walk with the Lord, not less.  Of course, the typical way that this is done is assembling together in a church body.  We are commanded (this isn’t a suggestion) by God to meet together regularly.  It is in this body of believers that the gifts of the Holy Spirit operate.  People with gifts of teaching, helping, administration, encouragement, and evangelism, among others, put them to use in the body of believers, often, when they meet together.  It is in this regular practice, habit if you will, that we encourage one another to grow more Christlike. Those who love Christ love the body of Christ, which is the church, regardless of the fact that the church is made up of imperfect people. 

In Ephesians 4 we are told “And he (i.e., Jesus) gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”  All this to say that we need the body, and the body needs us.  When we are not involved in the body, when we are doing our own thing in our own way, we are not only disobeying our Lord, the Head of the Body, but we are also hampering the spiritual growth of others and being hampered ourselves.  And it is in the imperfect body, made up of imperfect people, that we are built up in love.  It is in our interactions with one another, imperfect Christians with imperfect Christians, that love is tested, refined, and perfected. And as we do to the least of the brothers of Christ, we do to Him (Matthew 25:40). 

So, are you in the bad habit of neglecting all this? If so, it’s never a bad time to start a good habit.