To Encourage You

Hebrews 12:1 “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us”

Have you ever wondered why the God Who knows everything and sees everything chose to preserve the record of the specific things that He did in the Bible? Of all the millions of things that have occurred since the time of the Creation, why preserve these particular historical events and teachings?

In 1 Corinthians 10:11 we are given some insight into this question: “Now these things happened to them (i.e., ancient Israel) as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.” “What things?” you might ask. Well, in the case of 1 Corinthians 10:11 it’s talking about all the bad examples of how people lived that are recorded for us throughout the Old Testament. In the verses leading up to verse 11 the following examples are listed: the idolatry, sexual immorality, and grumbling that the people engaged in during the Israelites’ wanderings in the wilderness because of their lack of faith. Along with these things, we are given the terrible consequences of such sin. It is these very same sins with which each and every one of us can be tempted and God would have us to learn from others rather than suffer their same fate.

But it isn’t only the bad examples that the Bible gives us, for in the verse above from Hebrews 12 we are told to look at all the good examples recorded for us in Hebrews 11. These are examples of the great faith that so many of the children of God have demonstrated through the ages. They were people just like you and me. And so we are told that as we look at this “great cloud of witnesses,” this great panoply of the faithful, “let us also” walk in the ways that they did.

It is so important to remember that the Bible wouldn’t give us these examples, and it wouldn’t say such things as “let us also,” if we weren’t able to do the things these other men and women did. You see, the many examples that are given to us in the Scriptures are just that, examples for us. God has given us enough in His Word to sufficiently equip us, encourage us, and warn us so that we can avoid the temptations to sin and endure the trials of life if we would just trust the same God as these other men and women did. It’s all a matter of faith. It’s all a matter of whether we trust what God has said or not. As we face the trials and temptations of life that are inevitable, if we will but trust what God has told us just like the examples God has given us did, then we can endure just like they did. But if we, on the other hand, will not trust what He’s said, if we think that He’s not trustworthy or that we know a better way, then the examples of the failures of others who did not trust and who suffered the consequences of such doubt will come home to roost in our lives as well.

So, are you facing something that is causing you think you can’t endure it? Are you facing a temptation that you just can’t seem to resist? Then the Lord would have you, right here and now, “destroy (those) arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5),  for wherever those arguments and opinions are coming from, whether they be from someone else or the thoughts of our own mind, God has given us the power to endure by the many examples He has given us. If they could do it, we can too, no matter how it seems, no matter how things look. So look up, look to Him, and trust what He has said, remembering that “whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Romans 15:4).