To Encourage You

Hebrews 13:17 “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.”

When’s the last time you actually did what your pastor said?  Do you remember what he says from week to week?  Or don’t you think it’s that important?  Perhaps you’re one who thinks you’ve met your obligation for the week by simply going to church, but any responsibility for what was said there is disregarded when you walk out the door.  Or maybe you don’t go at all.  Pretty difficult to comply with what the Holy Spirit is calling us to in the verse above in that case, wouldn’t you say? 

You see, it is the Holy Spirit Who is talking to us in the words of the Scriptures. He’s telling us that He has given the church leaders – pastors and teachers – whose responsibility it is to study what He’s said in His Word and convey it to the rest of us.  So, when a pastor or teacher calls us to obey the Word of God, it is the Lord Who is actually doing this.  He’s ordained that He would give such commands through men.  With that, pastors and teachers have a tremendous responsibility to teach the Word of God accurately. And we who listen have a tremendous responsibility to listen closely and obey.  We are to be active listeners. 

You see, Jesus died for us “to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works” (Titus 2:14).  One of the ways that we fulfill that purpose is to be actively listening to what our pastors and teachers preach and teach.  We should be part of a local church, and as we go there, we should be asking that God would speak to us.  We should be listening carefully to the message that God has sovereignly chosen to give us that day.  He’s very involved in all this, you see.  He is at work in the pastor’s heart to lead him to teach what he does because God knows that what he is teaching is what we need to hear.  Of course, we should be like the Berean Christians, who “received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11). It’s all a part of active listening. It’s how God would have us listen to, learn, and obey His Word.

But are we doing this? Does our life reflect an obedience to the teaching of God’s Word, and in so doing, is our life a source of joy to those who are teaching it? That’s what God has called us to in the verse above.  But if that’s not the case, if we think that it’s fine to either not be involved in a local church, or to let that involvement end the moment we walk out the door, God is telling us in the verse above that it’s of absolutely no advantage to us.  It’s doing us no good.  We’re wasting opportunities by which God has made provision to bless us.  Do we realize that the only reasons we would do such things are either negligence, or worse, that we simply don’t believe what God has said?