24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.
Part of our jobs as Believers is to help each other. I have a chiminea on my back deck. We use it primarily to burn the junk mail with our names on it. One thing I have noticed is that I can’t just drop all the paper in the opening and expect everything to get burned. I must put the paper in carefully and give it a stir every once in a while. I have to crumple the paper as I put it in and I must expose the unburned paper to the flames. If I don’t stir it, the fire will go out with layers of unburned envelopes. Stirring is necessary! So it is in the Body. We can get comfortable in our surroundings. We can get used to being next to certain people at church and when a new person comes, we tend to feel like there is no space for them. But part of what we do as fellow followers of Jesus is stir each other’s pots. We all need poking and prodding in our walks. We all have the tendency to settle in and get comfortable. We need the Word to be applied to us in such a way that it gets us moving forward in our walk of faith. We can’t let ourselves, or our fellow believers stagnate. We must keep our spiritual fires burning. Remember, the spurring is to get us to be more fruitful. Jesus didn’t save us to leave us the way we were. He saved us for a purpose. He wants us to be doing good deeds. Our Faith is a faith of actions. When we believe, that faith works its way into how we act, both toward ourselves, toward others. People will be able to see our faith in our actions. Let’s get busy spurring each other on toward this end.
The Arnold Journey 