Hebrews 10:24-25 24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
We live in a day when good news is a rare commodity. Everywhere we look we see things that can cause us to become discouraged. It is easy to lose heart when you see a world seemingly rushing into its own destruction.
But there is one error in this kind of thinking and believing: all the data informing this discouragement is limited in scope. It is all data from this earthly realm. There is no eternal perspective, no data that anchors people in the reality of the LORD and His eternal purposes.
Our text was written during a time in history when the infant church was facing persecution and corruption. Persecution was rampant at the hands of both the Jewish religious establishment and from the Roman state. Rome just wanted peace, enforced at the end of a spear. The Jewish order wanted the status quo to continue so their power and prestige would not be diminished.
And this fledgling movement of misfits was upsetting the order of both realms. Jesus death and resurrection threw a wrench into both well oiled machines. There was another king whose followers had a power that defied both realms, and their followers were willing to die for what they believed.
But even more importantly, the followers of Jesus were willing to live out their beliefs. Christians loved even their enemies, and that loved changed people’s hearts, something neither temporal realm had been able to do. And that is a threat, a changed heart.
So in this pressure cooker environment, it would be easy for the Church to lose focus. Our text gives the writers advice on how to, not only prevent apathy or protectionism from setting into the Church, but also how to expand and extend the reach of the Gospel. It is came in a two pronged approach.
The first prong involves pushing each other to extend the love expressed in the way we live to those who need to see this love. I remember watching a movie where the grandfather woke up his grandson who had slept in with a cattle prod. It might sound a bit harsh, but it is funny.
We all need a cattle prod moment from time to time to move us off our stationary posture and into motion in the right direction. Like a horse who is stubborn, a little spur action can get us moving in the right direction. And we usually can’t spur ourselves; we need someone else to do this action.
But the second, I think, is what we really need in this moment in history. We need to gather together! No more fear based assessments about health and welfare taking precedence over what is truly important. We NEED to gather together.
It is when we gather together that we share in the life that is truly life. We hear our common story, the story of God’s involvement with humanity down through history. We hear of our role in God’s plan and how we can live that out together.
We need encouragement! We need to know we are not alone! We need to hear that things will be alright, that someone is on our side, that there is a plan and the power to carry that plan forward to conclusion. Our lives have purpose. And we are in this together.
The Arnold Journey 