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Friday September 13 - Encourage one another Encourage one another daily... Hebrews 3:13
A member of a committee I chair comes up with many suggestions to make us more effective – more work for the chairman! But he’s also an encourager, one who likes us to meet often to ‘encourage one another’ as followers of Jesus, and who says “thank you” after an event we’ve run.
Our writer is an encourager too. Knowing how vulnerable we can be when troubles come, he has reminded us that we are God’s family, a precious part of his household, that Jesus is the supreme head of that household, superior to Moses, and that the Scriptures are there for us to learn from. But he also knows how important it is that in order to ‘hold on to our courage’ (v 6) we ourselves need to encourage one another – and to do it daily, as a regular part of our Christian life. Yesterday we were warned against hard hearts, and our writer does so again at the end of today’s verse. Encouraging one another with words and actions can soften hearts and warm them for God.
I love hearing stories of Christians in areas of persecution making every effort to meet, often under great risk and at great inconvenience, to read the Bible, pray together, and encourage one another in faith and obedience. Later, in Hebrews 10:24-25, the writer urges us all to do the same.
Is someone today needing your encouragement – in person, by phone, by text, online?
Holy Spirit, please help me to be like Barnabas, the Great Encourager (Acts 4:36). Amen.
Saturday September 14 - Come and enjoy my rest ...so they were not able to enter [God’s rest], because of their unbelief.
Hebrews 3:19
Sheffield Cathedral was packed as we thanked God for our friend’s life. When we later celebrated his wife’s, there were crowds again! We rejoiced in faithful servants of God, now enjoying their heavenly rest.
The reference to God’s ‘rest’ in our text picks up verse 11, the last line of the quotation from Psalm 95. It originally meant the land of Canaan (Deuteronomy 12:9), the Promised Land prepared for the Israelites but missed through their lack of trust in God and their disobedience. Now that scripture is put before the Hebrew Christians with its same warning; but now the ‘rest’ is something more precious than an earthly location. It’s a place at God’s side, with the other members of his family, for ever. It’s something too precious to be missed. To reject Christ and return to a former way of life incurs an incomparably greater loss than that experienced by those rebels who rejected Moses. They missed a land of plenty and ended their lives in a desert. To reject Christ means forfeiting the eternal blessings of God’s kingdom.
Are you struggling, weary, burdened? Think who is offering you rest, a shoulder to lean on and a heart of love. It’s Jesus (Matthew 11:28). Trust, obey, persevere, and that rest will be eternal. Then you can say with Paul, and our Sheffield friends, ‘I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith’ (2 Timothy 4:7).
Father, as I rest in Jesus, lead me on to enjoy your glorious eternal rest. Amen.
PRAYER FOR TODAY
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PRAYER FOR TODAY