We’ve been told that we can have it all. Maybe we can, but is everything we can have actually good for us? We have to make choices. We’re also told that the Bible gives us all we need “for life and godliness.” But how does it help us make all those choices we face? Let’s see how it works with this passage …
… let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. (Hebrews 10:24-25)
When I look at the passage, I see:
- consider (think about)
how to spur one another (encourage) - don’t give up (others translate it “neglect”) meeting together
that has become a habit, instead encourage each other
Encouraging each other is in both parts—so it’s important. It also says that both the “spur one another” and the “don’t give up” are needed for that encouraging to happen. We need to think about it and meet together to do it.
One interesting thing I see is that not meeting together can become a habit. Have you ever noticed that once you decide to do something else one Sunday morning, it’s easier to do something else the next Sunday? And have you ever noticed how much harder (and grayer) the weeks are?
How has this passage affected my choices? When our daughter was interested in an activity, we would find out the schedule (if it was a sport, we looked at the game schedule). We chose not to get involved in things that took us away from Sunday worship. Once we chose to stop an activity because several weeks in a row the group returned about 1:00AM Sunday morning—affecting the Sunday “meeting together” of all three of us.
Do you have a choice facing you? Is this one of the passages that provide what you need for “life and godliness”?
Micki, 2005