“But encourage each other daily, while it is still called today, so that none of you is hardened by sin’s deception.”-Hebrews 3:13
Have you ever entered a store and grabbed a shopping cart, started pushing it, and soon realized that something was faulty, so the cart had a steady pull to the left or the right? Those carts just don't stay on track unless you assist them steadily, helping them to remain straight. Well, we are each similar to a broken shopping cart. Our default is to fade off one way or another, to go amiss. Isaiah 53:6 describes us this way: “All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own…” On our own, we go astray. We wander off from the way God has called us to.
This is one reason encouragement is so important! God knows we all need brothers and sisters in Christ to support us from "veering off course.” He knows how both giving and receiving encouragement help keep us on track. In God’s perfect wisdom, He directs us to help one another from going adrift, from getting calloused toward God and His good ways. This is precisely why we are given this word in Hebrews 3:13: “But encourage each other daily, while it is still called today, so that none of you is hardened by sin’s deception.”
Do you have friends in Christ who faithfully lift you up? If so, with gratitude, receive all the encouragement they offer and thank them! If not, pray for some encouragers to come into your life to regularly build you up. And may we remember the exhortation in Hebrews 10:25: “And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of His return is drawing near." Who is it around you that could use some encouragement to stay strong in the Lord? What specific people in your life would benefit from a loving phone call, a kind text message, an uplifting word that's fitting in the moment? Truthfully, who doesn’t need encouragement? Everyone does! Let’s be reminded of this too — when we prayerfully ask God to use us and show us who we can build up, He will work through us to encourage others, and very likely we will be encouraged too. Proverbs 11:25 says, “The generous will prosper; those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed.” So, let it rip when it comes to giving encouragement! God has given us this special instruction to sustain one another and keep us on track.
Godspeed, friends!
-Scott