March 1, 2017
Today’s reading from Encounter with God

Spur On One Another Daily – Ash Wednesday

Please see the links to our EXTRA Bible Study notes at the bottom of the page.

Opening Prayer

Creator God, as I consider the brevity of my days, may I live them out with wisdom, by the power of the cross.

Read Hebrews 3:7–19

[7] So, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear his voice, [8] do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness, [9] where your ancestors tested and tried me, though for forty years they saw what I did. [10] That is why I was angry with that generation; I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.’ [11] So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ” [12] See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. [13] But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. [14] We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end. [15] As has just been said: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.” [16] Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? [17] And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies perished in the wilderness? [18] And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? [19] So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.

Scripture taken from the THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Reflect

It is much easier to drift away from the Lord than to drift into a dynamic relationship with him. We need to encourage ourselves and be encouraged by others as we seek to walk with the Lord.

Would those early Christians have been able to meet daily (13)? In the exciting weeks following Pentecost and the birth of the church they did (Acts 2:46), but later even Sunday morning would have been difficult for many workers, before it became a day of rest. In Western societies, weekly gathering for worship is eroding—yet the writer of Hebrews is reminding us we must find ways to encourage one another because in this interval before Jesus comes again, sin can weaken us. It takes effort to stay on course. The analogy is the Israelites’ journey through the desert to the Promised Land. The dramatic escape from Egypt and across the Red Sea was behind them. Now it was a daily slog through the wilderness. Sometimes our lives feel like that, so we must do something about it before our hearts harden and we become bitter.

When I worked as a town planner I had to attend evening meetings several hours away. Many times I had to stop the car on the way home and wake myself up to complete the journey safely. Realizing that I was sleepy was life-saving. We need the spiritual disciplines of both solitude and gathering with others to notice when we are sleepy. Only then will we hear God speaking to us and focus on Jesus. Worshiping him opens us to listening and obeying. Doing it with others is even better.

“Daily” reminds us of other ways we can encourage one another in this “Today” (13). My family connects through a free app on our phones; friends and mentorees email, we phone, we recommend books, we pray for each other. Encourage is such a rich word—a word suggesting the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. It is also reminiscent of the captain heartening his soldiers to go into battle. It has the immediacy of today. Encourage and be encouraged today!

Apply

What is the Lord saying to you today (7)? What are you planning to do about it?

Closing prayer

“Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey” (John H. Sammis, 1846–1919). Lord, I want to trust and obey You.

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