Greetings,
Hebrews 10:21-25 and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.
We are to consider one another to stir up love and good works. This is not considering one another to see what we can get from them or how they can meet our needs in some way. It is considering one another to give life to them in some way. We are not to forsake coming together, especially as the Day approaches. Our coming together is not to get what another has, but to give what we have for the sake of who we are together. Our commitment in these things should increase and not decrease even to the Day of the Lord.
What is the Day? Some define it as the second coming of Jesus. I find very little evidence of that being the main point of my relationship with God in Scripture. Chances are, I am going to see the fullness of the Day of the Lord for me before He comes back, if that is what we are talking about. We are not the smart people that He has been waiting for. That is how a segment of every generation has thought. There was a fullness of His presence in the first century church as He came in the fulfillment of Old Covenant Passover on the cross, the fulfillment of Old Covenant Pentecost at the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Day of Pentecost, and the fulfillment of Old Covenant Tabernacles in the harvest of the Old Covenant and the end of the Torah / Temple system in A.D. 70. The first fruit presence of the Lord in the first century church demanded the full harvest of the Old Covenant Torah / Temple system as only the shadow of the good thing that has finally come (Heb. 10:1). Surely there was a Day of the Lord for those at the writing of the book of Hebrews. There is a constant returning of His presence. Our attitude should be that the closer we get to the Day the more we pursue being one together. The closer the fullness of His coming is in our Day, the more we should purse the holy of holies. The holy of holies is being part of His body, the place that was formerly behind the veil. It is the place of God’s manifest presence in bodily form. The longer we live the more we should pursue living for the sake of others. We are to draw near with a true heart. We are to hold fast to our confession. We are to consider one another in order to stir up love and good works in one another.
What is it that keeps us from coming together and holding fast to our covenant connections as the church? The enemy seeks to divide us from the fellowship, purpose, and destiny of being the church. He wants us to see ourselves as separate from those God has called us to. We would do well to be reminded that for every finger we point at someone else, there are three pointing back at us. For every accusation we make towards someone else, God wants us to examine ourselves. We should probably pay attention to the three fingers pointing in our direction when we point one finger in the direction of someone else. Sometimes we break our covenant connections because we feel that others are failing us. When we accuse someone of not fulfilling a need, we may do well to ask how we can fulfill the need. When we see that a need is not being met in the church, why don’t we examine ourselves to see how we might be able to fulfill that need as a part of that same church body? Why don’t we meet these needs? Why don’t I? We often look at what we perceive to be deficiencies and we live to get rather than living to give. We can only experience the holy of holies when we live to give. It is only when we live for the sake of the wellbeing of others that we can experience the full joy of being one with others. God wants us to be the body of Christ. I am part of the body of Christ, but the body of Christ is a body. It is not me, it is us. In the body of Christ there are many members. All the members submit one to another for their corporate purpose together. We need leaders and we need to lead. We need to follow and we need others following us. We need to receive and we need to give. We need to be alive, and to express that life to others. Sometimes we get our identity out of what we express instead of who we are. That becomes a problem. When we get our identity out of what we do, we can get offended when we are no longer doing what we have done before. Life is filled with constant changes. Life is always filled with changes in responsibility and changes in our function some way. This is the way of life. When we find ourselves not doing what we did before, we should ask what can we do now? Our being will always inspire us to do in some way and our doing is meant to bring life to another. When we are not doing what we used to do, we should find ourselves doing new things in new ways for the sake of who we are, instead of complaining about not doing what we used to do. We are not what we used to be, we are what we are becoming together each new day.
Food for Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
