What is the best encouragement you’ve received
lately? I praised the Lord by sharing a
photo depicting an answer to prayer with one of my spiritual mentors, and she
texted me back the most beautiful prayer and praised the Lord with me. But the biggest part of this happening was
the palpitating of my heart that I felt when I looked at the photo and realized
that this prayer of mine had been answered!
God Himself encouraged me with the realization that He heard and
answered my prayer! (Imagine me making
hand motions on either side of my head like my mind is blown!!!)
In our study of Hebrews 3:1-19, we’re talking about the
ideas of: encouragement, having Jesus thoughts, and preventing
hard heartedness and unbelief. Ooh, that
sounds like a tall order! Let me tell
you, without the Holy Spirit, it’s impossible!
Worldliness oozes discouragement, anti-Jesus thinking, hard-heartedness
and unbelief! The author of Hebrews says: think on Jesus, encourage
others, don’t harden hearts. And he
does this with the assurance of possibility.
So HOW is it possible? Knowing
the cause of the negative qualities and not doing those things? Sure.
But in the last couple of years, I’ve been working on dwelling on the
positive things and contemplating how to influence in that way. So…
Today, I want you to walk away from our time together
knowing: The root problem of a hardened heart
is unbelief, and we fight unbelief by fixing our thoughts on Jesus and
encouraging each other. Let’s pray
and get started.
Precious Heavenly
Father, would You open our hearts and minds to You today as we read Your
Word. Would You please reveal something
new to us as we spend time with You. Will
You encourage us and instruct us and convict us and give us hope, today? In Jesus’ name. Amen.
We have three divisions today:
1.The letter to the Hebrews says: Jesus is the faithful
Son (Hebrews 3:1-6)
2.The letter to the Hebrews says: Do not harden your
hearts, but encourage one another (Hebrews 3:7-13)
3.The letter to the Hebrews says: Hold your original
conviction firmly and don’t harden your hearts (Hebrews 3:14-19)
Read Hebrews 3:1-6.
This third chapter of Hebrews starts off with some
wonderful advice: “fix your thoughts on Jesus.”
How would our lives be different if we did this? Would we be more positive and less
negative? Would we be more confident and
less afraid? How different would our
moods and responses be to situations that challenge us? Would we see more purpose in our lives? Might we see how God uses challenges for our
good, to prosper us and not harm us, to give us hope and a future? Might this take our focus off the temporal
and place it firmly on the eternal? What
habits might we develop if we fix our thoughts on Jesus? Would doing this encourage you to spend time
with God the Father consistently and at the beginning of your day? Would doing this give prayer a different
priority in your day? Would it change
how you prioritize people?
Is doing this even possible? Well, if you are born again, you have been
given the mind of Christ. And Christ
fixed His thoughts on God the Father.
So, I would say, yes, it is certainly possible. Willingness and discipline and reliance on
God to do it are the key factors, here.
One discipline we can put into practice is praying that God will lead
you to think on things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable,
excellent and praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8) – in other words, Jesus! And pray that He would make your mind
resistant to dwelling on things that aren’t.
Pray that He would empower you to drag your thoughts back when they
stray.
When you find yourself saying or thinking “I”, stop and
replace it with “He” or “Jesus”, and put the focus back on Him! A great challenge. May the name of Jesus ever be on your lips,
friend.
Verse two says Jesus was “faithful to the One who
appointed Him.” If we are dying to
ourselves, taking up our cross, and following Jesus, we will be faithful to
God, too. Faithfulness is part of the
fruit of the Spirit. If we abide in
Christ and He abides in us, we will bear this fruit. Here, the author mentions Moses and his
faithfulness. Remember this letter is an
attempt to encourage Hebrew Christians not to abandon their new faith in favor
of returning to their former Jewish practices.
So, revealing that Moses was faithful in verse two but then declaring in
verse three that Jesus is worthy of greater honor than Moses because the
builder of the house has greater honor than the house he built. We’ll circle back to this in a minute. Verse four declares God is the builder of
everything. Verse five says Moses is
faithful as a servant in God’s house.
Verse six says Jesus is faithful as the Son over God’s house, and,
circling back to verse three, WE ARE HIS HOUSE.
Moses is His house.
Principle 1: Jesus’ people are called to be faithful,
fixing their thoughts on Jesus.
Application 1.How
will you refocus your thoughts on Jesus when they stray? What do you need to let go of to keep your
thoughts from straying?
Let’s keep reading.
Read Hebrews
3:7-13.
So, if you hear His voice today, do not delay. Act on what He says. Don’t harden your hearts by refusing to listen
to His direction. This is rebellious
behavior. The author of the letter
reminds the recipients of their Israelite history: wandering in the desert for
forty years because of their rebellion against God. He worked miracles to liberate them from Egyptian
slavery and they complained and were ungrateful and didn’t trust God. Ooh, how do we do the same things?
I work with someone who finds something to complain about
as soon as they get to the office. Even
if I’ve had a great day so far, the minute they start, I feel my attitude start
to sink. I have to pray really hard to
not fall into that pit! Sometimes I
recognize that I cannot put up a fight and make sure I am elsewhere in the
building when they arrive. Many days, I
lose the fight altogether and start complaining with them. The state of mind created by complaining and
ungratefulness increases anxiety and actually creates stress. And this passage talks about not entering
God’s rest. There is a two-fold meaning,
here. If you aren’t born again, you will
not enter God’s rest in eternity. If you
refuse to listen to God’s voice, but you are born again, you will not enter
God’s rest until you reach eternity.
Yes, it is possible to find peace in the midst of the storm when you
cling to the Prince of Peace. So,
finding God’s rest is possible here on earth.
Do you want that peace? I
certainly do.
Complaining is contagious. But I want to share a secret with you. Positivity is contagious, too. Thankfulness can become a habit, but it needs
to start as a discipline. I keep a list
of things I’m thankful for in my prayer app on my phone. When I go through my prayer time every
morning, one of the items on my list is to express thankfulness. If I can’t think of anything off the top of
my head, I prime the pump by reciting items off my list. This usually brings additional things to
mind, and I add those to my list. I also
keep a thankfulness journal that I make a point to write in every night before
I go to bed. I write, “Today was a great
day…” and I list the things God did.
This will be something I can refer back to when things are challenging
and I have a hard time seeing, hearing or feeling God. Encouragement from my own hand and
experience!
This author of Hebrews says we should encourage each
other every day. Encouragement can give
someone the little burst of enthusiasm they need to keep on going when the
journey is difficult. When we encourage,
we uplift. When we encourage, we impart
courage to someone else. That creates a
point of trust between the two of you. This
opens the heart, reduces anxiety and eliminates stress. It makes you look different than the rest of
the world, which practices the “art” of cutting others down to build up
self. When we look different than the
world and people are hungry for something other than the world, they will ask
why you’re different and you’ll have an opportunity to share your faith. When you share your faith, you may touch the
heart of the other person and they will give their heart to Jesus. Or, if they’re already a Christian, you will
strengthen a bond with a brother or sister.
Isn’t it amazing how something so simple can be so impactful?
Principle 2: Jesus’ people encourage each other to prevent
hard hearts.
Application 2.What
have you learned from brothers and sisters in Christ about how to encourage
others? Where could you benefit from
some encouragement? What will you do
differently now that you understand the power of encouragement?
Just a few more verses.
Read Hebrews
3:14-19.
Avoiding a hardened heart is very important to the author
of this letter to Hebrew believers. We
must be careful to nurture belief in Jesus and focus on God. Sometimes we need to preach the Gospels to
ourselves, don’t we? We must be involved
in each other’s lives, encouraging one another toward love and good deeds, and
warning one another against evil and belief in false doctrine. We must guard ourselves and each other
against being deceived.
One of my huge takeaways from the Bible study
“Experiencing God” by Henry Blackaby is how the Canadian Mounted Police
Counterfeit unit prepares to catch counterfeit currency. They don’t do this by studying the
counterfeit. They study the genuine
article. They come to know the genuine
so well that the counterfeit stands out like a sore thumb! We need to do the same with Scripture. We need to know Scripture so well… We need to know God so well that we recognize
His voice, His character, His ways…and, therefore CANNOT be fooled by the enemy
who tries to impersonate.
How is your faithfulness?
Will you be faithful to the end?
Or will you be blown and tossed by the wind? Will you hold firmly to belief in the
truth? Or will you believe anything a
certain person says? Are you hearing
God’s voice for yourself? Are you
obeying what He says? The indication
here is that, if you ignore God’s voice, your heart will grow resistant to that
voice. I certainly don’t want that
condition to exist in my walk with God.
The fact that I’m a believer and have been faithful is not necessarily a
forever safeguard according to verses 16-19.
Your relationship with God is a constant, flowing, dynamic, living
thing. It was God’s own people who
rebelled against Him in the desert! It
was people who should have known better who disobeyed Him! Their rebellion, their disobedience led to
unbelief and kept them from entering God’s rest!
Do you want to experience God’s rest in the here and
now? You can only do that by humbling
yourself, and leaning on God by acknowledging Who He is!
Principle 3: Unbelief leads to hard hearts, rebellion, sin
and disobedience.
Application 3.Where
do you struggle with unbelief and how do you combat it? How might you encourage others to prevent
unbelief in them? What alerts you to the
presence of unbelief in your life?
How has God encouraged you, lately? How has someone else pointed out to you God’s
answers to your prayer? How might you
point out God’s activity in someone else’s life? Keep your eyes, ears and heart open. And ask Him to reveal His fingerprints and
footprints to you. Let’s pray.
Holy Father, thank You
for Your Word. Thank You that You reveal
something new every time I spend time with You.
I pray it’s the same for everyone reading this post. Would you open our eyes to see Your activity
in our lives and other’s lives, so we can encourage ourselves and others. Thank you for caring about us. Thank You for sending Jesus to die for our
sins so we can draw close to You. It’s
in His name and for His fame that we pray.
Amen.
Comments