Posted on by sufficientgrace4u

Rouse One Another To Good

I am exhausted. Exhausted from the daily news. Exhausted from politics. Exhausted from social media. Exhausted from technology. Exhausted from processed food. Exhausted from work and general busyness. Exhausted! And yet I continue to turn to all of these things, even though none of it makes any sense.

It is new year resolution time and I long for Peace. Time. Quiet. I long to spend time with God, to sit quietly with God, to listen to His word. I know this is what I need, but it is halfway through January and I haven’t made any resolution or taken any action to do better.

I was blessed this week to spend some time sitting on a beach, but it left me feeling more tired than ever because my thoughts were still in the busyness of the world.

Better than a beach, I was blessed to spend time with a dear friend who I haven’t seen in a while. And she gave me the greatest gift — the gift of friendship, the gift of time, the gift of reminding me how important our faith is and most importantly how important it is to rouse each other. In Hebrews, we are reminded:

We must consider how to rouse one another to love and good works. We should not stay away from our assembly, as is the custom of some, but encourage one another, and this all the more as you see the day drawing near.

Hebrews 10: 24-25

I have been roused. This is what I needed. We all know what is good, what is right. But the collective world spins in a different direction. It is critical that we rouse one another to love and good works, that we rouse one another to gather as God’s people and in His name, that we encourage one another to do good and to love.

Lord,

Thank you for making us in your image. Thank you for creating others in your image to assist us on this journey. Thank you for calling on us to rouse each other. Help me to continue to gather in your name, to rouse and encourage others as you have roused and encouraged me and to be receptive to your Word and encouragement. Thank you for providing us with another year. Help me to focus on your will and not my own. Help me to be a reflection of you to others. Thank you for sending so many good people, so many reflections of you, into my life!

Posted on by sufficientgrace4u

Today Passes By Too Quickly

It’s Saturday, but it’s still a busy day.  Wake up early, wake up the teenager, get him ready for his soccer game, search his room for a long sleeve shirt (and clean up a month’s worth of dirty clothes along the way), drive the shirt down to him before his game, cheer him on at the soccer game, do two loads of laundry when we get back home and try to figure out what we are going to do for dinner.

Time to sit down and open the Bible, before the day gets away from me (again):

Take care, brothers, that none of you may have an evil and unfaithful heart, so as to forsake the living God.  Encourage yourselves daily while it is still “today,” so that none of you may grow hardened by the deceit of sin.  We have become partners of Christ if only we hold the beginning of the reality firm until the end, for it is said:

“Oh, that today you would hear his voice: ‘Harden not your hearts as at the rebellion.’”

Hebrews 3:12-15

As I read this, one sentence kept jumping out at me:  Encourage yourselves daily while it is still “today,” so that none of you may grow hardened by the deceit of sin.

I am trying to make the Bible part of my daily encouragement, but I do not always succeed.  It is so easy to let the day slip away, so easy to get caught up in living, so easy to focus on doing what the world says we need to do, instead of focusing on God.  And when I fail — I can feel it.  I need daily encouragement.  The more we get away from God, the more we open ourselves up to the deceit of sin.  Sin is sometimes easier and we can convince ourselves, deceive ourselves, that it is ok, even when we know it is not.  We need the daily encouragement so that we do not become hardened or numb to the lure of sin, to the lure of living selfishly and satisfying our current wants, rather than living for God.

In this sentence, one phrase jumps out even more: “while it is still ‘today'”.  We do not know when today will end, when our time on earth will end.  Will we be with God?  Or will it come when we have pulled away?  I have heard many times the saying: “don’t go to bed angry.”  We don’t want the sun  to go down on our relationship with our spouse while we are angry with each other because we know that the longer we allow those feelings to fester the harder it is to pull back together, to keep the relationship strong.  Yet, how often do we let the sun go down on our relationship with God?

Lord,

It is not always easy to follow you.  Sometimes, like any relationship, it is hard work.  I need your encouragement.  I need it  daily.  Sometimes I need it hourly.  Help me to live every day like it is my last.  Help me to do the good  “today” and not put it off for a tomorrow that may never come.