Support in love and deed
Day 657, Saturday, May 30
Hebrews Chapter 10
You’ve likely heard part of verse 25 quoted: “not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing.” Usually we hear that in the context of being encouraged to attend church on Sunday. But there’s more to it than that.
Verses 23-25 say, “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”
We’ve all attended a lot of meetings that didn’t need to happen—meetings that could have been an email.
Sadly, what passes for meeting together in most churches is exactly the kind of thing that could have been an email: a few people speak, everyone else listens, then we go home and forget about it.
In a productive business meeting conversation happens; ideas are shared and discussed; concrete action is initiated. Things happen through the active participation of all that could not have happened without the energy of face-to-face contact.
That is what the writer of Hebrews means by meeting together: real communication that allows us to spur each other on toward love and good deeds.
-Rev. Mark Fleming
Saturday meditation
Psalms 129:1-8
“They have greatly oppressed me from my youth,” let Israel say; “they have greatly oppressed me from my youth, but they have not gained the victory over me. Plowmen have plowed my back and made their furrows long. But the Lord is righteous; he has cut me free from the cords of the wicked.”
May all who hate Zion be turned back in shame. May they be like grass on the roof, which withers before it can grow; a reaper cannot fill his hands with it, nor one who gathers fill his arms. May those who pass by not say to them, “The blessing of the Lord be on you; we bless you in the name of the Lord.”
Prayer focus
Let us find the way clear to share our hearts that we may spur each other on to love and good deeds.