Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Let Us Consider & Encourage

“Let Us Consider & Encourage”
By Zach Wood
Hebrews 10:24 NIV
And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.

A few weeks ago at church, this verse was read and it really got me thinking.  Sadly, I couldn’t help but to think about how terrible we’ve become today with encouraging one another.  We live in a culture and society where the focus is always on me, me, me.  Everything focuses on how we need to improve ourselves and better who we are.  We’ve sadly become trained to think of ourselves more than we think of others so often.  I’m super guilty with this and I often cringe when I think of how focused on myself I’ve become.

Throughout Scripture, we find so many references to how God wants us to reach out and help encourage others.  We know we should, but we get so wrapped up and busy with our own lives that we often just neglect the calling God has given us each and every day to invest in other’s lives.  And really, it doesn’t always have to be in really big ways.  Big ways are good to help out for sure!   However, God also wants us to help others in small ways.  Simple compliments.  Noticing things about others that most people don’t.  Words of encouragement in so many little ways can make a huge difference.

“Let us consider”.  Think about those words.  How often do we really stop and consider how we can encourage other people?  Do we really consider how we can help others become closer to God?  Are we focused on being the light of Christ to others all through our day?  Are we making it a point to spread the Good News?

“Let us consider”.  Think about these words in a different light now.  How about we consider all the opportunities we are passing up by being absorbed in our own lives.  Ouch!  That makes me cringe.  How often are we so wrapped up in our destinations and all that we have to do that we completely neglect opportunities right in front of us?  All too often!

We should even take this a step further.   How about we not only consider, but we actually……DO!  So often we say we’ll thinking about that or think about this with very little intention of actually doing it.  Let us consider how we may encourage others around us.

Let us make it a point and put forth more effort to consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds as God has commanded us to.