Hebrews 3:13 says, "But encourage one another daily, as long as it is
called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's
deceitfulness."
I was greatly encouraged yesterday, as I met up with a few friends who
had just been on a mission trip to the Philippines, as they testified
non-stop about the goodness of God as shown through the trip. It was
not a time of great signs and wonders, of miracles that gave glory to
God, but more of an eye-opening trip, as God showed each of them more
about themselves, and humbled them through the faith and the witness
of the very people they had come to serve.
It amazes me that anyone could bring themselves to preach about
tithing to the extremely poor, or about faith to those in dire
straits. We, who have never been through the kind of hardships they
face every day, surely have no right to even speak of these things to
them. Yet God's grace was abundant in them, as they accepted the
message, and by God's grace, the message even ministered to some of
them.
And as I read this verse, I remembered the wealth of emails I had
received these past weeks testifying of God's goodness. And I've been
putting off reading them, because I've just grown cynical about such
things, but as some of my friends said yesterday, these things are
there to encourage us, and keep us from becoming hardened.
Elsewhere in Hebrews 3, it refers readers back to Ps 95. It talks
about the journey of the Israelites through the desert, and how they
angered God until He declared that they would never enter His rest.
And this is an analogy for our lives too. The Israelites were
obedient to the call to leave Egypt, an obedience borne out of the
fear of the wrath of God. But like many Christians, they became
complacent, demanding, disobedient, and lost their inheritance.
This is a warning to those who believe that once saved is forever
saved. Believing in your heart and confessing with your mouth that
Jesus is Lord is a continual process, and disobedience will disqualify
us from our eternal inheritance just as surely as it did the
Israelites. For our God is an unchanging God, the same yesterday,
today and forever.
