Ripples in the pond

I had the privilege of speaking to the songwriters of the At Your Feet community this past weekend and on Friday night to the greater community as a whole.

The key scripture that the Lord put on my heart to share was Hebrews 3:13. It says "encourage one another while it is called today, lest your hearts be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin"

And also Acts 14:22 in which Paul exhorts disciples to continue in the faith.

Why would Paul encourage people to continue in the faith ? As I thought about it, I realized that life can be really hard on all of us as we journey this road of faith in Christ. As Hebrews says our hearts can be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Sin will lure us or seduce us into hardened hearts. Sin makes itself available when we are stressed, when we have been wounded (sometimes by other believers and even trusted believers), when we get overconfident because Gods grace has come through us.

Sin is like a mouse trap, luring us with bait that entices us only to snap on us and do real damage. And sin seems often at our doorstep.

This is why Paul is calling us to encourage one another. That word for encouragement is not just a pat on the back. It is a summons to fight the good fight, it is a passionate plea to continue. When I was sharing this with my wife, she said the picture that came to her mind was from Braveheart as William Wallace rides down the line of men to encourage them that the fight they were about to face was about their family, their sons and daughters, their country.

One encouragement can be a pebble in a pond and will send out ripples to the rest of the pond. Let's remember to encourage one another often because the battle is real and we all get wounded.