Be an Encourager. Hebrews 10
Good Morning
Stand with me and lift your bible and repeat after me.
This is my Bible.
I am what it says I am.
I can do what it says I can do.
I am going to learn how to be what it says I can be.
Today I will learn more of the word of God.
The indestructible, never ending, living word Of God.
I will never be the same.
I will never be the same.
In Jesus Name
Amen?
Before you sit down, say good morning to your brothers and sisters.
Turn with me in your Bibles to Hebrews, chapter 10 and say, “Amen”, when you are there.
Let us go to verses 10:23-25 and read with me.
“Let us hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who is promised is faithful. And let us be concerned about one another in order to promote love and good works, not staying away from our meetings, as some habitually do, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.”
There are many wonderful places to visit in the world.
One, that I someday hope to visit is the Taj Mahal. It is located in India.
And here is a little story about it.
The Taj Mahal is one of the most beautiful and costly tombs ever built, but there is something very fascinating about its beginnings.
In 1629, when the favorite wife of Indian ruler Shah Jahan died, he ordered that a magnificent tomb be built as a memorial to her. The shah placed his wife’s casket in the middle of a parcel of land, and the construction of the temple literally began around it. But several years into the venture, the Shah’s grief for his wife gave way to a passion for the project. One day while he was surveying the sight, he reportedly stumbled over a wooden box, and he had some workers throw it out. It was months before he realized that his wife’s casket had been destroyed. The original purpose for the memorial became lost in the details of the construction.
Our purpose here on earth is not for something that we should forget about by concentrating so much on the other things that overwhelm us in the daily life.
This was shared by Dr. Charles Stanley a few years to his congregation.
I have a question?
Have you spent any time thinking or praying about your purpose in this life.
Many of us, I am included, are included in that question.
Time is going by in our lives so quickly with the fast pace of this world.
I saw something in the one of the verses I just read that I feel I need to set aside and remember it.
Let’s read them again:
“Let us hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who is promised is faithful. And let us be concerned about one another in order to promote love and good works, not staying away from our meetings, as some habitually do, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.”
It is the first sentence that I needed as a reminder from what he wrote.
“Hold on.”
How do I hold on? Get in the habit of realizing how important you are in this life here in the world we live in. You and I are here for a purpose.
What do you do first? Ok. What is the next step? Realize that He has you here on this planet, the world He created for a purpose. Submit to Him and ask Him to show you. Don’t wait for some great message to appear. Spend some quiet time and listen to what He puts in your heart and mind. Pray and listen.
How do you do that? Change your daily habits. Make some time to listen to the ideas and direction that you will get as you go through your day from Him. Some of us have had a thought about doing things that as we grow in the relationship, we have with the Lord have continuously appear in our thoughts. We have to take the steps He has asked us to take. In the Indiana Jones movie, “The Last Crusade”, Indiana has to walk in faith across a path he does not see to get the necessary healing that his father needs to save his life. The living water of God. You and I need that. We need that type of faith.
Is it worth it? Absolutely. Your life changes when you follow Christ. Think about it. Would you be alive today if you had not been part of God’s plan to be where you are now? Some of us think we are not worth it but we certainly are. Who here would sacrifice your only child to save everyone here in this church, town, or more? God did. For you and me.
Am I doing it for me or someone else? Probably both. We don’t know the effect that walking with God through Jesus Christ, His son will be like later today, tomorrow, next week, or next year, but we know what it has been like doing it on our own.
We have and had hope throughout our lives so far.
You and I have been through some tough times during the walk.
We have enjoyed some great things during that time also.
Many things we do on our own but if you look back at life now, we have a life which was planned for us in advance. The hope He has had for you and I, was that even though we have the free will that has been given to us when we left our mother’s womb and took our first breath after entering this world, was to have a relationship with the Creator of the universe.
He has been with us allowing the good and the bad to mold us and to try and direct us into having a real relationship with Him on a more personal level.
Life is not us just going through the daily walk, with Him not knowing what we have been doing.
God knows everything.
He is the one who had plans for us well before we were put into our mother’s womb.
By developing a true relationship with God through His son, we can get to the point in life where we can be an encourager to those that need it.
Because it is not just for them.
It is for us.
And Him.
I know people that have done many, many, things wrong in life and when they took the step to become a true son and daughter of the one and only living God, they changed.
People that were healed by God of addiction, hurt, poverty, abuse, and many other things that are now helping those that are going down that road that there is hope.
I know of a man who was dying in the hospital that accepted Christ after thinking that he could not. He was touched by the Lord and went home to spend his last days at home. During that time, he shared what had happened while he was in the hospital and how he had developed a relationship with God. Before he died, many of his family members had started a relationship with God also.
God can help us do the same.
Would you like to become an encourager or grow stronger if you are one now?
God can do that in you and in me.
Let us pray together now and ask Him to give us the tools that we need to share His Son, our Lord and Saviour, Jesus with others.
Also, if you need to make the commitment to take the first step and have Jesus to live in you by forgiving you of your past and making you a new person from this day forward, come forward now as we pray and we would be honored to pray with you individually to have a new life from this day forward.
Amen?
