Meet Together to Encourage One Another

[Christsfreeservant]

“Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” (Hebrews 10:19-25 ESV)​

From what I understand, the book of Hebrews was largely written with the purpose to explain the transition from the Old Covenant God had with his people Israel to the New Covenant our Lord now has with his people Israel, who are now both Jew and Gentile by genuine God-persuaded faith in Jesus Christ. And he let us know what things have changed, and what things have not changed. For example, we still have to obey the commands of God, but those under the New Covenant. And we still must forsake our sins.

For faith in God (in Christ Jesus) still requires that we turn away from our sinful practices and that we now follow our Lord Jesus in obedience to his commands. So faith in God/Christ = obedience. And disobedience to God = unbelief. And we are given the examples of the Israelites who disobeyed the Lord in the wilderness, and who were put to death, and who did not enter into God’s eternal rest, as examples to us so that we will not set our hearts on evil as they did and then suffer the same consequences.

[Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-16; Hebrews 8:6-13; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22]

For God’s moral laws did not cease to exist with the transition from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant, just the Old Covenant liturgical, ceremonial, sacrificial, purification, and dietary laws and restrictions, including God’s requirement for circumcision. All those were done away with. But the requirement to forsake our sins and to follow our Lord in obedience to his commands, in practice, have continued. And if we do not walk in them, we will not inherit eternal life with God, regardless of what we profess.

[Matt 7:21-23; Lu 9:23-26; Acts 26:18; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14; Rom 12:1-2; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; Gal 5:16-24; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:1-17; Titus 2:11-14; 1 Jn 1:5-10; 1 Jn 2:3-6,24-25; 1 Jn 3:4-10; 1 Pet 2:24; Heb 10:23-31; Heb 12:1-29; Rev 21:8,27; Rev 22:14-15]

So, we are now to draw near to God with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

So, what is this a picture of? Well, if we can think of this in a spiritual context of what takes place physically in our bathrooms, at least here in America, for example, what we do in them is that we relieve ourselves of feces (filth) and urine (waste) and we flush them down the toilet, and then we wash our bodies with clean water so that all the excess and waste material and filth is gone and we are now renewed and made clean.

In other words, when we believe in Jesus Christ with God-persuaded faith in him, we are crucified with Christ in death to sin, and we are raised with Christ to walk in newness of life in him, no longer to live as slaves to sin, but now as slaves to God and to his righteousness. The old has gone (been flushed away) and the new has come via a spiritual cleansing of our hearts, minds, and souls. But then we must walk (in conduct) according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh to be promised eternal life with God.

[Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; Matthew 7:21-23; Luke 9:23-26]

For our salvation from sin is not the result of a once-in-a-lifetime confession of Christ Jesus as Savior and Lord. We have to walk now in obedience to our Lord in daily living in obedience to his commands in righteousness and in holiness, in practice, and we must no longer walk in sin, in deliberate and habitual sin against our Lord and against other humans. For if sin is what we practice, and not obedience to our Lord, and not holy living, then the Bible says that we will not inherit eternal life with God. For our God is faithful to all that he promised that he would do.

And then we, as his body parts, within the body of Christ, the universal church, are to be stirring one another up to love and good works, which are the works that God prepared in advance that we should walk in them as his creation and as his workmanship. For Jesus Christ gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works (see Ephesians 2:8-10 and Titus 2:11-14). So, works are required by God, but they are of him.

And this is the purpose for our gatherings, that we would encourage, exhort, urge, counsel, teach, instruct, and urge one another to forsake our sins and to follow Jesus in obedience, and to do the works that God prepared in advance that we should walk in them, and to warn against false teachings and false teachers, and to proclaim the truth of the gospel as Jesus taught it, and as his NT apostles taught it (in context). We are to lead one another to the truth and then to encourage one another to walk in that truth.

So, when traditionalists tell you that this means that you have to sit in a pew or in a chair in a building called “church” on a Sunday morning, at a particular hour, in order to sit and listen to one person do all the talking and to sing songs only that a select person gets to choose, and then when the service is over you can now go home and resume normal living, they are lying to you. The whole purpose of our gatherings is so that the body of Christ can encourage one another to follow Jesus with our lives.

And these gatherings can be anywhere, in people’s homes, at a restaurant, at a park, or wherever believers in Christ decide to meet together in order to encourage one another in our walks of faith and obedience to the Lord, and where we can use our spiritual gifts and our body assignments to help one another to grow to maturity in our walks of faith in Jesus Christ. And if we are to have leaders, then they need to be people who meet the biblical qualifications for elder or deacon, and not be those who are worldly.

For too much of what is called “church” today are just businesses of human making being marketed to the world just like other businesses. And so many of them are following marketing books and business practices above and/or in place of the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the teachings of the Scriptures. And so many are diluting and altering the character of God and the gospel of Christ so as not to offend the people of the world, so that the ungodly will be drawn to attend their gatherings.

So, please understand here that Hebrews 10:25 is not a call of God to attend a service at a building called “church” on a Sunday morning where all you do is sit and sing along with music someone else picked out, which may or may not be very spiritual and biblical, and then for you to listen to the same person talk week after week, even if it appears from what he teaches that he is very worldly, and that he is diluting and altering the character of God and the gospel of our salvation to make it more appealing to human flesh.

Gather together, instead, with other believers in Christ who you know are serious about their walks of faith and who want to participate with you in encouraging one another and in helping one another to grow in our walks of faith and in obedience to our Lord in holy living. For to this we are called.

Oh, to be like Thee! Oh, to be like Thee,
Blessèd Redeemer, pure as Thou art;
Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness;
Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.

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