Encourage One Another

March 21, 2024

The Christian life can be compared to a journey with obstacles and trials. The goal is to finish the journey in faith. The danger is always present that we will stop along the way and maybe even choose a different direction for life – a direction that leads away from God. That means the Christian needs encouragement to persevere and live a life worthy of his calling. It is in the context of our need to persevere that Hebrews gives its command to encourage one another.

“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 10:24–25, ESV)

Translators attempting to give us a smooth English sentence can on occasion loose an important idea. The above translation of verse 24 is all too common.

 …and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds,…Hebrews 10:24, NASB

 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Hebrews 10:24, NIV

 The problem with the above translations is that the actual object of “let us consider” in Greek is “one another” as in the NKJV.

 And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works… Hebrews 10:24, NKJV

The command to encourage then has one another as its focus. It is first of all selfless, and it is at this point also countercultural. We live in an age of the consumer mentality: what do I get out of it? We never get the worship assembly right if we begin with ourselves. We must always begin with God and the need of others.

A Korean parable about a visit to heaven and hell gives insight to this difference of perspective.

The visitor peeped in at the door of hell and saw an enormous banquet hall. In it were a number of long tables with bowls of rice and delicacies on them, well-flavored, smelling delicious, and inviting. The guests were sitting hungrily, opposite one another, each with a plate of food.

The guests all had chopsticks to use, but these were so long that, however hard they tried, not a grain of rice could they get into their mouths. This was their torment; this was their hell. “I’ve seen it, that’s more than enough for me,” said the visitor. Departing hell, he entered into heaven.

Inside, he saw the same banquet hall, the same tables, the same food, and the same long chopsticks. But the guests were joyful. All were smiling and laughing. Each one, having put the food onto his chopsticks, held it out to the mouth of his companion opposite, and so they managed to eat their fill. Joy, love, and fulfillment were found in heaven.

Following Jesus often involves paradoxes: losing our life to save it, the last shall be first, and greatness comes by humility. This is but one more. To be encouraged, we must encourage one another.

—Russ Holden

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Posted by Russell Holden

A Nudge

August 23, 2022

I recently visited the congregation where I attended from infancy through college. It’s nostalgic going back. Of course, I hoped that maybe I would recognize or know someone from the past. I’ll confess that I don’t look like what I did in college, so recognition on their part was going to have to come my name not necessarily my face. And yes, there were people I remembered, and who remembered me.

After the service, the song leader came up and greeted me. I didn’t recognize his face, but once he said his name, I exclaimed, “You’re an important person in my life.” He smiled. He knew what I was talking about, so let me tell you the story.

I was fourteen years old, a church attender, a participant in the youth group activities, but not a baptized believer. I’ve mentioned in lessons that there were times I gripped hard the pew in front of me during the invitation. I was struggling. What was my problem? I was shy and nervous about getting in front of the group. When closing in on 39 years of preaching that may sound odd, but this was my 14-year-old self.

My important Sunday was the beginning of a gospel meeting. I went home for lunch with a friend. We went back to the church building and joined a group doing a nursing home sing. After the singing, the youth who had gone were sitting around hanging out. While I was sitting there in the auditorium with my friend talking, my “important person” came up and sat beside me. He was several years older. I don’t know exactly what he said, but the gist was, “Do you want to be baptized?” I said yes and confessed my fears.

My “important person” stayed with us. When worship started, he seated my friend and I on the second pew and sat with us. It’s not a long walk from the second pew. I now had this support that helped me go forward. And of course, once I was there none of my fears were real.

After I was baptized, I was warmly greeted. But I remember one voice saying, “I thought he already was a Christian.”  My “important person” knew my true spiritual condition, and he was willing to address it.

Would I have become a Christian without this incident? I don’t know. Fortunately, I was wise enough not to turn down help the first time it came my way. Putting off responding has risks. Hearts can cool, and sin can deceive.

In writing about this “important person” who gave me a nudge, I want to encourage you to look around for people in your own life who need a nudge. Many spiritual encounters are not about a long, prepared lesson. It is about saying something meaningful that helps to move someone a step closer to God. It was life changing for me, so I’m thankful for my “important person” who gave me a nudge.

—Russ Holden

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Posted by Russell Holden

The Deceitfulness of Sin

July 29, 2022

“Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called ‘Today,’ so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. (Hebrews 3:12-13 NASB)

Sin is deceitful. Sin promises pleasure and fun. Sin promises freedom and fulfillment. But Satan is the father of lies and he uses sin to lure souls into destruction. If we could only see more clearly the deceitfulness of it all! Sin may bring brief pleasure and fun, but in the end, it always brings ruin and death. Sin may promise freedom and fulfillment, but in reality, it always brings enslavement and spiritual poverty.

Not only does sin deceive, but it also hardens. Some may think that they can play around with sin, reap the temporary pleasures, and repent later. But this is a deadly game because sin hardens the heart and sears the conscience over time. Sin can harden the heart so much that a person no longer wants to listen to the word of God and no longer responds to it. Sin can make a person hostile to God and to the truth of His word.

Because of the great dangers of sin, we need to make sure that we are taking care of our hearts. We need to be very careful that our hearts don’t fall away from God. You and I can and should be helping one another with this. We need to be encouraging one another every day, urging one another to stay true to the Lord and to not be deceived by the temporary, deceitful pleasures of sin. We all could probably do a better job of this. It is an important job that each of us have from the Lord. We also need to make a commitment to be assembling with the saints on the Lord’s Day. We need to make that commitment for our own sakes as a way of strengthening our own hearts, and we need to make that commitment for our brothers and sisters. We need to encourage one another! And not just on the Lord’s Day, but every day!

Sin is deceitful. Sin hardens. Sin destroys. Would you reach out to someone today to encourage their heart? Would you reach out to give encouragement to your brethren throughout the week? Let’s strive to help one another in this way.

—Scott Colvin

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Posted by Russell Holden

A Nudge

April 5, 2019

I recently visited the congregation where I attended from infancy through college. It’s nostalgic going back. Of course, I hoped that maybe I would recognize or know someone from the past. I’ll confess that I don’t look like what I did in college, so recognition on their part was going to have to come my name not necessarily my face. And yes, there were people I remembered, and who remembered me.

After the service, the song leader came up and greeted me. I didn’t recognize his face, but once he said his name, I exclaimed, “You’re an important person in my life.” He smiled. He knew what I was talking about, so let me tell you the story.

I was fourteen years old, a church attender, a participant in the youth group activities, but not a baptized believer. I’ve mentioned in lessons that there were times I gripped hard the pew in front of me during the invitation. I was struggling. What was my problem? I was shy and nervous about getting in front of the group. When closing in on 39 years of preaching that may sound odd, but this was my 14-year-old self.

My important Sunday was the beginning of a gospel meeting. I went home for lunch with a friend. We went back to the church building and joined a group doing a nursing home sing. After the singing, the youth who had gone were sitting around hanging out. While I was sitting there in the auditorium with my friend talking, my “important person” came up and sat beside me. He was several years older. I don’t know exactly what he said, but the gist was, “Do you want to be baptized?” I said yes and confessed my fears.

My “important person” stayed with us. When worship started, he seated my friend and I on the second pew and sat with us. It’s not a long walk from the second pew. I now had this support that helped me go forward. And of course, once I was there none of my fears were real.

After I was baptized, I was warmly greeted. But I remember one voice saying, ÒI thought he already was a Christian.Ó My “important person” knew my true spiritual condition, and he was willing to address it.

Would I have become a Christian without this incident? I don’t know. Fortunately, I was wise enough not to turn down help the first time it came my way. Putting off responding has risks. Hearts can cool, and sin can deceive.

In writing about this “important person” who gave me a nudge, I want to encourage you to look around for people in your own life who need a nudge. Many spiritual encounters are not about a long, prepared lesson. It is about saying something meaningful that helps to move someone a step closer to God. It was life changing for me, so I’m thankful for my “important person” who gave me a nudge.

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Posted by Russell Holden

A Second Wind

March 20, 2015

When I was in college, I ran for exercise. I was not fast, and I was no competitive runner, but I ran. Anyone who has run for any distance has probably experienced this sensation. You start to hurt, you feel like you can’t go on, and you want to quit. But as you press on, you catch a second wind, and you finish the course that you set out to cover.

The definition of second wind is “a person’s ability to breathe freely during exercise, after having been out of breath.” We then use it metaphorically as “a new strength or energy to continue something that is an effort.”1

Christian living is compared to a race, and for most of us that race is a marathon (1 Corinthians 9:24-27, Philippians 2:16, Hebrews 12:1-2). We must go the distance and not give up. This athletic imagery is also found in the use of victor’s crown or victor’s wreath. The Greek word is stephanos (from which we get the name Stephen). It is distinguished from the diadem, which is the royal crown. This is the imagery when Paul says:

Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. (2 Timothy 4:8, ESV — See also 1 Cor. 9:25, Jam. 1:12, 1 Pet. 5:4, Rev. 2:10, 3:11.)

Just like my night runs in college, running the Christian race gets difficult. We may feel the need for a second wind as we face difficulties, sorrows, and temptations. Here’s a couple of my favorite “second wind” passages.

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. (1 Corinthians 10:13, ESV)

Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:30–31, ESV)

Are you struggling? I believe God is faithful to those who love him — just hold out for a second wind.

1New Oxford American Dictionary

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Posted by Russell Holden

Climbing Mount Maunganui

December 20, 2013

TheMount

I climbed Mount Maunganui last Saturday. It is on a peninsula north of Tauranga, New Zealand. It has an elevation of 761 feet. My Fitbit One gave me credit for 63 flights of stairs climbed going around and up the Mount. The summit of the Mount is reached by walking trails and stairs.

I’ve climbed the Mount several times, but it had been at least 6 to 8 years since my last climb. I had a pacemaker procedure last June, so I feel so much better now, that I thought I could climb the Mount again. Now, I still have asthma, so it wasn’t easy. Physically fit young men and women in their twenties running the Mount two or three times for exercise is a common sight. My pace was very slow and steady in comparison to theirs, but I made the climb.

Many of the challenging things we do in life are not done in one fell swoop like Superman’s ability “to leap tall buildings in a single bound.” We mentally break down the larger task into smaller ones that seem doable. I was doing that in this climb. I would look at a set of stairs and say, “I know that I can make it to the top of these stairs.” Or, I would see a trail that went up and around a curve. I would promise myself that I would walk that much of the trail, and then set another goal. I made it up the Mount setting smaller goals until I had reached the bigger goal. That strategy works on many things in life.

You may be wanting to become more regular in prayer and Bible reading. You may have physical fitness goals or educational goals. You may have areas to work on in a relationship. The reality is that big projects are accomplished as we are able to see the various smaller steps that make up the big project. As the old time management adage goes, “How do you eat an elephant?” The answer is “one bite at a time.”

One of the problems climbing the Mount is that there is so much vegetation that you cannot see the top until you are very close. I had a runner who was descending the mount say to me, “Almost to the top, mate.” It was encouraging, and at that moment, I needed some encouragement. (I probably looked like I needed some encouragement too.) By the way, I wasn’t nearly as close to the top as I had hoped. Shortly after I heard those words, I came to a zig-zag staircase that discouraged me, but the words of encouragement kept me going.

Remember to give some encouragement along the way. We all need it in Christian living. We may need it in other areas of our life as well.

Here’s to the big, important things in our lives. Here’s to encouragement along the way. May you find new mountains to climb.

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Posted by Russell Holden