And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as it’s the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
– Hebrews 10:24–25
Wow, what good, practical encouragement flowing from all these incredible gospel truths that we read in Hebrews.
Hebrews 10:24–25 teaches us the importance of mutual encouragement.
Let us consider then how to stir up one another to love and good works. How to spur one another on what language, to see yourself in relation to other Christians in this way today. Who can you stir up to love and good works? Who can you encourage in their life in Christ, in such a way that love and good works flow more from them as a result of your life and your influence in their life? Verse 25 says, “Not neglecting to meet together, as it’s the habit of some.” Let’s acknowledge that if we’re not careful, we can get in a habit of not meeting together as the body of Christ, specifically in local churches.
I don’t know your relationship specifically to a local church, but if you are not regularly, consistently meeting with a local church, Hebrews 10:25 is saying, change that. Change that. Don’t get into that habit where other things in this world become more important to you than gathering together with the people of God to encourage one another. See your gathering with a local church as an opportunity for encouragement of others. You’re not just going to receive. You’re not just going certainly just to sing some songs, and here’s a sermon and move on. No, you’re gathering. See the people around you. This coming Sunday, be at a local church and see the people around you as those whom God has called you to encourage, those whom God has called you to stir up to love and good works.
Hebrews 10:24–25 encourages us to pursue mutual edification within the body of believers.
So, there would be love and good works flowing from our lives and our churches, because of our influence in each other’s lives in those churches. And all the more the author of Hebrews says, as you see the day drawing near, all the more as we based on how we prayed through Hebrews 9:28, eagerly await for the return of Jesus. So, God, we pray, help us to obey Hebrews 10:24–25 today. Help us to consider to be intentional today, to stir up people around us, to love and good works, specifically brothers and sisters in Christ. We pray that you’d help us to be intentional about encouraging others in their faith in ways that lead to love and good works in their lives.
We pray that you would keep us, oh God, from neglecting to meet together. Don’t let us get into that habit. If we are in that habit, we pray that you would awaken us, shake us out of that habit even right now through your Word, and help us to gather faithfully, consistently in ways that lead to encouragement and others faith. God, we pray that our gatherings as your church would be encouraging to each other, that you would help us to see ourselves and our community together. This way that you would help us to have a posture of, I live in this gathering to encourage others all the more as we long for the day when sin and sorrow and suffering and death will be no more.
Prayer for the Walang People
As we walk through all the temptations to sin and all the sorrow, and trouble, and trial and tribulation that we experience in this world, God help us to gather together and encourage one another in the middle of it as we long for the day when it will be no more. We pray all of this as your people, knowing there are people, groups, places in the world where there are no churches gathering together. For the Walang people of Bhutan, for the Walang people of Nepal, this Buddhist people group where men and women and children don’t have a church among them because they don’t have the gospel among them.
God, we pray for the spread of the gospel, the good news of Jesus, for the planting of the church among the Walang people of Bhutan, that Hebrews 10:24–25 might be a reality there in a way that’s not possible right now, because they don’t even have the gospel. All the truths that we’ve prayed and considered in Hebrews, God, we pray for the spread of the supremacy of Jesus, the love of Jesus, the mercy of Jesus among the Walang people of Bhutan and Nepal. We pray all this according to your Word in Hebrews 10:24–25, in Jesus’ name, amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder and Chairman of Radical, an organization that helps people follow Jesus and make him known in their neighborhood and all nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, and Don’t Hold Back.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
