The writer of Hebrews admonishes his audience “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:12-13). The emphatic challenge of the author is to continue in the faith. One of the earmarks of Christianity is persistence in obeying the truth. A believer may stumble and fall into sin, but a genuine disciple of Christ does not continue in that place of disobedience.
The author reminds us that sin is deceitful. It will invite us to believe things that are not true and, consequently, to pursue a path that is not right nor pleasing to God. And this baiting is so subtle as to be beyond our discerning. Paul wrote to the Corinthian church in a similar vein when he reminded them that “Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14). Temptation to sin never parades itself before us with flashing red lights, but with soft, warm glows. But the reality is that sin will take us farther than we want to go, keep us longer than we want to stay, and cost us more than we want to pay.
In light of sin’s deceitful character, we are warned to take heed. The prophet, Jeremiah, testifies that our own heart is “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). Hence, we are even more at risk to depart from the living God through unbelief seeing that the temptation to sin is made all the more winsome because of our own sinful heart. If we are to persevere in our faith, we must nurture its spiritual well-being.
An integral part of that nurturing according to our text is fellowshipping with other believers in a way that permits and promotes exhorting one another. God has created the church, the body of Christ, to grow through communal participation. Paul writes to the church at Ephesus, “but speaking the truth in love, [we] may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: from whom the whole body fitly and joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love” (Ephesians 4:15-16; emphasis added).
Believers who assert that they do not need to go to church to be a good Christian have missed completely one vital and scriptural truth pertaining to the body of Christ. We need one another in order to grow and become more like Jesus! In the very spirit of persevering faith, this same author writes “let us hold fast the profession of our faith…not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching” (Hebrews 10:23, 25).
Are you faithful in participating in corporate worship at your local church with your brothers and sisters in Christ? They need you to be involved and the Lord expects it.
From the Chaplain 