It being the holiday month, August tends to be somewhat quiet in regard to regular activities in the church. However we should not forget the injunction in Hebrews 10:25 – Let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage and warn each other (I suppose that’s what I’m doing now), especially now that the day of his coming back again is drawing near. (NLT) The verse before says: Think of ways to encour-age one another to outbursts of love and good deeds.
I think that in many ways our Fellowship at Rehoboth does, over and over again, see such outbursts. Praise God for that!
But had you ever thought that, as one verse fol-lows the other, our meeting together – which can be interpreted socially, but particularly spiritually for worship – is also to encourage. I believe we should stop and consider just what a privileged opportunity we have every time the church gath-ers for worship, prayer, teaching and fellowship. Never mind who the preacher is at any particular service – it surely does not honour the Lord just to turn up for our favourites – we should be there seeking to hear what God has to say to us, whether through the Word spoken or read, and we should be seeking to encourage our brothers and sisters – at very least by our presence there with them.
It is true that two services on the Lord’s day is not a specific prescription in Scripture, but when we hear of people gathering in some countries with such a hunger for the Word that they will listen for several hours at a time expecting the preacher or preachers to preach and teach them throughout such periods, while we worry about the length of our morning service and some con-sidering that enough’s enough, leave the evening service to those who are ‘keen’.
Friends, do we really have a hunger for the Word of God, for fellowship with his people and for prayer? Really?
And on the subject of prayer, we’ve had several exhortations to keep praying for God to answer the matters on our hearts. David Steere, for one, a few Sunday evenings ago brought us a particu-larly helpful message on persevering in prayer . The 15 or so who were there, I believe were much encouraged, from comments heard—but where were the rest, who missed a blessing?
Of course, we all from time to time have legiti-mate reasons for missing services—holidays, preaching out, caring for little ones, age and infirmity etc., but, in love, I plead, let’s beware that we aren’t actually drifting away from the Lord and our brothers and sisters in the Lord whom we need to encourage—yes and warn.
A Happy and Blessed August, everybody.
Steve Piggott
Elder
August 2013
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