A Raised Bar

Hebrews 10:24, 25 ESV

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.

There is a point in one of my favorite movies, What the Deaf Man Heard, where a young pastor is in the midst of a mass of people. Due to a series of events the people have gathered for a purpose. The young preacher sees the masses, knows he should stand and start preaching, but he is at a loss for what to do, or how to say it. Isn’t that the nature of life sometimes. As we find ourselves in situations where we know we should do something, but are unsure of what we should do, or maybe how we should do it, and therefore we do nothing. Inadvertently joining the fence sitters and those who are pushed to and fro by every wind of change. As our communities’ battle with fear and death our churches are told to disassemble.

Another family favorite movie, Operation Petticoat, has Tony Curtis make the statement that “In Chaos, there is opportunity.” The church of Christ has responded always to the perils and death throws of this age by running in and saving those who are perishing. By providing health care, food, prayers, and even to simply sit with the dying. What can we do as the light of God in the darkness? As fear and death seem to be winning the day, how does the church of Christ, who has conquered fear and death respond?

Prayer must be our first step. As some are trained and allowed in to minister and bless we must pray for them. Their courage, strength, ability, and voice. Christian healthcare workers are still working and at the bedside when many unsaved persons cross from life to death and they need prayers that they might speak of Christ and him crucified at this critical moment.

As isolation starts to take hold of those most in need of community. The church must work in a myriad of ways to call and talk with those bound to hospitals and nursing homes. Writing letters to our friends and mailing them as days turn to weeks and weeks turn to months allows for opportunities to flourish that have withered in our quest for the immediate, everyone enjoys getting personal letters.

We are commanded to “stir up one another to love and good works,” this is the mandate that we have been given. As challenges arise that hinder us from our previous ways of accomplishing this, we must be in search of new ways to meet changing times and changing opportunities. Your abilities and your neighbors, dictate how you can accomplish this task. Getting groceries, calling, sending letters, texting, emailing, let us not waste the time we have been given filling our time with narcissistic entertainment but loving our neighbor. Let us also seek ways to stir our brothers and sisters in Christ to dig deeper into his word, to study His story more thoroughly, and to pray more fervently.

It is no coincident that this command is followed by the command to gather together. Yet, it is actually a command to “not forsake”. When the church is able to meet, we should seek it out as Paul did in Rome, if it is not available, we should pray for it to gather once again, and that we may be blessed to join it. Gathering together in prayer and praise, hearing and reading, preaching and teaching, truly is the greatest and easiest way to fulfill the commandment “to stir up” but it is not the only way. Let us find, as always, when God has sovereignly challenged his church and allowed hardship and trial to enter in, it is stronger and more vibrant than when it was resting with the “Cows of Bashan”. The Bar has been raised, let us exert ourselves with renewed vigor.

CRUCE, DUM SPIRO, FIDO