Week 46 Day 2
Pray:
Ask God to reorient you to Himself. Confess any known sin. Thank Him for His forgiveness. Be still and reflect on Jesus and His sacrifice for you. Ask the Holy Spirit to open your heart and mind to God’s Word. Pray for others in your life that they, too, would know and love God today.
Read:
Heb. 3:12-13 See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.
Reflect:
“See to it” means that it is your responsibility to do or be something. It is not God’s, or the church’s, or the government’s, or your friend’s responsibility, it is yours. You must “see to it” and, therefore, you can “see to it.” What are you to take responsibility for here in this passage? That you do not allow sin and unbelief to shape your heart in such a way that you turn from God in your life. Then you are to “see to it” that you do the exact opposite of that by pouring courage into one another day after day for as many days as God grants you. Sin is like plaque in your artery. It is slow, insidious, building up day-by-day and choice-by-choice until the artery is hardened and blocked to the life-flow of blood. See to it that this doesn’t happen to you, because it doesn’t have to happen. The preventative action offered here is daily encouragement. To live in this life-saving encouragement will require authentic, day-to-day kinds of relationships. If you do not have these kinds of encouraging relationships, you must not place the blame on others, you must start today and “see to it” that you have them. Others have them, why not you? There is no conspiracy against you; if you do not have them, it is because you have not done the work others have done to obtain them. It is work to have encouraging relationships. It take initiative, it takes endurance, it takes openness and honesty, and it takes being willing to be corrected, challenged, and wrong. If you have these relationships, do not take them for granted. You are blessed to have these kinds of friends in your life, cherish them by fully taking advantage of what God has given you. He has built a pipeline of encouragement between you and others and through this pipeline flows his courage from you to them and them to you. As you walk with Jesus and your friend(s) walk with Jesus, there is ample courage to flow back and forth to keep you encouraged and to keep sin from hardening your heart against God. “See to it” sounds like work and it is…really, really good work. To have a heart hardened by sin’s deceitfulness is much harder work than encouraging and staying encouraged. You will “see to it” either that you do not allow your heart to harden by living in daily encouragement or you will “see to it” that your heart turns away from God. There is no third way. This a strong warning and this is a wonderful opportunity. If you are hard already, it is not too late to change. You are reading these words, so you are alive and breathing, now start today and “see to it.”
Pray:
(Personalize this prayer today; make it specific to the circumstances that face you.)
Ask God to lead you through His Spirit as you go through your day. Ask Him to bring to mind the truth of the gospel and its implications for what you will encounter today. Tell Him “Yes” to His will and ask Him for His power and protection to live this “yes.” Ask God to create and reveal opportunities to proclaim the good news today.