Monday, June 8, 2009

Let us consider how to stir....or provoke.....one another..

Hebrews 10:24b gets a lot of attention in the body of Christ on Sundays. Most of my days during the assembling of the saints the pastor would always mention "Forsake not the assembling of yourselves." All in the name of getting people to continue to meet.
Which there is nothing wrong with that, except they usually skip verse 24a.
"And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works..."
This has been an issue on my heart for a while. Then the other day one of those God thoughts came to me. In my mind the thought came to me that the word stir was an aggressive word and not a passive one. Meaning that we should almost be provoking each other to the point of anger in order to be on fire for the gospel.
Now realize I say to the point of anger and not to become angry. Yet if we do have that feeling it shouldn't be toward one another, but toward the direction of wanting to do something for God and not be slack.
I then got up and looked in my wife's collegiate dictionary for the definition of stir.
This is what I found; disturb, rouse, foment, arouse, provoke, stimulate, goad, spur.
To be emotionally moved. To rouse from inactivity.
So with these definitions lets look at the scripture.
Let us consider how to "provoke or rouse one another from inactivity" to love and good works.
You see how powerful that word stir is?
We as Christians come together in order to stir, rouse, provoke each other. It is not a passive word. It is a situation where we should be agitating each other as we assemble in order to be willing to go and praise the Lord and proclaim His word.
So then you can say forsake not the assembling of one another because we are to stir each other up. Our gathering together is not just for us to come and hear a good word from a pulpit. It is in order for us to get fired up, built up and stirred up to go out and reach the lost with the good news.
Timothy was told by Paul to stir up the gifts that were given him by the laying on of hands.
He is to stimulate, provoke and be disturbed in order to function in the gifts God laid upon him.
So it is with us that when we come together that our spirits are being fired up by each other.
We as Christians are not to be passive in our meetings nor are we to be passive in our going out.
It is something we must be passionate enough about that we want to do the zealous works of God without fail.
Granted in our walk we don't want to come off as aggressive either, yet we must have that good and perfect message of Jesus Christ and Him crucified as our guide to tell others of the word that became flesh.
So next time you gather with the saints be ready to provoke, rouse, stimulate, goad and spur on each other to good works.
Don't just sit and be a spectator or be passive.

2 comments:

crazy train said...

ah steve-o, this one is close to my heart. as you know, stirring is one of my gifts. and, in keeping with that, let us unpack a little for fun. "Forsake not the assembling of yourselves." you use this as a directive on congregating, i believe? and of course it more than likely is. but, what if it is not about gathering as saints, but rather about personal assembly, ie: getting yourself together?

Steven O. said...

That would be another direction all together wouldn't it?
I think I can see that. As I have never looked at it from that standpoint. It sure does point that way though.
Thanks for bringing that up. As I am one who likes to stir also.