Think about each other

" Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching." - Hebrews 10:23-25

Mary has a saying about going to church that I really like. She tells people, ‘We go to church because that is where we can be fed and encouraged, but we also go because we never know who may need us on that day.’

Going to church is not all about me.  It is not really about what church can do for me. We go to church, at least in part, for each other. ‘Consider each other’ the writer of Hebrews says.

Hold fast to your confession because God is faithful. His faithfulness means that our confession is what we hold on to - not our works or goodness or anything else.

With that settled our focus can be on others around us. One way we do that is to ‘not forsake the assembling or ourselves together.’

It is hard to put it any other way than to say ‘you really ought to be in church.’ Sure we ought to be in church because we need the preaching and the fellowship and the building up. But we also ought to be there because the rest of the church needs it and if we are not there we miss our chance to encourage and edify someone else.

And the worse things get the more we need to be in church to help each other out. We spend all week in the world, and that is what we ought to be doing. But we all need that regular spiritual boost and we all need to be there for others who need that boost as well.

It just makes sense. If we are Christians we ought to be around other Christians. We really do need each other.