Don't Give Up

Living in a community can make things complicated. Sometimes you might feel as though it would be a lot simpler to follow Jesus on your own. It's a lot simpler being a good person when you don't have the frustrations of trying to navigate other people's conflicting opinions and personalities. It's true, it would be simpler, but it wouldn't be any easier.

The writer of Hebrews has something to say about this. He spends the first 9 chapters rapturously describing the splendour of Jesus and the joy and freedom we receive through Him. He goes into great detail explaining Jesus as the High Priest who brings us into an intimate relationship with the Father. With everything that he describes you could be left asking, well what more do we need than Jesus?

His answer is not that we don't need community, it's not even that we should have community even though Jesus is everything we need. His answer is that we should continue to meet together because Jesus is everything we need. He says, since Jesus has brought us into the Most Holy Place, we should do three things:

1) draw near to God with a sincere heart
2) hold unswervingly to the hope we profess
3) continue to spur one another on as we meet together

The Christian life is about doing each of these three things without neglecting the others. Without the encouragement of other Christians in our lives, we will find it gets harder and harder to draw near to God. We will find that our doubts start to grow and try to rob us of the hope we profess.

Living in community is messy. There will be complications and conflict. People will hurt us and we will hurt people but if we truly want to draw near to God with sincere hearts and hold fast to hope, we will find that community is something we can't do without. It is irresistible.

Thought Point

As we come to the end of these devotions, how have you grown in community? What are the next steps for you to connect into community where you are encouraged to draw near to God and hold onto hope?

Prayer Point

Draw near to God. As you enter His presence, ask Him how you can be helping foster an irresistible church community.