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A Reason For Hope


Reason For Hope Read List Words of Encouragement

Please use these short practical lessons to get regular shots of Christian encouragement.

Meditate on the Word

 

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A Concrete Lesson   8-May-2007  from Don Patterson

Do you know why concrete trucks have that huge barrel constantly churning as they drive down the road? It's because if they don't keep the concrete moving, it will set up and harden. To be useful, the concrete needs constant agitation until it's ready to be poured.

People can be a lot like concrete. If they are not stirred up, they gradually become hardened in their ways, inflexible. That's one reason why God puts his people into a fellowship with one another. The discussions, the conflicts and the emotional 'rubs' we have with other Christians (which are often seen as negative) are actually used by God to stir us up and keep us useful. By skipping out on that type of God-intended agitation, we are actually making ourselves less useful to Him.

In the book of Hebrews, the writer specifically tells us to agitate each other so that we will not become hardened:

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.

Hebrews 3:12-13

I hope this helps you to welcome the 'rubs' you have with other Christians and I hope you are encouraged to engage your brothers and sisters in constructive spiritual conversation. God doesn't want our hearts to harden. Stay in God's flock and let them stir you as we share the Word of God and the life of Christ.


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