We need each other

'See to it, brothers and sisters, 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

Continuing on from my last post, the health of our hearts is central to a living and thriving christian life. In the same way that when our physical hearts become hardened we die, we need to guard our hearts from becoming spiritually dead. Our personal relationship with God is important and without daily food from the bible and communication by prayer we will not be able to grow or be strengthened (see 1 Peter 2v2). But God has given us community. We need each other to keep going and for continued sanctification. We are called to encourage or exhort each other so that out hearts do not become hard and unbelieving. This is something that we will always need and so we are to continue to do this every day!

Encouraging things:

• Tell each other the truth of the gospel
• We have an inheritance in heaven (Heb 3v1)
• Jesus was faithful to God's will for him, for our salvation (v2, 6)
• We have confidence and hope in Jesus (v6)
• Jesus not only died to forgive us, but rose again overcoming death
• Jesus is seated in heaven, reigning in glory (v3)
• etc, etc...(I could never exhaust this list!)
• Share with each other answered prayers/ways in which God has been working in your life
• Pray for each other and with each other
• Listen to each others struggles
• Humbly point out the hard areas of our hearts
• In love show each other the places they fail
• Be truthful about your own struggles
• Practical things: 
• Bake a cake
• Help with shopping
• Cook a meal
• Spend time together
• Chat on the phone
• Hug
• Laugh together
• Cry together
• Play games together
• Share a meal
• etc...

Things that fail to encourage:

• Assume everyone else is sorted and doing ok
• Pretend you're doing ok
• Keep friendships as superficial as possible
• Hide your ugly parts
• Talk about mundane things
• Never speak about the gospel to each other
• Be too afraid to point out each other's failures
• ...unless you're gossiping about how annoying they are to someone else
• Fail to say hello to the new person sat next to you
• Sneak in and out of church talking to a bare minimum of people
• Isolate yourself
• Don't share life
• Mope about not being invited out to lunch but never seek to invite others