Thread by @BethMooreLPM

My Scripture reading today was Hebrews 3. Reflecting on Vv.12-13.

“Watch out, brothers and sisters, so that there won’t be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, while it is still called today, so that

none of you is hardened by sin’s deception.”

The last year has been brutal. So much sickness and death. Grief upon grief with little or no way to process it in community or, in many cases, with family. Unthinkable.Relentless fears and fights and fissures. No one is immune to

the cumulative effects of unrelieved turmoil. One way we humans commonly cope is by hardening our hearts. Loving seems to make it all hurt worse. It leaves us vulnerable. Woundable. So it’s just easier to tighten the lid. We cancel people to keep from caring for people. Why care

when you can cancel? We have this human tendency that is the living death of us: we most fiercely resist what we most deeply need. It’s the self-destructive nature we inherited from Adam. It’s the essence of rebellion. “I’ll do what I want & what I want is to destroy myself.”

It’s one of the lies we’re most deeply committed to & it emanates from hell. I want to say this to you Today. In all your coping, in all your redefining, reconfiguring, your deconstruction or reconstruction, for the love of all things holy, do not turn away from the living God.

Hebrews 3 says to encourage one another while it is called Today. Well, it’s Today so I want to encourage you as I would want you to encourage me: hold fast to Jesus. Do not shipwreck your faith. There is no replacing Jesus. None. No amount of oneness with humanity can save us.

We are in a traumatic time of confusion, making decisions about who & what to believe. Oh make no mistake, I believe there’s a devil. Jesus certainly believed there was a devil. I believe there are forces of darkness and we know we are being overcome by them when, in deciding

who to disbelieve, we choose God. “Did God really say...?” Do not turn away from the living God. He is how you will keep on living. He is life. He is how we will make it. He is how we will forgive one another for hurting each another so badly. He is how we will get back up.

And he is how we will make it to the other side and not only to the other side of this battering ram of difficulty but to the other side of the veil where we will know everlasting joys. Where every tear will be dried. Where there will be no more sickness or sorrow or death.

This is a culture of turning away. In all our choosing what to turn away from, maybe we need to turn away from social media or from a destructive relationship tearing us apart or from our constant doom-scrolling, but—Lord Jesus help us— let us not turn away from the living God.

Of all people to choose not to believe, don’t let it be Jesus. He is Truth. Every bit of mercy, compassion, enduring love the human heart is capable of exercising exist solely because we’re created in his image. He is how we’ll stay tender. Sin turns hearts to stone. Believe God.