Daily Encouragement: Day 207

From Handbook to Wisdom, Day 207

REMEMBERING THE THINGS
THAT REALLY MATTER

Let us consider how to stir up one another
toward love and good works,
not forsaking our own meeting together,
as some are in the habit of doing,
but encouraging one another,
and all the more as we see the day approaching.
(Hebrews 10:24–25)

Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness,
and all these things will be added to you.
(Matthew 6:33; Luke 12:31)

Listen to Thomas Boswell’s observations on our age in his book, Why Time Begins on Opening Day: 

Born to an age where horror has become commonplace, where tragedy has, by its monotonous repetition, become a parody of sorrow, we need to fence off a few parks where humans try to be fair, where skill has some hope of reward, where absurdity has a harder time than usual getting a ticket.

The distorted values, images, and icons of our culture flow out of a growing tendency to view truth, goodness, and beauty as subjective and relative, not objective and absolute. All the rules change when we replace accountability to God with the autonomous self. In such a time as this, we desperately need the refuge, nurture, and sanity of the “parks” of corporate life in Christ. When members of the body of Christ gather together for worship, edification, and fellowship, they remind one another of the things that really matter and encourage one another to “seek first His kingdom and His righteousness” (Matthew 6:33).