Assembling Together in Purpose

Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching (Hebrews 10:24-25).

The regular gathering of the church is designed to lovingly confront us with the fact that the most valuable thing in life can’t be earned. The most valuable thing in life cannot be humanly achieved. The most valuable thing is life can’t be purchased or owned. The most valuable thing in life is not an experience you will have. The most valuable thing in life is not something you will get from people in your life. The most valuable thing in life is an eternal gift of divine grace. It is my eternal forgiveness, my eternal acceptance into the family of God, and the guaranteed destiny that is mine as a child of God, all secured for me by the righteous life, substitutionary death, and life-giving resurrection of Jesus. The most valuable thing in all of life is my union with Christ. By grace, he is in me and I am in him. This union means I don’t have to be spiritually and emotionally imprisoned by past regrets, I don’t have to live fearfully and powerlessly in the present, and I don’t have to be crippled by anxiety in the future. Gospel values allow me to live at the intersection of humility and hope. They allow me to live with a radical honesty about my own weaknesses while living with courage as well. They lead me to live for a glory greater than my own, to be generous as God has been generous to me, to forgive as I have been forgiven, and to pursue growth in spiritual maturity more than I pursue any other kind of success in my life. No, I don’t mean that I quit doing all the things that every other human being must do (job, relationships, finances, physical health, entertainment and leisure). Rather, these domains of my life take on new meaning and purpose because they are no longer the places where I look for life, but are now the places where I joyfully live out the life that I have been given by redeeming grace alone.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
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