Hebrews 3:13
“encourage one another daily”
3 encouraging words from me
I.
The kind of community we all need, catalytic community, will typically not be handed to us. We will have to either create it or be part of creating it. Catalytic community consists of the types of relationships where we know each other according to the Spirit and catalyze each other towards that identity.
II.
I like to change up my response to people when they ask me, “How are you?”. My Dad likes to say, “Blessed and better than I deserve!” This catches a bunch of people off-guard 🙂
Sometimes I’ll say the typical, culturally appropriate response, “Good and you?”, which in turn gets the same results, “Good.” Conversation depth = 0. My latest and probably favorite response is, “Learning to follow Jesus.” That usually leads to further and more meaningful conversation.
III.
When we believed the good news about Jesus, God caused us to be born again as a new creation. We are both enabled and empowered to live a new way of life. Although God has given us a new nature, we sometimes, we have thoughts, make decisions, and choose things out of our old nature., i.e. the old self. When we do so, it’s like carrying around a fake ID.
Our old self is not who we are any longer. Our old self is a fake ID. Paul put it this way to the saints in Ephesus, “Therefore, laying aside falsehood” (4:25). The word falsehood in Greek is pseudos, meaning “a lie”. When we live according to our old self, we are living a lie, a pseudonym if you will.
This is actually good news. The old self is a fictitious self, not your true self in Christ.
1 question
Are you carrying around a fake ID, an old, dead, fictitious version of yourself? How well doo you know your new self in Christ?
3 truths about you in Christ
I.
Jesus created you for catalytic community.
II.
Your old self has no power over your new self.
III.
We have a responsibility to speak the truth to each other according to our new selves. This also implies we have a responsibility to see each other according to the new self.
Until next week’s encouragement,
Steven Jetton