As Hebrew 10:24-25 calls us to encourage one another, it also gives the key to do so. Effective biblical encouragement hinges on two “Cs”. They are our commitment to one another through our habitual gatherings and our faith confession which provides the biblical content for our encouragements.
Hebrews 10:25 suggests that central to our faith confession is keeping in view the approaching Day of the Lord. As Hebrews 9:27 reminds us, we live only once and after this comes judgment. Hence our Lord tells us in Luke 12:36, we must be like people who are waiting for their master’s return.
Living with eternity in view provides us with biblical lenses for seeing our world. It will direct how we live and respond to both the good and bad in our lives. When Asaph in Psalm 73 lost sight of eternity, he became embittered, prickly, brutish, and ignorant like a beast. He was upset with God because he saw the wicked prosper while the righteous suffer. Asaph would be right to behave as he did if there is no eternity.
Without eternity, the many wrongs committed on earth would never be made right. The righteous would never be vindicated. Believers would have waited and hoped in God for nothing. There would be no final judgment on sin. The Lord Jesus would also have died for nothing. No one would need the Gospel.
But if there is judgment and eternal consequences, how we live now will matter tremendously. It means we are made not just for this life, but for something far greater beyond. It will change what is valuable and worth living for. I will need to invest my life in what counts and lasts into eternity. Otherwise, I will be short-sighted. It also means I can find contentment and comfort in God’s future promises despite all my transient disappointments and losses.
This is the parable’s message in Luke 12:16-21. The rich man invested his everything only for this life. He had not prepared for eternity when death knocked on his door. The Lord called him a fool. Likewise, another rich man in Luke 16:19-31 was in a rude shock when he arrived in hell. Nothing in his comfortable earthly life had prepared him for it. But in heaven, the poor man Lazarus was vindicated. May we, therefore, remind one another to live always with eternity in view. May we spur one another to seek first our Lord’s kingdom, to lay our treasure where moth and rust cannot destroy.