Spur one another on
Provoking to love
The writer to the Hebrews gives a striking assignment: let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works. The word translated stir up is strong — it means to provoke, to spur, even to irritate into action. We usually think of provoking someone as a bad thing, but here it is turned to a holy purpose: provoking one another toward love and good works.
Notice the verb consider. This is not accidental or passive; we are to give thought to how we might spur each other on, studying the particular people in our lives and considering what would actually move them toward love and good works. Encouragement, in this vision, is intentional and creative — a deliberate ministry of helping one another grow, not a vague good intention.
This is one of the great gifts of community that the solitary soul cannot give itself. Left alone, we tend to drift, to grow slack, to settle. But a brother or sister who knows us and deliberately spurs us on can move us past our drift toward the love and good works we would not have reached alone. And the same passage warns of the deceitfulness of sin that hardens us when we are isolated, and prescribes daily mutual exhortation as the remedy. Who is spurring you on toward love and good works — and whom are you considering how to spur?
“Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good works.”
— To the Hebrews — Hebrews 10:24 (WEB)
Deliberately consider how to spur specific others toward love and good works — and welcome those who spur you past the drift you cannot see alone.
“Exhort one another day by day, so long as it is called today, lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”
The trouble with drift is that it is invisible from the inside; we slacken and harden by degrees and feel only that we are fine. The interior work is to want the eyes we lack — welcoming the brother or sister who can see the slow cooling we cannot, and asking in earnest what would actually spur this or that person on toward love and good works. A drift no private vigilance will ever catch is exactly what another set of eyes is for.
This week, practice both directions of spurring: choose one person and consider deliberately how to stir them toward love and good works, taking a concrete step; and invite someone to do the same for you, welcoming their provocation past your drift.
Left unspurred, a soul hardens so gradually under the deceitfulness of sin that it never notices the cooling, which is exactly why solitude is so dangerous here. Believers who deliberately provoke one another toward love and good works keep watch where self-watching fails, holding each other off the drift that quietly claims the one left alone.
Left to ourselves, we drift. We grow slack, settle into comfortable mediocrity, and harden almost imperceptibly under the deceitfulness of sin. The writer to the Hebrews names the remedy, and it is communal: consider how to stir one another up to love and good works. We need others to spur us past the drift we cannot see in ourselves.
Notice both the intentionality and the strength of it. We are to consider — to give deliberate thought to how we might provoke specific people toward love and good works, studying what would actually move them. This is not vague well-wishing but a creative, active ministry of helping one another grow. And it runs both directions: we need someone spurring us, and we are responsible to spur others. Who, right now, is provoking you toward love and good works — and whom are you intentionally considering how to spur on?
- Where have I been drifting and slackening, unspurred?
- Who is provoking me toward love and good works?
- Whom am I intentionally considering how to spur on?
Lord, left alone I drift and harden under the deceitfulness of sin. Give me brothers and sisters who spur me toward love and good works, and make me one who considers, deliberately, how to stir others toward the same. Keep us from drifting alone. Amen.