Highlights in Hebrews
(with Roger Kirby)
Part 10 - Hebrews 3:14
Hold on tight
Or as the NIV has it “let us hold firmly to the faith we profess”. That is very good advice, perhaps particularly for older folk, like me. (Sorry - if you can count yourself still young. Though it is probably worth while reading or listening on because one day we may all hope to become old if the Lord does not take us early.) It is very easy as our natural vigour slides away from us to begin to lose the vigour of our faith. Once we used to spend a lot of time working with the Sunday School or the young people of the church- now we are too old; or we used to do a lot of preaching but now our voice is beginning to betray our age, our memory is not as good as it was and it takes us many more words to say something than it used to do; or we have simply been active around the church but now we are too arthritic, or lazy, to do so.
Some of that is natural. In fact we can divide what happens into two parts: there is natural energy and vigour and there is spiritual energy and vigour. We quite inevitably lose some of our natural energy as we get older. For some of us this becomes evident to us, and other people, as we get into our 60s or even 50s. For some it is not so evident even as we get into our 70s or 80s. This we cannot fight or do much about apart from aiming to keep ourselves active and fit as long as possible by exercising or walking nearly every day, assuming you do not live in one of the parts of the world where you are expected to work until you are completely incapable of doing so.
But our spiritual energy is another matter. To some extent it will fade as our natural energy fades but it is also true that we can control it better. It may well change its shape as we get older. But we can hold on firmly to our faith. We can pray more when we pass retirement age, or the need to work everyday. We will have more time to explore the foundations of our faith. We can aim to become more knowledgeable about scripture and more loving towards our Lord as we gain an ever increasing understanding of what he has done for us and therefore what he means to us. We may become much better equipped to be a mentor to a younger person. Fundamentally we never know when we may not be called to use some skill in the Lord’s service even in our very old age.
If I may intrude a personal comment: I, a mathematician by training, never for one moment expected that I would be writing short encouraging things for the Internet in my mid-eighties. But I am thrilled to be able to help Dave Roberts, who happens to be in the same church, in the wonderful work he is doing in reaching out to encourage and teach folk all round the world.
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