READING: Hebrews 11:1-12:29
We need each other. We talked about that truth in yesterday’s devotion, but today’s reading notes the same need. Today, the writer of Hebrews talks not only about the necessary and loving discipline of God, but also about our responsibility to assist one another in faithfulness. Specifically, he writes: “Therefore, strengthen your tired hands and weakened knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated but healed instead” (Heb 12:12-13).
The image suggests a weary people, worn out under God’s discipline or because of the intense nature of the Christian journey. In either case, they are to re-engage in faithfulness with their “tired hands” and “weakened knees” and correct their paths in following the Lord. How weary people help themselves become stronger is unclear, though, unless other stronger believers are helping them (an act the language of helping the lame in verse 13 implies). Even as we address our own spiritual needs, we must not, as one writer concluded, “ignore the spiritual and moral fatigue of other believers.”* We run this race together.
PERSONAL REFLECTION: Are you walking in God’s strength? Helping others do the same?
DAILY PRAYER: “God, teach me to trust You even in times of discipline—and to teach others to do the same.”
TOMORROW’S READING: Hebrews 13:1-25, 1 Peter 1:1-2:3
*Barton, B. B., Veerman, D., Taylor, L. C., & Comfort, P. W. (1997). Hebrews (p. 215). Tyndale House Publishers.