Heb. 3:13 ... "Encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called "Today," lest any of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin."
Although this statement contains only 25 words, it presents seven ideas in delivering a message of great significance to Christians.
First, Christians are to be constantly occupied in the effort to encourage. The object is to motivate other Christians to continue steadfastly in faith, love, hope, good works, and all the other components of the Christian Way. Every follower of Christ must learn to encourage within the scope of his ability and opportunity. This could involve public speaking (preaching and teaching), but for the most part it can be accomplished on an informal, interpersonal plane in one's daily private life.
Second, Christians are to encourage "one another." The circle of each person's life intersects those of many other people. No one must withdraw into his own circle of isolation. Within the community of the church, the life of each Christian touches, overlaps, and engages the lives of many fellow Christians. Because of these unavoidable, interpersonal relationships, and because of the divine persuasion to love one another, care for each other, and support each other, we are motivated to encourage "one another."
Third, this encouragement is to be given "daily." Day by day, and not just on Sundays, Christians are to encourage each other to "fight the good fight of faith" (I Tim. 6:12) and never "lose heart in doing good" (Gal. 6:9). The force of evil never grows weary or slackens in its activity (II Ths. 2:7; I Pet. 5:8), and it is always ready to take quick advantage of any Christian who lays aside his vigilance and ceases to take the presence, the power, and the pervasiveness of evil seriously (Mat. 26:41). It is, therefore, an urgent, unending, and utterly essential task for Christians to encourage one another "daily."
Fourth, each Christian must consider the time for his duty to encourage to be "Today." That is, he must take advantage of present opportunities to offer assistance to fellow disciples (II Cor. 6:2). It is too late to encourage effectively someone who has already sold out his life to the pleasures of sin. The opportunity to turn a brother or sister away from the face of evil will not always continue, and the degree of success in the attempt is progressively reduced with the passage of time as the evil warps, distorts, and destroys the mind and conscience.
Fifth, sin is the great adversary of the children of God. It is the powerful tool of Satan "which so easily entangles us" (Heb. 12:1). Sin separates Christians from God (Isa. 59:2) and leads those who surrender to its power into the grip of death (Rom. 6:23). It has become accepted by a large part of our society that the concept of sin is meaningless, irrelevant, and in fact false. This is the most dangerous response that can be made to sin's presence and activity. To deny the reality of something does not destroy its reality, but it places the one who denies it at great risk.
Sixth, sin operates extremely successfully because of its power of "deceitfulness." If sin presented itself to us in its horrible reality, it would be so abhorrent and repulsive that all but the most foolish would flee immediately from it. To avoid this reaction and also to ensnare its victims, sin rather masks itself behind a veneer of pleasure, success, power, and fame. The undiscerning person who is seduced by this bait finds out only too late how shallow and unsatisfying it really is. Christians must exhort one another continually so that no one will be swallowed by the "deceitfulness of sin."
Seventh, sin hardens the conscience and soul until they are insensitive to the distinction between right and wrong. Sin also erodes any appreciation for what is good and lowers one's sight from the eternal things of heaven to the temporal things of earth that perish with the using and still do not bring enduring fulfilment. Unless Christian encouragement is persuasive enough before this hardening effect progresses too far, the soul of the victim might reach a state where it can no longer be motivated to repent.
