Now, what else does the Holy Spirit do to help us all not drift into destruction? He mentions at least six things, and I’ll just mention them briefly. This is for our help. This is for our perseverance. This is for our rowing until we’re in heaven.
- Looking to Christ
He tells us to rivet our attention on Jesus. Hebrews 3:1–2: “Consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful.” Or Hebrews 12:2: “[Look] to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross.” It’s no mistake that there are four Gospels in the New Testament — not one, four. Four different portraits of Jesus. Look. Look at him. Look at him every day. That’s why they’re there.
- Inspired by Leaders
Be inspired by faithful, persevering Christian leaders. Hebrews 13:7: “Remember your leaders. . . . Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.” This is true of living leaders, and it’s especially true of dead leaders whose biographies are so precious for stirring us up to press on. Oh, how significant biographies have been in my life to kindle my faith and hope when they have been languishing.
- Exhorted by Others
Don’t fight alone. Don’t row your boat by yourself. Exhort others and seek to be exhorted. Hebrews 3:12–13: “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away [that’s drifting] from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” What a clear word from God that the antidote to drifting is to hear brothers and sisters exhort us with the word of God — even daily, he says.
- Strengthened by Discipline
Learn to interpret your afflictions as loving acts of discipline from your heavenly Father. They’re intended to help us persevere in faith and holiness. In Hebrews 12, after the writer explains that the Lord disciplines the one whom he loves, he says, “Therefore” — and that’s the key here: because of this discipline, “lift your drooping hands” (Hebrews 12:12). That is, put them back on the oars. Put them on the oars. In other words, because you know the good purposes of God in your afflictions, don’t lose heart and let your hands droop and fall from the oars and drift to destruction. Put your back into it. Row, row on, because God is for you even in your afflictions.
- Meditating on Promises
Make good use of the promises of God and the hope of great reward. For example, Hebrews 13:5. How shall we not drift into the love of money? Answer: “Keep your life free from love of money . . . [because] he has said” — there’s the promise — “‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’” It’s the power of God’s promise that keeps us rowing upstream against the deadly current of the love of money.
- Depending Through Prayer
And finally, the book ends with a prayer, a prayer to God by the author, that God would work in and through all these other exhortations. Hebrews 13:20: “Now may the God of peace . . . equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us” — the rowing — “that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen” (Hebrews 13:20–21).
So, we take all these biblical strategies for rowing against the current of culture and sin, and we saturate them with prayer every day. I suppose that alongside the prayer that God would hallow his name in my life, the prayer I have prayed most often is this: “Keep me. You have died for me. You have bought me. Hold on to me. Keep me. Don’t let me stop rowing.” And I hope you’ll join me in that lifelong prayer. (Piper)
