Read Hebrews 3.
1. What does this text tell you about the character of God?
2. What does it say about God’s nature?
3. Where do you see God’s love at work in the midst of these verses?
4. What section or verses in the text speak most personally to you?
The text begins with a call to “fix your thoughts on Jesus.” Read and reflect on Hebrews 3.1 and answer the following questions:
5. The text calls us “holy” and ones who “share in the heavenly calling.” How do these truths influence the way you think about yourself, about God, and about others?
6. Where do you start in fixing your thoughts on Jesus?
7. When you fix your thoughts on Jesus, what do you think about?
8. Where do your thoughts take you?
Read and reflect on verses 2-6 and answer the following question:
9. Why is this focus on Jesus being greater than Moses important to Jewish readers?
Read and reflect on verses 7-11, 14-15 and answer the following questions:
10. Why does the writer of Hebrews include this portion of Psalm 95?
11. In your own words define a hardened heart.
12. How does this passage encourage you?
Read and reflect on verse 12-13 and answer the following questions:
13. How what is the connection between encouragement and fixing our thoughts on Jesus?
14. What is the communal significance of these verses?
15. Why does the author stress the importance of “Today”?
Read and reflect on the definition of encouragement from J.D. Walt
To “encourage” in the biblical sense of the term, is to stand in the stead and agency of Jesus, participating in the work of the Holy Spirit, to minister grace to human beings at the level of their inner person, communicating, conveying, and imparting life, love, courage, comfort, consolation, joy, peace, hope, faith, and other dispensations and manifestations of the Kingdom of Heaven as the moment invites or requires.
16. How do this truth resonate with you today?
17. How does it call you forth?
18. Describe the last time when you were encouraged by a friend?
19. How are you gifted and called to encourage others?
20. What is the mutual benefit of encouragement?
21. Today, where do you need courage?
22. Where do you need courage to fix your thoughts on Jesus?
Spend some time encouraging one another, giving God praise His encouragement expressed through His people.
