Reminded this morning that there is a world of difference between being a spectator and being a participant. Between simply watching something and wholly sharing in it. Between the act of receiving a gift and the activity of engaging with that gift. Between “asking Jesus into our hearts” and actually partaking of Jesus with our whole lives. Yeah, there’s a difference — a big difference. A difference we are to attend to.

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away 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. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

(Hebrews 3:12-15 ESV)

The complexities of the book of Hebrews aside, I just don’t think you’re going to go wrong giving heed to exhortations to the “brethren” (3:12 NKJV). The author of Hebrews is contending not just for the faith but also for the “faithful” — wanting all those who have “tasted the heavenly gift” (Heb. 6:4) to continue to feast on that heavenly gift.

So, to read and receive “take care” is a good word for me to consider this morning. To intentionally beware of any tendencies towards an “unbelieving heart” is prudent advice. To “exhort one another daily” to keep on keepin’ on is just smart thinking for the family of God. To hear afresh that I must resist the callousness caused by the “deceitfulness of sin” and repent at the first sign of a hardening heart evidenced by rebellion is needful. Because I know that every day I awake, it is to a fresh battle between the new man and the old (Gal. 5:16-17).

But beyond the sound counsel, it’s the reminder of an amazing truth that grabs me this morning and fills my soul with fresh awe and wonder. For we have come to share in Christ . . .

There’s a number of ways we might describe ourselves as believers, but how often do we refer to ourselves as those who have come to share in Christ? Or, as rendered in other translations, as “partakers of Christ” (NASB, NKJV)? As “participants in Christ” (CSB)? As “participators of Messiah” (WNT)? Not too often. But chew on it a bit . . .

Brethren! Sister-en! We are sharers in Christ! Partakers and participants of Jesus. Participators in all that the Son of God is (2Peter 1:4) and in all that the King of Kings is about (Hebrews 3:1). We are not lone wolves trying to gut out a righteous way of life, but we are “more than conquerors” through Him who loved us because nothing is able “to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:37-30). In Christ Jesus . . . did you see that? Did you catch that? How big is that? Pretty big! We are in Christ. We are partakers of Christ as we’ve come to be sharers in Christ. And nothing can separate us from that sharing dynamic.

Not mere spectators, but active participants. Not just receivers of a gift, but those who get to interact with that gift through His indwelling Spirit. Encounters of the divine kind being our normative state because “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20).

Sharers in Christ. Partaking of Him and participants in Him. That’s what awaits this day.

Bring it on!

By His grace. For His glory.