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Jesus wants to encourage his church, and he wants the church to encourage the church too – ‘mutual encouragement’ (Romans 1:12)!
The word ‘encourage’ (encourages, encouragement) occurs 39 times in the New Testament alone. Not all are positive, but the vast majority are. It is a word that ‘does what it says on the tin’ – you tell someone that you want to encourage them, and without any further detail, they feel encouraged! But we can be so much more specific than that:
- We can prophesy
- We can teach or share scripture
- We can share testimonies
- We can share our faith
- We can share the good news from our lives
- We can pray for one another
- And, we can simply be an encourager! (Some simply have a gift for this Romans 12:8)
We should encourage one another frequently; there’s no law against this. Nobody ever died of an overdose of encouragement. In fact, the Bible recommends a daily dose as a good baseline: ‘But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today”…’ Hebrews 3:13.
Reflect
Whom should we be encouraging?
- Those who are in leadership (Deuteronomy 1:38; 3:28)
- Those serving (2 Chronicles 35:2)
- Those afflicted or disheartened (Psalm 10:17; 1 Thessalonians 5:14)
- Everyone! (Acts 11:23, 15:32, 16:40; 1 Thessalonians 3:2)
And who should be doing the encouragement?
- Everyone! (Romans 1:12; 1 Corinthians 14:31; 2 Corinthians 13:11; 1 Thessalonians 4:18, 5:11; Hebrews 3:13)
Go Deeper
Even more encouraging than this… let’s not forget that God is encouraging us directly (Psalm 10:17; Acts 9:31; Romans 15:5; 2 Thessalonians 2:16). In our day-to-day life, Jesus personally is cheering you on and wanting you to thrive in all you do!
Either on your own or with people you trust, take some time to think about these questions:
- If Jesus were sitting with you today, what do you think he would want to encourage you about? Why not ask Him?
- Why do you think God chooses to encourage us instead of simply commanding us to keep going?
- Take a few moments to thank God for specific ways he has encouraged you in the past, and ask him to make you more aware of his encouragement in the week ahead.
One Final Piece of Encouragement
After our gathering, where Richard shared that he thought we were heading into a new season, rather encouragingly, John Fermer sent this to affirm what Richard shared…
“On Sunday, Richard made the point that we are approaching a new season… This set me thinking, because I had found myself thinking the same the day before. Fran and I like walking in the countryside and seeing the wildlife around us. Some may even call it birdwatching… So, come with me, on a stroll through Nerdsville. At the weekend, we were out in glorious sunshine, shorts and sandals, picking our way through our beautiful countryside, enjoying the weather, the scenery and the wildlife. All in all, a perfect summer’s day. The first thing we noticed were the hundreds of ducks, feeding energetically on the water. ‘Mm’, we thought, their numbers seem to have picked up a bit! Eventually we came to an area where we could sit and eat our picnic while enjoying the view over the water. There were a lot of ducks here too, but nothing unusual. Then I spotted a green sandpiper feeding in the mud at the side of the lake. This is a bird that breeds in the Arctic, and passes through our country on migration to its winter habitat in southern Europe. I pointed it out to Fran, but by then there were two. Then three, five, seven. I wondered how I had missed them the first time I’d looked. Then I realised; they hadn’t been there. They had literally arrived as we were looking. They knew there was a new season coming. They were responding to something that we couldn’t see or understand. They were responding to the coming of a new season.”
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