Encouragement

[Overjoyed]

Read some pearls of wisdom for Christians

20 Inspiring and Encouraging Bible Verses - Jesus Film Project

We all need encouragement. We all go through struggles and find ourselves in situations where we just need to be inspired and uplifted. And Scripture is full

www.jesusfilm.org

 

[Wilber]

Encouragement is always good. it would be great if we could all encourage each other in this thread.

I know words carry a lot of meaning. And from time to time, we all need encouragement and guidance to help us get through difficult situations or feelings of hopelessness. On top of that, we need reminders to stay focused on what is important in life to give us a proper perspective. Luckily, we can get wise counsel in several ways. One way to seek help and guidance is through prayer, the Bible and the inspired words of pastors and teachers and from each other "iron sharpening iron". The wisdom that they provide is what gives us the strength that we need on our daily walk.

 

[Bubba]

What does the Bible say about we're being encouraged by a great crowd in heaven? Found it.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us” (Hebrews 12:1 NLT).

Heaven Is Cheering You On - Pastor Rick's Daily Hope

Home field advantage can mean everything in sports. Teams who play at “home” often have a far better record than those on the road. When a team has someone cheering them on, they can often … Continue reading Heaven Is Cheering You On

pastorrick.com

 

[Overjoyed]

Encouragement is what the world needs now more than ever.

Do you hear it? Listen carefully. Now do you hear it? No? Okay, then turn on your television—any channel will do. Now do you hear it? Still no? Well, it’s there all right, but you might have missed it. Go to your front door and open it wide. Listen to the sounds in the streets. Did you hear it? Believe me, it is there!

This time close your door, turn off the television, and listen to the sounds in your own home. Do you hear it? To be certain, listen to your own heart. You hear that? Of course you do. It’s unmistakable, coming through loud and clear: “I WANT TO BE LOVED.” But wait, there’s more. Listen closer: “AND I WANT TO LOVE.”


A WORLD’S CRY

If you tune in to this world of made-in-the-image-of-God people, you will hear a cry to be loved and to love. These are two of man’s most basic desires. We are shaped by those who love us or refuse to love us, and by those whom we love or refuse to love. Love is crucial! This is no news to God—He created us for love. And Jesus said our love for God and for our neighbor is the fulfillment of all the law of God.

The world cries out for genuine love, love which heals, unites, and encourages. Dr. Karl Menninger, famed American psychiatrist, found that people who are able to give and receive love recover more quickly from their illnesses. In contrast, individuals who lack love often develop personality scars and some even die. Love is essential to our emotional, physical, mental, and social well-being.

In his best-selling book, Games People Play, Dr. Eric Berne discussed the tremendous human need for encouragement, by word and by touch, to keep their spinal cords from shriveling-–to keep them alive, eager, and confident. His book highlights the variety of games people devise to win this sort of healing attention.

Historian John P. Koster documents some experiments that demonstrated the severe impact on a child who feels unwanted:

It’s a well-known fact that children who receive an inadequate amount of love from their parents either die in infancy or grow up to be mentally and spiritually stunted adults. Stories about the absence of love are frequently found in literature beginning in the earliest days of history. In Herodotus, a Greek historian who wrote about 400 B.C., we find a narrative concerning Croesus, a fabulously rich king of Lydia, who performed an experiment in which he hoped to find out what the world’s oldest language was.

Croesus rounded up some unwanted babies, isolated them from all human contact, and had them suckled by female sheep until they learned to talk so that he could hear what language first came out of their mouths. According to Herodotus, though the children failed to thrive, they did survive, and they first uttered the word bekos. The king’s courtiers couldn’t agree whether this was an actual word or an imitation of the sheep.

More than a thousand years later, according to a papal historian, the strange and mysterious German Emperor Frederick II decided to carry out the same experiment, but this time the infants all died before they were old enough to speak because they had been deprived of human affection expressed through the stroking and cooing of their nurses.


David Jeremiah, The Power of Encouragement

 

[Overjoyed]

Still into Encouragement



FOUR LOVES EXPLAINED

Bartlett’s Book of Quotations catalogs approximately thirteen hundred interpretations of the meaning of love as penned by poets, philosophers, and authors. Consider the many ways we use this word in everyday conversations.

I can remember hearing my children say, “I just love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.” Sometimes when a gift is appreciated, a person might respond, “I just love this new sweater.” Mothers often coo, “I love you, sweet baby,” to their newborn children. And when I’m away from home, I never end a telephone conversation with my wife without saying, “I love you!”

The English language uses the same word to describe our affection for peanut butter, sweaters, babies, and spouses. The word love means different things to different people. Fortunately, in the Greek language of the New Testament and the first-century world, four different words were used to describe four kinds of love.

Stergo (natural affection): This is the innate love we have for those in our families. “I love you because you are my sister.”
Eros (self-serving passion): The word eros is not used in the Bible, but the concept is taught in books such as Song of Solomon. We get our word “erotic” from this Greek word. It’s love for the sole purpose of sexual satisfaction. “I love you because you give me pleasure. If you stop giving me pleasure, I stop loving you.”

Phileo (friendship): This is psychological, social love. It is often translated by the word “friend” in the Bible (see John 15:13–14). It speaks of the enjoyment we gain from another’s company. “I like you because you are my friend and because of some of your qualities. This is a 50/50 relationship, you understand. If you don’t give in return, or if there is much conflict, our relationship will end.”

Agapé (giving of one’s self): This is totally selfless love, a love which comes from and is rooted in God. Agapé is the power that moves us to respond to someone’s needs with no expectation of reward. The fundamental attribute of agapé is sacrifice. So it’s not 50/50, it’s 100/0. “I’m going to give 100 percent even if I never receive anything in return. I will sacrifice even myself for you. I just want what’s best for you.”


David Jeremiah, The Power of Encouragement

 

[Overjoyed]

EXALTED LOVE

Agapé is a love which comes from a God who is love. It is love lavished upon others without a thought of whether they are worthy to receive it. It is this kind of love that is to characterize the Christian.


Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit (1 John 4:11–13).


At least fifty-five times in the New Testament we are commanded to love. It is one of Scripture’s most repeated, inescapable directives for the believer. It touches us in all of our relationships and affects us in each of the many roles we play—as parents, spouses, children, friends, and fellow believers. It even defines the way we are to respond to our enemies (see Matthew 5:43–44). Christ provided the crowning example of this when from the cross He prayed for those who were abusing Him. And Romans 5:8–10 tells us He died for us even when we were yet His enemies.

Believers are to follow the way of love (1 Corinthians 14:1), to do everything in love (1 Corinthians 16:14), to serve one another in love (Ephesians 4:2), to live a life of love (Ephesians 5:2), to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15), to put on love (Colossians 3:12–14), to pursue love (2 Timothy 2:22), to spur one another on to love (Hebrews 10:24), and to love not only in words but in actions and truth (1 John 3:18).

We are to be controlled by the Holy Spirit and to bear the fruit of the Spirit which is love (Galatians 5:22). And God is concerned that we grow and mature in this love. Three times in Paul’s epistles and once in Peter’s writings we are told to continue to grow in love.


David Jeremiah, The Power of Encouragement

 

[Overjoyed]

LOVE: FACT OR FEELING?

Some may argue, “But love is a feeling and you cannot command a feeling. I just don’t feel anything for him/her anymore.” But agapé love is not primarily a feeling. God would not command a feeling. Love is primarily an action. Love is the giving of oneself to another. It’s a skill one can develop in the strength of God’s Spirit. “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). In other words, love insists we do something. Feelings for enemies are not developed by sitting in a dark room thinking, but by doing. Feelings follow action. Feelings are the fruit, not the root, of love.

If you give your enemy something to eat or drink, something happens to your feelings. When you invest yourself in someone, you begin to feel differently toward him or her. In his book, None of These Diseases, Dr. S. I. McMillen described how this works:

When I quote the Bible to people who are suffering physically or mentally from a lack of love, some of them retort that it is very difficult to change one’s feelings, to change hate to love. That is true. Psychologists support this view, claiming that the will does not have complete control over the emotions. However, these same psychologists state that the will has good control over the actions. Our wills largely do have the power to decide what we do and what we don’t do. This is fortunate because actions, over which we do have power, can change our feelings. That’s what Matthew 5:43–44 is all about. The action plan will work like Aladdin’s lamp.

“Do good to them that hate you.” Impossible? Not if you follow some easy directions.
Step #1: Walk out into your kitchen. Now you can do that. You have done it many times and you can walk there again.
Step #2: Make up a lemon meringue pie as delicious as one on a magazine cover…you have made your pie. So far so good! By that time you will feel a little better.

Step #3: Give your feet the sternest look they ever got, and inform them in a tone of authority, “Feet, you are going to carry me and this pie to Mrs. Quirks. Yes, I know you haven’t been there in many a year, but you are going today.”

Off you go. As you begin your adventure to seek the golden fleece of love, you feel strangely different. You feel warm, behind and a little to the left of your wishbone. You sense something wonderful is happening inside. Across the railroad tracks you go and down the dingy alley called Depot Street. You begin to understand Mrs. Quirks’ attitude a little better as a noisy freight train passes, shaking houses and sidewalks, and the black soot soils your immaculate white gloves, and while dirty, boisterous children send shivers up your spine with shrieks and cursing. “Yes,” you say, “if I had to live here, I think I would be irritable too.”
As you go up the stairs, you cannot help smiling at the new role you are playing. You rap on the door and wait. To Mrs. Quirks’ truly surprised look, you present your peace offering with a nice smile you decide to throw in for good measure.

A little chat in the living room, a cordial invitation for her to visit you, then on leaving, a mutual hug and kiss—the fervor and spontaneity of it surprises both of you. You sense that a divine miracle has happened inside you because the love of God is truly coursing through your whole being. The impossible has happened!

On the way home you feel like skipping along the street, as you did when you were a carefree girl. Inside is the spirit of singing and summer, absent for many a year. You feel so good you decide not to stop at the doctor’s to take that “shot” for frayed nerves. They aren’t frayed anymore. You never felt better in your life. Even the pain in your back is gone.

He drew a circle that shut me out!
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win.
We drew a circle that took him in.

What our world needs most is to see love in action—in our homes, in our churches, in our cities, in our streets. How can this happen? The solution is found in God’s Word: “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given unto us” (Romans 5:5).

“I WANT TO BE LOVED…AND I WANT TO LOVE.” God hears these cries, and He wants to love this world through us by His Spirit. But remember, love demands action and we must take those first steps. We must put ourselves in situations where God can love through us. This book is dedicated to learning about one very practical, very powerful way to reach out to others with God’s love.

Love this world through me, Lord
This world of broken men,
Thou didst love through death, Lord
Oh, love in me again!
Souls are in despair, Lord,
Oh, make me know and care
When my life they see,
May they behold Thee.
Oh, love the world through me.

David Jeremiah, The Power of Encouragement

 

[Overjoyed]

LOVE IN ACTION

The world today is reeling from disillusionment. Hordes of people are seeking answers—but precious few are finding them.
The world has no answers that satisfy (or even make sense) to people facing the kinds of tragedies we see all around us.

The good news is that we who know God and His Son, Jesus Christ, needn’t remain in hopelessness and despair. There is an answer—and His name is Jesus. That’s not trite, theological church-talk. It’s true.

Do you want to give hope to those around you? There’s only one certain way and one sure source: Give them Jesus.


David Jeremiah, The Power of Encouragement

 

[Overjoyed]

EVERYBODY IS A SOMEBODY

Several years ago, the president of a Christian conference and cruise company called me with an invitation I couldn’t refuse. “We’re taking a cruise to the Caribbean and we’re taking some bookstore owners,” he said to me. “We thought at the last minute we ought to take a Bible teacher as well. Your wife can go! Won’t cost you a thing. Can you do it?”
I called home and told my wife about the offer. I’ll never forget her response: “If you didn’t say yes, don’t come home.”
We went.

The ship was one of the largest cruise ships afloat. In the very center of the ship was a theater which seated five hundred people. The second night of the cruise, we attended a very professional, full-cast presentation of My Fair Lady. You may remember that this musical concerns the speaking of the English language. In the story, Professor Henry Higgins makes a wager with Colonel Pickering that he can take Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl, and change her patterns of speech so she could pass as European royalty. With Eliza boarding in the Higgins’ home, the professor teaches and rehearses her for weeks until he has the confidence to put her to the test. He finally escorts her to a glittering event where she is completely accepted as royalty. She fools everyone.

But the story isn’t over. Returning from the function, Higgins and Pickering relax in the living room and excitedly congratulate themselves on their tremendous accomplishment. All during this, Eliza stands in the shadows, watching them and listening to their boasts. Nobody pays any attention to her and she grows upset.

Finally Pickering leaves and Higgins says to Eliza, “Would you bring me my slippers?” But instead of bringing the slippers, Eliza gives him a piece of her mind. She tells him how angry she is and how badly they have treated her. She reminds him of how hard she has worked. But that isn’t what really bothers her. She reverts to her Cockney accent and exclaims, “I will not be passed over!”

“You learn to speak by
speaking, to study by
studying,
to run by running,
to work by working,
and just so,
you learn to love God
and man by loving.”
SAINT FRANCIS OF SALES

David Jeremiah, The Power of Encouragement

 

[Overjoyed]

Encouragement is the urgent need of our day.

People often say we shouldn’t be overly disturbed by the problems in our generation—we’re just having the same old problems every generation has had. I used to believe that. I can remember expressing that theory to others: “Don’t get so overwhelmed by your problems. They’re not any different from the problems your parents had.” Now, I know better.

The problems of this generation are far more complex than those of previous periods of history. Things people only toyed with in past generations have become epidemic today: Crime and prison crises, drug abuse crises, national debt crises, health care systems/Medicare crises, sexually transmitted disease crises (including AIDS), adolescent suicide crises, liability and litigation crises, ethics crises, and on and on the list goes.3 These critical problems no longer grow a little bit each year; in the last decade, they have grown exponentially. And no one seems to have any real solutions! Listen carefully to the speeches from Washington: “We’re going to fix problems A, B, and C.” But we know that when these problems are fixed, a new group of new problems (problems X, Y, and Z) will be created.
Social critic Jeremy Rifkin complains:

Each day we awake to a world that appears more confused and disordered than the one we left the night before. Every time we think we’ve found a way out of a crisis, something backfires. The powers that be continue to address the problems at hand with solutions that create even greater problems than the ones they were meant to solve.


Dr. Richard Swenson recalls one night when the fear and hopelessness of this generation became clearer to him:

A few years ago, I attended a late-night delivery by a very young-looking twenty-two-year-old mother. As I was the faculty member “on call” and was simply assisting the resident with the case, I had not met the family before.

This was Brenda’s first baby. She was acting bravely despite her obvious discomfort. An occasional cry escaped as the contraction peaked. Then she would close her eyes in exhaustion and await the next wave of pain.

The nurse who both coached and comforted Brenda would occasionally glance over to the window ledge where the husband sat watching television. Brenda had a long second stage of labor, and we were in the room for over two hours. But I never heard him utter a sound.

The resident and nurse were doing most of the work with the patient, so I just stood back and watched. Then I leaned against the wall and watched. Then I sat down and watched. I was tired. But despite my tiredness, I was also fascinated by the increasingly bizarre social event that was unfolding in the room.
It was around midnight. Brenda’s labor happened to coincide with the end of one slasher-type movie and the beginning of another. The final hour of the first movie was filled with violence. I counted at least ten different extended sequences of knifings, bloody machine gun fights, and exploding cars and boats.

The nurse and I looked at each other and rolled our eyes in disgust. Should I use my authority to demand that the set be turned off? I thought about it for a while and then decided the husband might pull out his own submachine gun and blow me away. Anyway, the first movie was mercifully wrapping up, body bags all over the place.

By this time, the baby’s head was crowning. Brenda was still fairly well controlled, but her cries were getting louder and lasting longer. Another ten minutes, I figured.

Still no response from the husband, who was settling in for the beginning of the next movie. On the television screen, a mother, father, and small child were strolling down a big-city street when they stopped to watch a clown act. Suddenly, one of the clowns grabbed the little boy by the hand and took off running across the street. With the boy yelling “Daddy, Daddy!” the clown leaped into the back of a waiting van, the father in pursuit. Just as the vehicle started to pull away, the father tore open the back door. The clown inside shot the father pointblank in the face. Blood was everywhere.
Just then—exactly then—Brenda screamed and the baby was born.
Go back inside, little one, I thought. You really don’t know what kind of world awaits you.


It’s not hard for us to identify with Dr. Swenson. If you still have small children at home, you cannot help but look at what is happening in our world and wonder what the next two decades will bring. One thing’s for sure: Our kids are going to need a great deal of encouragement. In fact, there has never been a time when the ministry of encouragement has been more crucial for the Christian family. Later on in this book we will devote entire chapters to the encouragement of our children and spouses.

I wear many hats as a parent, as all parents do. I am a provider, a leader, a disciplinarian when necessary. But I believe my greatest responsibility is as a cheerleader. More than anything else, kids today need the supportive love, encouragement, and cheering-on of their parents. James Dobson, the family expert who spent years studying problems of adolescent behavior, once said in my presence, “Here’s the distilled wisdom of all my research. Here is what you need to do if you have adolescents: Just get them through it.” Just get them through it! Hang in there with them until the whitewater rapids of the teenage years are left behind.

Encouragement is an urgent need of our day. A church which does not equip its people as encouragers will soon phase out of any meaningful ministry in its community. God help us to learn how to be encouragers!


David Jeremiah, The Power of Encouragement

 

[Overjoyed]

It is the unique priority of our God

In the New Testament, each member of the triune God (God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit) places a priority on encouragement.

Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “Blessed be the God,…the Father of mercies [encouragement]” (2 Corinthians 1:3). Here Paul used the word paraklesis.

In one of his letters to the Thessalonians, Paul reminded his readers that Jesus Christ is also, at the very core of His ministry, an encourager (2 Thessalonians 2:16–17).

And what can we say about the Holy Spirit? “Encourager” is one of His names! The King James Bible says of the Holy Spirit (in John 14 and 16), “However when He the Comforter is come.…” The title “Comforter” translates the word paraklete which means “to encourage.” When we encourage people, we live out the ministry of the third Person of the Trinity. He is the Encourager.

God the Father encourages. God the Son encourages. God the Holy Spirit encourages. We need to be encouragers because encouragement is one of the primary ministries—in fact, it’s a priority—of our triune God.


David Jeremiah, The Power of Encouragement