Encourage #4

I once heard a child excitedly asking her mum, and probably not for the first time either, if it was her birthday had finally arrived saying, “Is it tomorrow yet?” She clearly couldn’t wait [or understand that ‘tomorrow’ will never be ‘today’].
Well, it’s not Tomorrow; today is Today.

“Encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.” (Heb 3:13 NIV)

There is a real need for us to encourage each other, because as we encourage each other we can defend one another against ‘sin’s deceitfulness’. Now, when I say ‘encourage’ I mean positively speaking God’s word into each other lives. Telling someone they look nice doesn’t encourage us, it only makes us big headed or vain.

We can encourage each other by saying what impact they have had on us and what God has developed in us through them. Or we can encourage them by noticing what they are doing for God and reminding them of the impact it has [because we don’t always notice this ourselves]. You will always know when you have been encouraged because you feel full of life and you know that what you are doing is not in vain!

Encourage someone today. Your word is enough to breathe life into a ministry or a situation which you may never find yourself in, but perhaps you are there to breathe the encouragement of God into it.

-Andrew Carey