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Encouragement and God’s Love – VOTD.05.08.2018

Posted in Verse of the Day | May 8th, 2018 | by

Last time we looked at 1 Corinthians 8:1.” Knowledge [alone] makes [people self-righteously] arrogant, but love [that unselfishly seeks the best for others] builds up and encourages others.” It is a verse directed toward those whose have their facts right but hearts wrong. Here Paul addresses the Bible-brilliant-but-people-passive…the well-taught-but-self-absorbed…the knowledgeable-but-unloving.

We might think hard about the Scriptures, but we miss the point about people if we miss the ‘love, building up and encouraging others’ part. Eagerness to learn more about God is good…Zeal to learn more about God’s Word is good, and it’s often an important stage in a new believer’s development in their love for God. It’s all good. But the problem comes when we cloister with those we agree with and don’t love people…don’t have a passion for the people God has a passion for.

We don’t have to go to the other side of the world to do that; or even the other side of town. Some of us don’t even need to go to the other side of the church we attend or the other side of the house we live in. Paul knew the Scriptures better than any of us…he wrote a lot of them. And his conclusion is that knowledge comes with the danger of enabling a self-righteous spirit within us that manifests itself in arrogance. When that happens it creates an environment of elitism. It creates a pecking order. It creates an ‘us and them’ mentality.

Consider for a moment Jesus’ story about the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:10-13). One had a life saturated in all the teachings of God. That man knew the Scriptures and could recite astounding quantities of the written Word of God…He was approved of and by those who also knew the Word exceptionally well. He was on the team. He was a celebrity by the values and popularity measurements of his day. But he missed the point. His self-absorption and lack of love was palpable.

When we enable that kind of lifestyle for ourselves we become increasingly secluded. Our only friend increasingly ends up being ourselves. Because self-love is all that is left—and that’s at odds with “God is Love” (1 Jn 4:8). But do we think of Him as love? Do we know Him as Love? (more…)

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Encouragement and Our Unfathomable God – VOTD.05.07.18

Posted in Verse of the Day | May 7th, 2018 | by

Knowledge [alone] makes [people self-righteously] arrogant, but love [that unselfishly seeks the best for others] builds up and encourages others  1 Corinthians 8:1

One of the shifts in the way the Christian faith is being lived out today compared to 30, 50, or 100 years ago is that people have become less and less interested in explanations about God and more interested in experiencing His nature in their own lives. This comes from a Barna Research Group study of thousands of Americans from all walks of life.

Not that explanations about God is a bad thing, but that without love, it is nothing, zilch, nadda (1 Cor 13:2). God has been being explained for centuries and often today’s verse just gets proven all over again…Knowledge alone makes people self-righteously arrogant. Love, on the other hand, encourages people.

Despite millennia of study attempting to define God academically, many people—many Christians meticulously educated in prominent Bible schools and seminaries—have underdeveloped or distorted views of God. They see Him through lenses, shaped and clouded by a lack of love… lenses that have not accurately reflected His kindness and His goodness… His care.

But this has changed significantly in the past 10-15 years. George Barna, whose firm conducted the study mentioned earlier, pointed out that this is not mere speculation—something we’ll see in the near future—but that this spiritual makeover is already taking place.

A few interesting (to me) findings:
71% say they are “more likely to develop my religious beliefs on my own, rather than to accept an entire set of beliefs that a particular church teaches.” Levels of distrust toward churches, church leaders, and organized Christianity have been growing over the past two decades.  (more…)

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Encouragement is Rest, Not Optimism – VOTD.05.01.18

Posted in Verse of the Day | May 1st, 2018 | by

They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling out to each other: “We played happy music on the pipe for you, and you did not dance; we sang a funeral dirge, and you did not cry.” Matthew 11:17

One of the things we need to understand if we are to be an encourager in God’s Kingdom is that being an encourager is not the same thing as being an optimist. An optimist denies the reality of problems in order to feel better. It turns out, however, that optimism doesn’t equip us very well for facing stresses. Studies show that when facing persistent stresses, optimists suffered a lower immune response than the rest of us (even pessimists). In other words, optimism takes a toll on our health because our bodies aren’t designed to live in unreality.

Being an encourager is very different. When we are in partnership with Jesus as an encourager we aren’t denying the reality of problems in order to feel better, we’re trusting in Jesus our overcomer and facing the problems with the confidence that He is at work and we are working with Him in His plan to do exceedingly abundantly more than we ask or think (Eph 3:2). He invites us to live without fear, frenzy, worry, and panic. Jesus is the one who invites us to, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest” (Matt 11:28).

This rest Jesus speaks of is our greatest weapon against all unconstructiveness, discouragement, and disapproval in our lives. In fact, without Jesus’ rest, we really can’t do the encouragement thing very well or for very long. When we rest in Jesus, instead of reacting to the people and events around us we are trusting Him.

Will we still want to be a pleasing aroma to the people around us and light in the dark events around us? Of course. But the sting isn’t there when those people can’t be pleased and when our light fails to adequately dispel the darkness. The sting is gone because our identity isn’t in living up to those people’s approval or success in ministry—it’s in Jesus, and He approves us. 

We can live a life where we never need to react to the fiery darts because we are always responding to Jesus. When we respond to Him and His rest, there is no room for the unconstructiveness, discouragement, and disapproval that the enemy uses to make us feel inadequate and a failure…it shields us from the flaming darts that the enemy’s minions use to control us.

That way, whenever we experience these undesirable attitudes and circumstances through the people and life events around us, it is an opportunity to be led by the Spirit and to intentionally occupy that rest—to literally seize the place that Jesus has set aside for us—to “make every effort to enter that rest” (Heb 4:11). And through these situations we learn to occupy our place in the Spirit through the daily situations we face.

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Encouragement and Rest – VOTD.04.30.18

Posted in Verse of the Day | April 30th, 2018 | by

Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following the same pattern of disobedience. Hebrews 4:11

Rest is the tangible expression of Jesus’s intangible presence in our lives. Being a storehouse of His encouragement is the definitive consequence of Jesus in our lives. It is from that storehouse that we share Jesus’ encouragement with the people and situations around us. So that instead of putting on a false cheer, we actually have a peace and encouragement that overcomes the discouragement (un-encouragement) in the world around us.

We’ve been talking for the past few weeks about being an encourager—which the Bible calls us to be. It’s part of walking in the fullness of all that is life in Jesus. It’s an important ingredient in abundant living. And for most of us it takes effort because this fight is not with a conventional enemy; it’s opposing the force of discouragement that hounds us from all directions.

This negative force shows up in our lives in all shapes and forms: Unconstructiveness, discouragement, and disapproval. So it’s a matter of the heart and from there comes our demeanor—our attitudes and the atmosphere around us. And our words—emotions and thoughts lead to words and actions. (more…)

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What does the Bible Mean? Encourage One Another (pt 4) – VOTD.04.24.18

Posted in Verse of the Day | April 24th, 2018 | by

“For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-18)

Paul taught that we should be encouraging each other with the promise of Jesus’ return. Importantly, he didn’t suggest we encourage each other with theories and minute details or timetable of Jesus’ return. Just that He’s coming back and we’re going to be with Him forever. This is a comfort and encouragement to those who have lost loved ones as well as anyone who’s “getting up there in age”. It’s also encouraging perspective for those who are facing trials and disappointments.

Whether He returns in our lifetime or not, Jesus’ return is promised… it’s going to happen. Probably not the way we’re expecting (after all, Jesus’ first coming to earth was unlike what even the most learned of that day expected). But He’s coming back. This encourages us to keep going, to hope in times of tribulation, to run the race when perseverance is needed (Heb 12:1).

It also encourages us to be ready for Jesus who is coming back. I’m reminded of Jesus’ parable of the ten young ladies (Matt 25:1ff), five of whom were ready with an extra measure of oil and five who had either not expected so long a wait or had not cared whether they had their lamps burning at all.

We will be caught up to be with him, or, if we die before he comes, we will be raised up from the dead to meet him in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. If we had even an inkling of what that means (and the Bible gives us more than an inkling), we’d be totally encouraged.

At different times in Christian history there has been a lot of focus on the teaching of the Jesus’ return. Sometimes the teachings have been taken to excess. Others have taught conjecture as fact. Despite Jesus’ clearly words that no one will know the exact time and date of His return (Acts 1:7) it is not uncommon for some teachers to actually give dates and times. (more…)

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What does the Bible Mean? Encourage One Another (pt 3) – VOTD.04.23.18

Posted in Verse of the Day | April 23rd, 2018 | by

For you know that we affectionally treated each of you like a loving father cares for his own children: We encouraged you by comforting and challenging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory. 1 Thessalonians 2:11-12

What did Paul mean when he said, “Encourage one another and build each other up” (1 Thes 5:1)? We’ve been looking at the context of this well-known verse and found three things so far:

1. Encouragement is based, first of all, on Jesus and the good news of knowing Him.
2. Encouragement begins by identifying the work of God in one another’s lives.
3. Encouragement begins by being genuine—looking for how God is working in someone’s life and pointing it out.

So now we come to the next way Paul speaks of encouraging each other.

4. Encouragement begins by encouraging one another to walk in a manner worthy of God. What is a life worthy of God? One of the conversations we need to have with one another is to encourage each another to do what Jesus did in every situation: He did what He saw His Father doing and spoke what He heard His Father saying.

God calls us to make progress… to “grow and increase in God’s grace and intimacy with our Lord” (2 Pet 3;18). If that’s not happening, then we’ll only find thrills, passion and amusement in things outside of Jesus. And our weakness when it comes to sin will continue unabated.

The problem with finding our passions outside of Jesus is that it will be counterfeit; it won’t sustain us when the chips are down. God-given joy sustains, amusement does not. I met a woman the other day whose passion is roller coasters. She travels all over the world visiting amusement parks and riding on their roller coasters. (more…)

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What does the Bible Mean? Encourage One Another (pt 2) – VOTD.04.17.18

Posted in Verse of the Day | April 17th, 2018 | by

May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 15:5-6

When we think of God’s and holiness (His perfection and sinlessness), we can find it hard to believe that God would have anything to say to us but criticism and scolding. But as we saw last time, God is the God of encouragement. When Jesus promised that He would send another comforter, the Holy Spirit, the word he used was someone who comes alongside of us– an encourager.

And the God of encouragement wants to use each of us as His representatives of encouragement to those we come in contact with…to be in each other’s lives, to strengthen one another to keep going, keep believing, keep depending on Jesus, to finish the course God has set before us, to live out His plan for our lives.

So, how do we encourage one another? How do we make encouragement happen? What do we say? There are 3 building blocks about encouraging we can learn from Paul in the context of “Encourage one another and build each other up” (1 Thes 5:1).

1. All our encouragement is built on one unshakable foundation: Jesus rescued us (vv 9-11). Our encouragement can never be separated from Jesus, because if it weren’t for Jesus, our lives would be nothing but a collision course. If death just means ‘The End’ as secularism teaches—if death meant that God’s wrath was what awaits us as religion teaches— then any encouragement would be meaningless platitudes with no real power behind it.

Paul says, “THEREFORE encourage each other” because God has not destined us for ‘The End’ and he hasn’t saved us just to face His future wrath. He saved us to go to the place Jesus has prepared for us, where we’ll be with Him for all eternity (Jn 14:1-4). There is no greater encouragement possible. Encouragement is built on this Good News foundation.  (more…)

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What does the Bible Mean? Encourage One Another (pt 1) – VOTD.04.16.18

Posted in Verse of the Day | April 16th, 2018 | by

Encourage the hearts of your fellow believers and support one another, just as you have already been doing. 1 Thessalonians 5:11

If we’re going to understand what the Bible means when it tells us to encourage each other, it would be good to do away with a few wrong ideas first. Too often in Christian circles “encouragement” is misused to the point that it isn’t even trusted. So, first of all, it doesn’t mean that we are to flatter one another or speak untruthfully.

Flattery is excessive or insincere praise. Often, flattery is saying nice things to people in order to get something from them. Flattery might look like encouragement but it isn’t. We need to learn to encourage without falling into the trap of praising people in order to win their approval or control their decisions or their lives, or to make them like us, or to manipulate them to do things we want them to do. So encouraging one another doesn’t mean flattering one another.

Likewise encouragement doesn’t mean quoting motivational platitudes to one another. There’s a billion dollar industry producing motivational products. But if a pretty poster with a cute saying is all it took to encourage one another then we’d be pretty shallow people. Biblical encouragement is much deeper and much stronger (and much more honest) than that.

So what is biblical encouragement? There are two Greek words used in today’s verse for encouragement. The first (parakaleo) means to call from alongside. The second (paramutheomai) means to give counsel from alongside. Notice that encouragement has this sense of coming along side of…it means coming close to someone’s life, their struggles, their story. Encouragement isn’t distant, it’s close: it’s the voice that says, I relate, I understand, I care. So encouragement has different voices because what people will need to hear is different in different seasons and different situations. (more…)

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Affirming One Another – VOTD.04.10.18

Posted in Verse of the Day | April 10th, 2018 | by

Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. 1 Thessalonians 5:11

Last time we looked at how to affirm ourselves in the promises of God. Today I want to look at affirming others. One of the unique things about today’s verse is that Paul actually demonstrates affirming the people of Thessalonica in his admonition to encourage and build one another up when he says, “just as you are doing”.

A lot of times, we don’t focus much energy on actively encouraging others and building them up… Especially if those people seem to be doing OK.  It’s a lot easier to be encouraging when people are down…then it’s a “ministry opportunity”, right? And besides, we feel their pain, ourselves… when we know they are walking through difficult times. So we react to needs around us. Paul’s saying, “Encourage the hearts of your fellow believers and support one another,” even when they appear to be doing just fine.

Paul even tells his readers why this is important: it’s because we share in Jesus’ resurrection life and this is part of what being in union with Him is all about (v. 10). And by extension, because we are children of the light, not the darkness (v. 5). Believers who are living in resurrection aren’t discouragers, fault-finders, holier-than-thou, step on others to get to the top. No, we love as Jesus loves. And part of the expression of His love is encouraging, affirming, building up.

People living in resurrection life will increasingly become encouragers. They will increasingly see others through Jesus’ eyes. So how can we build one another up?

As we saw last time, most of the time, we don’t see the good qualities in ourselves. Others can see them in us, and if they don’t tell us what they see, we may never know. We need to affirm what God has given to each one of us. We are inspired and encouraged through affirmations. (more…)

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Affirming: Confidence and Self-Respect – VOTD.04.09.18

Posted in Verse of the Day | April 9th, 2018 | by

The Lord gives perfect peace to all who trust in him, all whose thoughts are fixed on him! Trust in the Lord always, for the Lord God is the eternal Rock. Isaiah 26:3-4

Because all of us live in time and space—we live in relationships and responsibilities—our day-to-day circumstances can have a significant effect on how we feel about ourselves. That means it’s natural for our circumstances to influence how we feel, how we behave. How other people treat us—or not—influences who we feel we are in our lives. A lot of the time, these influences aren’t telling us the truth. Daily affirmations will help us remember the Truth.

Unless we are tied in to Jesus’ affirming love, we can come dangerously close to allowing our circumstances to dictate our worth…  people’s disrespect or disregard will determine our self-respect and confidence… the events in our lives will overshadow His affirming Words in the Bible and in our lives. These temporal circumstances will short-circuit our trust in God’s promises if we don’t stay fixed on Him. (more…)

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