Encouragement

Every single one of us is rich.  We are filthy stinking rich.  We are loaded.  And we don't know it...

But here's the deal.  Our currency is not something we can spend on ourselves.  If we try to keep it, we lose it.  It goes bad.  It's gone.  The only way to make this currency count is to give it away. 

We want it badly and try to get it from other people.  But we are stingy with it ourselves.  The only way to lose this game is not to play. 

What in the world am I talking about?  I am talking about our words.  We all have the ability to speak into the life of someone else.  The times when you are feeling best is when you feel affirmed by those who matter most to you.  We long for this affirmation, but we are so slow to give it. 

I picture myself like a liberated Scrooge, walking about giving away all I own for the joy of others.  Even if I am dirt poor, I can give my words.  I can encourage.  I can spread a bit of joy and happiness that might not have otherwise been.  I gain nothing by sitting in silence.  There is not a quota or a limit on how much I am allowed to love another.

I am a sinner.  I know that I am not perfect.  I know that I need help and saving and to be changed.  Precisely because of this, I feel unlovable sometimes.  God, can you still love me?  I have done this thing a thousand times?  Are you really taking me back again?

It is sometimes very hard to believe God's love for me when I am in a pit of despair.  We don't generally hear God audibly - at least I never have - and those times when I am in a pit are often the times I least feel like listening to Scripture.  The time when I most need to hear his voice of forgiveness and love are those times when I am least equipped to hear it.

I am not God and cannot speak for him.  Amen?  Amen.  And yet while I may not be able to convince someone else that God still loves them, I can do my best to love them myself.  To convince them of my love.  To help them see that they are indeed loved and appreciated and accepted.  God may get to their hearts through the love that I can give to them.  I do not speak as God, yet God may still speak through me.

To some this may sound vague and wishy-washy and light on adherence to truth.  No.  God loves those whom he disciplines.  Tough love is love, and "love" without tough love is not.  But in the midst of words of correction or disapproval, there ought to be a strong undercurrent, a strong context of, "You are my friend and I am with you and we are going to get through this." 

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  How difficult it is to believe this, to believe in grace.  God saves us, not because we're awesome, but because he loves us and is up to something with us.  Having saved us, he will keep us.  I know, at least, that I need to be encouraged by my brothers and sisters with this truth.  Let's give it liberally to each other.

If there is an imbalance in our world, it is most often toward criticism.  And I don't mean to tip the balance toward vacuous and empty comments.  But I do mean that you have the ability to show someone with your life and words that it is indeed a good thing that they exist.  That they have a friend.  When they know that you will not give up on them, they may be more likely to believe that God won't either.  When they feel that you like them, they will be more inclined to think that God does, too.

Let us love each other to the praise of the glory of Jesus, who brought truth and love and shed his blood to secure our salvation.