Encouragement

       A friend of mine recently connected me with a daily quote that comes out on the internet.  I read them each day and noticed the one for a couple of days ago which reminds me so much about the methods being used today in much of the ministry.  It was Mark Denver who made the statement, "So many times I've seen men, particularly younger guys, act as if real leadership is shown in correcting others. That's why young men's sermons often scold. What they haven't figures out is that you can often accomplish more by encouragement. There are times to scold. But 80 to 90 percent of what you hope to correct can be accomplished through encouragement. If you look back at your life and consider who influenced you the most, you will probably find that it's the people who believed in you."  First Thessalonians 4:9 reminds us, "But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another." 
     Christianity if people based.  That is, if you are going to be a Christians then there are relationships that are going to have to exist in your life.  You cannot be a believer and exclude people from your life.  I am particularly referring to the commands that are mentioned in the New Testament which are what I refer to as the "One Another" commands.  You cannot avoid the One Another Commands and function adequately in the church, but people try anyway.  The above verse mentions just one of the commands and this one is repeated a number of times in the New Testament.  You can find verses that refer to loving one another, praying for one another, bearing one another's burdens, exhorting one another and the list goes on.  Some of them are mentioned more than once and they combined show the function of your Christian life.  It is difficult to maintain good relationship with God Himself when you avoid the one another commands.  This is the positive side of your ministry and we all have a ministry.  Mark Denver's statement is so true in that we often seek to scold people instead of encouraging them.  How do you feel when you walk out the door of your church on Sunday morning.  As Mark mentions, there definitely is a time for scolding but how about incorporating the One Another commands into your Christian life?   We have two holidays in the life of the church that seem to always come with a message that says we don't measure up to God's standard.  That's always going to be true.   We will never measure up until we get to heaven, but Mother's Day and Father's Day seem to always give us negative messages when we find out we are not like the "woman of Proverbs 31" or we are not the Father that emulates our heavenly Father portrayed in John 3:16.  The Apostle Paul uses the phrase some 21 times in His writings.  God is an encouragement to me even when I am worth nothing.  May we be an encouragement to others and lift them up even as God has lifted us up in our time of need.  Praise God for His "lifting" in our lives.