Are you encouraged today?<\/p>\n
Stop and think about your answer for a moment. What does it mean to be encouraged?<\/p>\n
For that matter, what\u2019s it mean to encourage someone else?<\/p>\n
What, after all, is encouragement?<\/p>\n
One big reason we can\u2019t really answer that is because it\u2019s not all that important to most of us. We know a lot more about things that matter to us. But did you know that encouragement is supposed to be really really important to you and I?<\/p>\n
In the New Testament \u2013 depending on your translation, which we\u2019ll talk about in a later post \u2013 we are told more often to encourage others than we are told to pray.<\/p>\n
Let me say that another way: The New Testament tells us to encourage others more often than it tells us to pray.<\/p>\n
Do you think that means encouragement is important? I sure do.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think that means encouragement is more important than prayer. But I think it\u2019s far more important than we usually act like it is. I mean, we all know we should be praying daily \u2013 and more than once each day \u2013 even if we don\u2019t do it. We know that when we face difficulties or decisions, we ought to pray. We know that we should pray for others, especially when they\u2019ve shared something and asked us to pray.<\/p>\n
But how many of us ever think, \u201cI ought to encourage someone today?\u201d We\u2019ve all heard \u2013 I hope \u2013 that there\u2019s a verse somewhere in the Bible that says, \u201cEncourage one another.\u201d (It\u2019s 1 Thessalonians 5:11 and <\/strong>Hebrews 3:13, by the way.) But how many of us take that seriously?<\/p>\n If I asked you, \u201cWhen\u2019s the last time you prayed?\u201d you could probably answer me \u2013 even though you might not really want to answer me because it was longer ago than you would care to admit.<\/p>\n But if I asked you, \u201cWhen\u2019s the last time you encouraged someone?\u201d most of us would have to admit it was so long ago that we consciously, deliberately encouraged someone, that we can\u2019t remember when that was.<\/p>\n So if the Bible tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5:11 and <\/strong>Hebrews 3:13 to encourage one another, then we have a problem, don\u2019t we?<\/p>\n But it gets worse.<\/p>\n Stay tuned for more …<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We\u2019re in trouble. And not understanding the importance of encouragement is just the start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1422],"class_list":{"0":"post-4021","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ministry","7":"tag-encouragement","8":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4021\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}