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word of encouragement

The Power Of Encouragement

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Romans 12:3-8

3 For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.

4 For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office:

5 So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.

6 Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith;

7 Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teacheth, on teaching;

8 Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness.

– Encouragement is necessary to our walk of faith.

– Without encouragement a will with purpose fades unto a state of unrest and unsatisfaction

Hebrews 3:13

13 But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

– Without encouragement, life would soon feel pointless and burdensome. Without encouragement, we can be overwhelmed by the very real pains of our lives. Without encouragement, we feel unloved. Without encouragement, we begin to think that God is a liar or is unconcerned with our welfare. So, the Bible tells us to encourage one another, to remind each other of the truth that God loves us, that God equips us, that we are treasured, that our struggles are worth it.

– Encouragement makes it easier to live in a fallen world in a holy way.

– Encouragement makes it easier to love as Jesus loved (see John 13:34-35).

John 13:34-35

34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

– Encouragement gives hope (Romans 15:4).

For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.

– Encouragement helps us through times of discipline and testing (Hebrews 12:5).

Hebrews 12:5

5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:

– Encouragement nurtures patience and kindness (see 1 Corinthians 13:4-7)

4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

– Encouragement makes it easier to sacrifice our own desires for the advancement of God’s kingdom. In short, encouragement makes it easier to live the Christian life.

Proverbs 16:24 says, “Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.”

– God’s Word is full of encouragement. Pleasant words, indeed.

– And even though at times the words of others may fail us we can have hope in the fact that when our strength is little in tribulation that Jesus steps in for us to God by our faith


John 16:33

33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

The Word Of The Hour Is: Press On My Friends, Press On

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I send a word of encouragement and power to our everyday readers and new visitors today: Press on!

Press on when others are telling you just to “hang on”. It is easy to just grab your seat on the ride of life and just coast, but God wants you to propel into forward motion! Coasting eventually comes to a halt when you reach the hills, right? When it becomes tough around you is when God is looking for you to be propelled by His presence!

Press on when others would discourage you. One of the greatest blessings that I have personally experienced in my entire life was when I could not have felt more alone. In the poor state that I was in I had no vision of holding on, let alone pressing forward. I was just trying to “exist”. However, the sweetest move of the spirit of God came for me and let me know just how real the word that we read about the promise of the comforter is. Now? Whether I am discouraged, rejected, or even to the magnitude of persecuted I NEVER have to fall that low ever again. I can stand confident in the comfort in the spirit of God!

Press on in your obedience. If I could emphasize one act more than the rest, I would say that this emphasis needs to be on prayer. We simply are not praying enough (none of us). There might be a few of you out there that are on the Daniel plan (3 times a day), and I commend you for it! But I hope that we know that it is not so much in the number as much as it is what you pour out and dedicate during the times that you do. Remember this: 5 minutes of heartfelt humble surrender to God goes so much further than 2 hours of requests for “stuff”.

Most of all, press on for the mark. There is a place that God wants us to aim for. It is a place that in more depths of study reveals the perfect love of God within us. It shows the like-mindedness of Christ within our thoughts. It shows through our acts the charity that came out on its own that no one had to beg out of you. It’s a mark that once someone strives for that others begin to be drawn by. In other words, press on to put down our doubts and fears that lead us not to believe in the living spirit of God within us! Live and let live the word of God within you!

Helping To Heal And Healing To Help

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I come in a very open point of view with the word I share today. I have been in prayer as of late and my heart has come to a word of encouragement for each one who is so wonderful to read this. When it comes to the discussion of healing for your life it can oftentimes be confusing as to how we should begin to allow God to let change come into motion. For example, I know when I have a head-cold and could probably see a quicker move if I changed my behavior to reduce my chances of it coming around again. Yet without any reaction or change to know is better direction for healing in my life, I prolong a sickness that could otherwise be moved quicker.

God is looking for us to be more proactive to react and change when we hear the word of the Lord to help heal each and every one of our troubles and trials. If I learned to not just be a hearer but a diligent doer of it then I am reducing the likelihood of the same thing occurring again of the same magnitude. This could be a test of patience, anger, moving you from depression, helping you through finances, etc. that list could go on forever. My point to you is that the healing of the Lord is for way more than just our bodies! It is for our minds as well!

So remember this: using the healing that God performs in you to allow you to be changed once and forever. After your wonderful change, use that experience as part of your witness to draw others! That is how others can begin to be drawn for their own change and the beginnings of that brand new life in Christ!

Singing And Speaking At Jake’s Branch United Baptist Church

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It was truly a pleasure to get to go back over to Jake’s Branch once again. Some of my family attends this church that live in that area, and I love them dearly. The church has always made me and my family so welcome throughout the years and has always encouraged us to continue in the ministry that we work in. It’s not everywhere that you go that you always receive that encouragement and fellowship, so it is definitely appreciated when you receive it each and every time you are there! We love each and every one, and it was great to see so many familiar faces.

It was so easy to preach, and is always easy to when the freedom of the spirit is present in the midst of willing vessels for God. We’ll hopefully have the message about Jehoshaphat on here pretty soon, so stay tuned for that! Lately we have felt strongly led to get out and to go send the word of encouragement and instruction where we have been lately, and it is truly a blessing to hear the countless confirmations come back to us through the spoken words and through the actions of people being bold to come back to God and most importantly being saved! It is so wonderful to see people have their desire rekindled, and we hope that as we continue that it rubs off and others start on the same mission that we all be of help to one another that we love our neighbors as ourselves and put into practice that true love of Christ!

Remember us as we keep going forward!

Keep Your Head Up

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Today I am very thankful to the Lord above for everything that he is performing in my life. I am thankful for the great works in the lives of those that I see around me. At times the enemy would want all of us to feel discouraged and without a use or a place in this world.

I speak a word of encouragement to everyone to remind you that no matter how much rejection and persecution you face, that the rewards will far outweigh the costs of a few hindrances! Keep your head up and do not faint from the pressure!

Learn to simply endure where you are and God will eventually allow you to move from circumstances that are not promoting the best of a situation that promotes God’s will! Greener pastures will be ahead, joy will be ahead, and a more fruitful life is coming!

We speak it in faith to you in the name of Jesus Christ! Be blessed this day!

Looking At The Watch? Time For A Test Of Patience!

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We can often compare our prayers to God sometimes like a person waiting on another standing there looking at their watch. They are impatiently waiting upon that person to do their part so they can do nothing and be satisfied. Does that speak to you?

Sometimes I could categorize prayers in the past times in my life to be complaint prayers, piety prayers, confusion prayers; the list goes on and on. I know more than anyone about having to stand and wait upon the Lord. In times when your back is against the wall, it’s hard to pray from the depths of your heart and truly mean “Lord I’m waiting and trusting in You that You are going to perform Your perfect will in this situation”.

When we begin to get in these situations, I have found that I can refresh my patience with my testimonies. Sure, I am waiting on God for 500 things. However, God has blessed me millions of times. Millions! More than I could ever say in a lifetime. If I wrote a post every minute for the rest of my life of the good things, I could not accomplish getting out every good thing God has done. I have to remind myself that “If God has helped me before, He’ll do it again”.

If God has performed His will before in your life, God will do it again. Continually seek God for peace and do not let impatience rule steal your joy. Do not let your situations steal away your prayer life. Let your prayers be led by faith, and let your walk with God and your witness to others be driven by the glory that will be revealed in you.

A final word of encouragement this day (you could even say it out loud): I have been blessed by God before, I am blessed by God now, and I will continue to be blessed by God in my future!

Feeling Frustrated? Find The Peace Of God!

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THE WORD

Philippians 4:7 – And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

It is an unfortunate truth to accept but we all have learned through experience that it is impossible to avoid all the situations that will bring out the worst in us. Sometimes we will want to get upset because of the circumstance when trying to understand why it happened. Other times we get upset with ourselves because we could have made a better decision and yet chose differently. I think about when Jesus was out on the boat with the disciples. They all began to panic greatly and fear was present. I can imagine hearing “I cannot believe we came out here in this weather” or “we came out all this way for this?!?” There will be countless times where it will be hard to find clarity about the why or what of an event. We become frustrated, angry with life, and needing answers from our state of panic.

And as we read on the disciples went to rouse Jesus out of His slumber but only to hear Him speak to the storm, “Peace, be still” That stirs my heart and soul to not only recognize the power of the peace of God, but the awesome power of God. To be able to speak to the tempests of our lives and have dominion over it all is so amazing. It is wonderful to know that through our faith as we believe we can overcome the raging seas by speaking peace over our circumstances! Find the peace of God in your life today!

PUT INTO PRACTICE

To fully understand the peace of God you must allow it to be fulfilled in your life. This is done best in prayer. For practice I encourage you to take the issue that you are dealing with and enter into surrender by starting out your prayer with the following:

“God, you see this situation in my life. I accept that I may not understand the plan behind that which I am suffering. I put my trust in your will for my life and pray that peace will help me to get through everything that attempts to rise within my human nature. Help me to forgive those who have harmed me and to release bitterness that has come from my confusion. I will obey your holy word and make my best efforts to be a loving example.”

One Foot In Front Of The Other

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2 John 1:6 – And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it.

3 John 1:3-4 – For I rejoiced greatly, when the brethren came and testified of the truth that is in thee, even as thou walkest in the truth. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.

– – – –

I know sometimes it feels like it is going to take “forever” to ever see the great big move that we stand in need of. I am learning, however, that with each new day that there are great big moves that God wants us to make in kind. We cannot have it all without changing a great lot in turn. God requires us to “move up” by the lowering of ourselves before Him. If we are willing we must begin to live closely to God by raising our standards of Godly living, by increasing the amount of daily/weekly obedience inside/outside of church, and most of all by not letting our daily bread (faith) be cut down with our own doubts and fears.

When you talk about the correlation of obedience and discouragement from waiting on the great things, we often live in a loop of “I can do it, but do not want to” or “I am incapable therefore I will sit back and stop”. God does not want us to be in either of those states; frankly He does not accept it. If we read into our bibles in detail, this fits the profile of what we would like to call lukewarm.

So what do we say today? Declare to your mind, to yourself, and to others that you are going to see it come! Start building your faith now and see what great victory you build out in your future! I send out a word of encouragement to you out there that is down and out and feel like there is no hope to live by: just keep one foot in front of the other one and let God lead you, and you will find your victory!

– – – –

Put Into Practice:

I am not sure if this has been done before, but I hope that it proves to be just as effective as it has been for me before. I would like for you to start your “faith chain” today. All you need is a pack of sticky notes or some cut-up paper and some tape. You can spread this out to work on every day or you can work on building it all at once. It’s up to you.

First, start out with a small thing you having faith in God for. Once you think of it, write what your statement of faith should be and make sure to include that need. For example, a good one would be “I believe that God is going to make me to be a happy person today.” Once you have one or a few (I would say about 5-7 at a time), stand before it and recite it to yourself every morning in a commonplace right before you head out before your day. As you see one completed, keep it as a future statement of victory! It’s a great way to believe! I encourage you to give it a try!

You Are One In A Million

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I write this blog today, not as one that we can really learn something from, but more as a word of encouragement to all of you out there, that might feel small or insignificant sometimes. Because at some point and time in our lives, we all get to that stage. So I hope that this is a blessing to you, just like it was strength to me when i was composing this.

When I hear the phrase, “One in a million“, I think of quite a few things.

First, I consider the fact that there is no one else in the world like me. There might be many that have similar traits and features, but there is not another that is JUST alike. God made us in his image, and though there are many great things in the world, just like the verse reads below, there is just something about us that is special.

Deuteronomy 4:32

[32] For ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from the one side of heaven unto the other, whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it?

So when I read this, I realize that even as I sit here, am unique. I have a special place in the world. I have a calling for something in other words. Consider this:

1 Corinthians 1:26

[26] For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:

There are many people that could try to be what God has called you to be, to do what God has called you to do, but only YOU can truly do it. God made you to be that special singer, teacher, praise and worship leader, etc. Anything that you have that is unique that God has given you, that separates you, that makes you who YOU are, and abides in Holiness according to his will, is what defines that inner you that will make you grow to find that happiness we all search for.

I constantly see people out there on their journey of life, trying to do this thing on their own, trying to “find their self” out there, essentially trying to find the meaning to their life. The truth is, they already have the unique gifts and tools right there, and often times don’t want to use the great assets they have. Sometimes the reason is by fear, or by rejection.

I want those of us out there who are strong in the Lord to get a hold of these verses:

Matthew 18:12-13

[12] How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?

[13] And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray.

We, that are on the path, who know the right from wrong, and know how to be leaders for Christ, should not be satisfied with just the 99. Don’t be satisfied knowing that there is one that is out there that needs help. They just may be the one in a million that could save the nation. They might be the person that writes the next Amazing Grace.

I encourage all of you, those of you readers out there, to know that you are special, in every single way that God has made you. In your life, in your mind, in your body, everything; nothing about us is terrible. We are the only reason we think so. We are our worst critic, and we often times beat ourselves down into depression, when in reality, if God was the one that made us, then we are in the image of the God of victory.

We were built to be victors! We were not built for failure! You are not a failure!

In closing, I speak on a more personal note as a testimony to myself to say that I can honestly say that I feel like one in a million. I count myself as one of the few that beat drug addiction, delivered solely and completely by prayer and the Holy Ghost. I wasn’t in a church; I was in a living room. I can honestly say that I also had given up college and hopes for a decent life, and God pieced my life back together, and got me back in school, graduated, and I am happily married and employed today. God even got me a job close to the church where we wanted to go.

And all the times where I thought I was forgotten, I totally laugh about it now. God never forgot about me. God left the 999,999 to come find me; I’m one in a million! Everything is possible if you put an honest life before him, pray hard, have faith, and never give up on God. Be encouraged this day!