Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Encouragement (among believers) (11/08/07)
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TITLE: The Great Encourager | Previous Challenge Entry
By Erica Wyatt
11/13/07 -
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First, may I offer you a picture of sheer discouragement? I’m sure you have seen it before. In actuality, all you have to do is turn on the evening news or crack open that most beloved morning newspaper. Stories of hatred, murder, envy & strife….jealousy, lust, rage….did that mother actually take her own child’s life? What was intended to counteract a tense, stressful day of endless activity has now created a torrent of intercession in the bowels of your innermost being. “God help!!!” becomes your daily prayer. You begin to truly wonder, “Is God really there?” Then it comes back to you…
“For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved.”(Jn 3:17, KJV)
Meet the greatest Encourager of all times….His name is Jesus Christ. How did He do it? How did He offer hope & encouragement to a world spiraling headlong into self-destruction? First, He exhibited selflessness…
“But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.”(Heb 2:9, KJV)
Jesus forgot about Himself for a moment. He forgot about His position and His daily duties. He placed the need of others before His need for self-gratification and self-exaltation realizing that His sacrifice would indeed produce the desired results of His Father.
What does it take for us, as believers, Christians, followers of Christ, to exhibit this same act of selflessness? For that is what this is all about, right? Salvation is the message of hope and promise, not just to the unbeliever, but to the believer as well. What does it take for us to forget about the problems that we, ourselves, face on a daily basis in order to assure someone else that hope remains? What is the root of that sincere statement, “Everything is going to be all right?” I am compelled to say that it is love….love in its purest form! It is love that compels us to leave our earthly thrones of comfort, self-pity, self-gratification or whatever other form of selfishness on which we have managed to grasp firmly. Jesus did it and isn’t He our example?
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”(Jn 3:16, KJV)
I am inclined to say that it was love that compelled Jesus to leave His throne to attend to a dying world. I am also inclined to say that it is love that compels us, as believers, to encourage one another. It is love that causes me to come out of myself and look into the eyes of my brothers and sisters in Christ and sincerely utter the words, “Whatever you need, I am here.”
Encouragement….we all need it. It is vital to our survival in a world clouded by discouragement. Jesus exhibited the first act of encouragement and left us with an awesome example by which we can live and ensure that those around us live and not die!!
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