The other day my wife Ruthie and I were talking about our struggles against sin. In the course of our conversation, Ruthie came up with a helpful analogy. She said it's like pushing a shopping cart with a defective wheel. Naturally it pulls to one side, and you have to force it to go straight. Likewise, our bodies have a natural bent toward sin. Unless we purposely steer them in the right direction by the power of the Holy Spirit, they will veer off in the wrong direction.
This principle is never more true than when it comes to our tongue. Our natural tendency is not to encourage but to criticize, argue, and complain.
Yet Scripture explicitly says, "Do all things without complaining and arguing" (Phil. 2:14). Rather, the Bible tells us to "encourage one another and build each other up" (1 Thes. 5:11). Doing this requires deliberate effort on our part. What specific measures can we take to make this happen? Garrett Kell, Lead Pastor of Del Ray Baptist Church in Virginia, offers some helpful suggestions, which I have reprinted below. (For the original article, click here.)
This principle is never more true than when it comes to our tongue. Our natural tendency is not to encourage but to criticize, argue, and complain.
Yet Scripture explicitly says, "Do all things without complaining and arguing" (Phil. 2:14). Rather, the Bible tells us to "encourage one another and build each other up" (1 Thes. 5:11). Doing this requires deliberate effort on our part. What specific measures can we take to make this happen? Garrett Kell, Lead Pastor of Del Ray Baptist Church in Virginia, offers some helpful suggestions, which I have reprinted below. (For the original article, click here.)
HOW
DO I GROW IN BEING AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO OTHERS?
There
isn’t only one “right way” to encourage each other, but here are a few ideas to
help you get started.
1.
Pray
for God to make you an encourager. Ask him to give you a heart that loves others and creativity
to know how to show it. Ask him to help you die to self-centeredness and grow
in a desire to build others up. Because God delights in helping his people obey
his commands, we can trust that his Spirit will teach us how to bless others
for his glory and their spiritual good.
2.
Study
Barnabas and ask God to make you like him. Barnabas was nicknamed the “son of encouragement” by the
early church (Acts 4:36).
He was the kind of guy you wanted to have around as you were serving the Lord.
He wasn’t just a spiritual cheerleader, but he was a man of great conviction
who wanted to see the church flourish and did all he could to make it happen.
Ask God to give you and your church a heart like Barnabas.
3.
Make
encouragement a daily discipline. For some of us encouragement comes naturally, for others, not
so much. I have a reminder in my calendar each day to send someone an
encouraging note, email, text, or phone call. I need this reminder to pause,
pray, and then intentionally try to spur someone on in Christ.
4.
Pray
for God to show you who to encourage. Ask God to bring someone to mind that you should reach out to.
One way to do this is by praying through your church’s membership directory.
Check out this article to
learn more about that.
5.
Use
Scripture if you’re able.
Nothing encourages us like promises from God’s Word. Make a list of Scriptures
that God has used to bless you personally or an excerpt from something you read
in your daily devotional. Mine the Psalms, Romans 8, and the Gospels. Find and
share riches of God’s grace with others.
6.
Be
specific in what you say. The
note I received from my friend included two very specific ways he had seen
evidences of grace in my life. When I read them, I was humbled and reminded of
the fact that God does actually work in and though me. I needed that.
7.
Regularly
encourage your pastor. If
your pastor says something that God uses, tell him about it. Don’t expect him
to write you back, but just send a few lines in a card or an email. Nothing
encourages a pastor like hearing specific ways God used a sermon or counseling
session to work in your life.
8.
Pray
that God would create a culture of encouragement in your church. Ask God to make your church a
community that loves each other in specific, tangible ways like encouragement.
Ask God to use you to help fan that flame. Don’t get discouraged if people
don’t return your encouragement (Matt. 6:3-4; Eph. 6:3-8) or if you
don’t see fruit from it (Gal. 6:9-10).
Creating a church culture that glorifies God takes a long time, lots of prayer,
and abundant grace. I encourage you to keep at it.
9.
Be
wise. If you want
to encourage someone of the opposite sex, use discernment in how best to do it.
If I’m going to encourage a single sister in the congregation, I will tell my
wife and copy her on the email. If I were encouraging a married sister, I would
again tell my wife and copy her and the husband of the person I’m encouraging.
You can also use that as an opportunity to encourage both the husband and wife.
10. Get started. Who can you encourage right now?
Who has blessed you recently that you can thank? What verse can you share with
them? How might God use it?
May the Lord
do more than we can imagine through just a little encouragement (Ephesians 3:20-21).