Encouraging Others

Posted on by korgrocker

“In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.”
Romans 12:6-8 NLT

The next item on Paul’s list of God’s motivational gifts is encouragement. I think we can all agree, in these dark days of high energy and food costs, with inflationary pressures consuming our resources, with our health service under unprecedented strain, with wars and dire warnings about the effects of climate change, that we need encouragement. And lots of it. One thing is for sure – we will get very little in the way of encouragement from the media outlets. Or our politicians. Or the society around us. It seems that discouragement is the dominant force, sapping our motivation, and spawning the feeling, “what’s the point”. In my rambles in the community, I meet some very discouraged people. People who respond to “It’s a nice morning today”, with “Aye, but it will probably rain later”. People who always view a glass of water as being half empty. People who seem to thrive on having a good moan.

We pilgrims are of a different spirit, however. We are infused with the joy of the Lord. That doesn’t mean we go through life with a silly grin on our faces regardless of the circumstances. It means that, as citizens of the Kingdom of God, we have a different perspective, resourced with the riches of Heaven. Within us is an inner strength, fuelled by the certainty that one day we will be in an environment where the worldly negatives and discouragements will no longer be found. 

In Nehemiah 8 we read about the time when the people of Israel asked Ezra the Scribe to read to them from the Book of the Law. The leaders explained what it all meant and we read in Nehemiah 8:9-10, “Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who were interpreting for the people said to them, “Don’t mourn or weep on such a day as this! For today is a sacred day before the Lord your God.” For the people had all been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law. And Nehemiah continued, “Go and celebrate with a feast of rich foods and sweet drinks, and share gifts of food with people who have nothing prepared. This is a sacred day before our Lord. Don’t be dejected and sad, for the joy of the Lord is your strength””. At a time of national challenge, as a remnant of the Jews who had returned after being exiled, they suddenly found that, although their circumstances didn’t change, their perspective did because of the “joy of the Lord”. They found great encouragement through the Word of God and their leaders who explained what it all meant.

In our fellowships, our communities, our families, and even in our workplaces or schools, there may be no-one available to share a kind word, or some encouragement, to counter the debilitating effects of rampant discouragements, except us. And God has provided just what we need. A Gift of Encouragement. Let’s use it wisely and effectively, as our lights shine like beacons in this lost world. If we pilgrims can’t display “the joy of the Lord” and encourage those around us, who will?

Dear God. You have put within us a deep-seated and immovable joy. Thank You! Amen.

Rejoice!

Posted on by korgrocker

“So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.”
Romans 5:11 NLT

Paul made another statement as though it was a fact. He took it as read, beyond an assumption, that rejoicing would follow the process of belief in Jesus and all that He did at Calvary. Quite a leap for someone in that culture, moving from idolatry, to faith in the one true God. Society wasn’t very kind to those early Christians. But Paul wasn’t being theoretical when he wrote that. He wasn’t living in some different world, divorced from reality. What he wrote to the early Christians in Rome was a perfectly valid statement, designed to set out for them what a relationship with God should be like. A relationship that they could rejoice about. A relationship that was wonderful and new.

We fast-forward to today. If anything, our world is just as hostile a place to Christians as it was in Paul’s day. More so, if we read about the levels of persecution experienced by some. Constant negative news reports wear us down. The hostile spiritual environment where even leaders in the faith struggle and prevaricate rather than act as beacons for God’s ways. Worldly expectations have created a society where God doesn’t exist any more. And here are Christians today who, in spite of all that is going on, are called to rejoice in our relationship with God.

But we pilgrims have made a decision to follow Jesus. Through our faith in Him, believing Him for our future salvation, we do in fact have a “wonderful new relationship” with God. We are indeed His friends, positioned right in the “sweet spot” which He designed for us before the foundations of the earth. We rejoice! It’s not something we can do with one eye on what is happening around us. We do it with both eyes on God, because it is in Him we find a Friend who has overcome the world. We view the natural world through God’s eyes. And in that way we get His perspective. Through prayer we approach difficult situations and relax as God whispers in our ears wonderful words of wisdom and guidance. 

It may have been some years ago that we experienced  the “wonderful new relationship” with God. Perhaps we have taken our eyes off Him a bit. Perhaps we have been worn down by all the information, most of it negative, that bombards us every day. Well there is good news. Jesus said in Matthew 11:28, “ … Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest”. Having refreshed ourselves in God’s presence we can experience being friends with God. And that has to be good news. That has to be a wonderful experience. And through it all, regardless of the circumstances, we can rejoice. We look forward to a time when joy is the norm, and worldliness is no more. And because we are God’s children, we can experience that joy right now. 

So if any of my readers are experiencing a lack of joy this morning, feeling they there is nothing to rejoice about, we read these words of Paul. Through Jesus we are friends of God. Meditate on what that means this morning. How amazing is it, that the Creator of the whole universe, wants to be friends with us. That very thought is enough to make even the stones around us burst into praise. It truly is a momentous statement, and one that we embrace through our faith in Him. Paul wrote in Philippians 4:4, “Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice!” That is not a statement of delusion. It is a fact and one that will never leave us regardless of our circumstances. Join me this morning in rejoicing, because Jesus is alive, and because we are God’s friends.

Father God. We worship You today. You are the source of joy. You are the mighty One, our Lord and God. Amen.

Faith Brings Joy

Posted on by korgrocker

“Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.”
Romans 5:2 NLT

Paul mentions that word again – “faith”. So much can be achieved through that word and all that is behind it. He mentions that “faith” brings us to a place of undeserved privilege. Now in this life, privilege is something only rarely granted. We usually have to work for it, or pay for it with our hard-earned money. That is, of course, unless we were naturally born into what we refer to as a privileged family. But we know that when we accepted Christ, believing in all that He did for us, we were spiritually born into God’s family, a family far more significant and privileged that any natural family could ever be. And through God’s grace such a birth was and is undeserved. 

This place of privilege in which we now find ourselves is transforming in its extent and scope. There is the benefit of being in God’s Kingdom here on earth. A place where we have abandoned lives of sin and adopted righteous living instead. A place where we can share God’s grace and love with those around us, doing God’s missionary work in a lost and deluded world. A place where we can drop in when we want to, to spend quality time with our Heavenly Father, worshipping at His feet. But Paul wrote that there’s more to come. Over the horizon, but on our radars nevertheless, is God’s glory. And He will share it with us. How amazing is that? Through our faith we have confidence that it is coming. Perhaps sooner than we think.

How does that make us pilgrims feel? Excited? Joyful or sad? Whatever we feel about our lives today, the life to come, eternally in God’s presence, is going to be “immeasurably more than we can … imagine” (Ephesians 3:20). And joy beyond anything we have experienced will be found there. 

What is this “joy”? People often confuse it with happiness, but it’s totally different to that. The dictionary definition of “a feeling of great pleasure and happiness”  doesn’t come anywhere near what true Godly joy really means. The joy we experience as Christians comes from a connection with God. We feel joy because of what He has done for us and for what He will do for us in the future. We feel joy because of our salvation, the fellowship with other believers, and the promise of eternal life with God in Heaven. The list of joy-sources is endless. But we can also experience joy in a prison cell, persecuted by an evil state. Joy is more than a feeling. It is a deep assurance that God is close to us, loving us, providing for us. It may manifest in an outward expression of praise and worship. In Acts 16 we read about the desperate situation Paul and Silas found themselves in. Because they cast a demon out of a slave girl, “They were severely beaten, and then they were thrown into prison. The jailer was ordered to make sure they didn’t escape. So the jailer put them into the inner dungeon and clamped their feet in the stocks. Around midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening” (Acts 16:23-25). How could they do that? Because they were full of joy. A joy founded in the fact that there was nothing other human beings could do to them that would destroy their relationship with God. They experienced the same joy that Nehemiah knew about. We read in Nehemiah 8:10, “And Nehemiah continued, “Go and celebrate with a feast of rich foods and sweet drinks, and share gifts of food with people who have nothing prepared. This is a sacred day before our Lord. Don’t be dejected and sad, for the joy of the Lord is your strength!””

So, fellow pilgrims, are we full of joy today, or are we overcome and miserable because of our circumstances? Full of Godly joy, we can rise above all that is going on in our lives and around us. Regardless of our situation in life we can still be joyful in our amazing Creator God. We read in Habakkuk 3:17-18, “Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vines; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will rejoice in the Lord! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!” Dire circumstances for a farmer, don’t we agree? But nothing was going to take away Habakkuk’s joy, and it won’t take away ours either.

Dear Father God. You are the Source of our joy. We worship You today with grateful hearts. Amen.