THE POWER OF ENCOURAGEMENT

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up. For even Christ did not please Himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on Me.” For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.

Romans 15:1-4

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

I have never met anyone who didn’t enjoy encouragement. Conversely, I have met plenty of people who despise constant criticism.

The latter tears a person down while the former builds up.

Which do you prefer?

Further, and even more importantly, which does the Lord prefer? What does the Lord desire for us to do as we relate to one another?

We start to get answers to those questions as we look at the first four verses of Romans, chapter 15. There we find the Apostle Paul sharing the following with his readers in Rome:

We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up. For even Christ did not please Himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on Me.” For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.

I remember attending a workshop for the ASIST program which teaches suicide intervention skills over a two day period. One of the final things you do as a student is participate in the practical application of the suicide intervention skills you learned over the two days. Workshop attendees are paired up with one assuming the role of the person at risk of suicide while their partner performs an intervention. Everyone else observes.

Now, typically you would expect the observers to offer constructive criticism about the intervention, bringing up things that went wrong or could have been done better.

But that’s not how it works and the alternative is radically fresh and appealing.

This is because the observers are only allowed to tell the person doing the intervention what they liked about the job they did. Negativity is forbidden, replaced by positive reinforcement. It’s a refreshing way of evaluating and one that serves to build up rather than tear down. It’s an approach we should apply to many other times when we could easily just choose to condemn instead.

It’s this matter of building up and edifying that we find central, not only within our passage today, but also in the scriptures overall. The word of God offers us encouragement through teaching endurance so that we as a people might have hope, hope to enter into each day of this thing called life with an opportunity to be made a better version of ourselves as the Lord uses His word and Spirit to develop and cultivate us.

He wants us to do the same for one another, to model the encouraging attitude He provides in great abundance, an encouraging attitude that doesn’t disparage but rather breeds optimism and positivity. It’s a selfless method of interacting with others, a selflessness that we see perfectly executed by Jesus and the way He conducted ministry.

If Jesus would have been concerned with only pleasing Himself, He never would have chosen to suffer and die as He did in order to save all mankind. He placed the needs of others well before His own. He didn’t wish for us to be torn down to the point of destruction and eternal damnation and so He offered us a way to be built up through Him, a way to eternal life anyone could gain if they placed their belief in Him as Savior.

Through Jesus, God shows us the power of encouragement and then expects that those who believing In His Son, namely all Christians, to imitate that practice of encouragement in the way we relate to others.

Through the scriptures, we see how all Christ followers are called to exercise positivity and edification while dealing with others. If we follow the lead of Jesus, we can make sure we answer that calling.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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