Encouragement is fuel for the day.

I pray you have one or more people who regularly encourage you. Or circumstances that lift you up. And I pray that you do not have a discourager in your life.

What to do if we don’t have encouragers and/or do have discouragers in our own lives:

Pray

Pray for an encourager. Pray for your discourager.

Encourage others

We can, and should, deliberately encourage others.

Therefore encourage one another and build up one another.  (1 Thessalonians 5:11)

There are rewards. We are encouraged when we encourage others. We’ve kept our Lord’s command to encourage, and obedience always brings blessing.

Encourage yourself in the Lord

We should, like David, strengthen, encourage, ourselves in the Lord. (1 Samuel 30:6)

If you are a child of God, having received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior*, you have promises and hope that fundamentally encourage you, both for this life and the life to come.

There is encouragement in Christ. (Philippians 2:1)

We have the encouragement of the Scriptures. (Romans 15:4)

As we take refuge in our Lord, we … have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast. (Hebrews 6:18)

Promises

There are entire books that enumerate God’s promises to us, His children,* and which encourage us. I was just given such a book, 335 pages long.

Here is one promise to us, children of God. We WILL make it to glory. It’s not that we can make it, we WILL make it. Hallelujah!

Father, please help us look to You and Your word in increasing knowledge and fervor. Please help us believe ALL that You say to us. Help us strengthen, encourage, ourselves in You. And, please, bring encouragers into our lives, and help those who discourage us and others.

*When we receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, God adopts us (Ephesians 1:5). (See Becoming a Child of God.)

Lies We Believe

All of us believe lies, some are spiritual lies from the father of lies, Satan (John 8:44); other lies affect our “normal” routines.

One of the lies I believe is that when I get caught up, I can rest. That lie keeps me going, which can be good, but it creates stress when I’m not working on something, and think I should be, which is not always good.

More serious though, are the spiritual lies Christians believe. We might believe God doesn’t love us, or that we can lose our salvation, or that He won’t bring good out of everything, or that we …

The remedy to stop believing spiritual lies is to know the Truth: Father, Son, Holy Spirit, the Word. Then we can identify what lies we believe and counter the lies with truth. (See Don’t Listen to Lies.)

For other lies affecting our day to day living, as we grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18), we will live more and more in His truth, in His way. Those pesky lies will become apparent and we can learn how to live as He would want. That is a life time project!

And, despite the photo (we may get 20” of snow today and tonight), spring is coming.

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Father, help us know Your truth and live in Your truth. Help us abide in Christ day by day, living lives that are pleasing to You.

Who is Your Enemy?

The owners of that car and truck may think geese are their enemies, especially after they had to clean up the mess!

In these dark days, you may regard certain people, officials, politicians, political parties, advocates, or social movements as enemies. You hate, and should hate, murder, abuse, assaults, looting, arson, etc. etc. etc. etc.

We should hate what God hates. And God hates sin.

God’s enemies

Unredeemed people are God’s enemies (Romans 5:10)

Those who love the world, are God’s enemies.

You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. (James 4:4)

God loves His enemies

God hates His enemies, although, in this world, He shows them love.

God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners [and His enemies], Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

While we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son. (Romans 5:10)

[God] is kind to ungrateful and evil men. (Luke 6:35)

We are to love our enemies

Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. (Matthew 5:44)

Our “enemies” are our mission fields, and are to be loved.

Let’s pray for them and for our country. Individually, we may or may not be called to try to reach them or speak or write about it. But all of us are called to pray.

Praise our Almighty Sovereign God who is working all things according to His holy plan.

You’re awful. You don’t deserve to go to heaven.

I sure don’t deserve heaven, but, then, no one does.

What do you mean? I’m way better than you.

Yes, but I am not the standard.*

Huh?

Jesus Christ is the standard. Are you as good as He?

I’ve lived a good life. I’m a good person.

I’m not concerned about the good you’ve done. But what about when you’ve done or thought something less than good? What does God have to say about that?

Huh? Do you mean I have to be perfect to go to heaven?

Yes.

Well, that is impossible.

Exactly!

What do I have to do to go to heaven?

Confess your sins. Ask for forgiveness. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and God who raised Him from the dead. Receive Christ as Lord and Savior. (See Becoming a Child of God.)

You can pray something like this:

“Father, I confess I have sinned against You and repent before You. I believe Jesus Christ is Your Son, that He died for my sins, and that You raised Him from the dead. I receive Christ as my Lord and Savior. Take control of my life. Make me the kind of person You want me to be.”

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*God’s standard:““You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” (Deuteronomy 6:5) “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Leviticus 19:18)

Change How You Feel

Feelings arise from thoughts. To change your emotions, change your thinking. To change your thinking, know the Bible.

When I was a new Christian, I remember an illustration about feelings. It was a picture of a train: The engine was the Word of God, pulling a car labeled “thinking,” pulling a third car, labeled “feeling.” The point was to saturate yourself with the Bible, and conform your thinking to what God says. Feelings then follow.

We have all seen people who run away with their “feelings.” The recent, horrible event at the Kansas City Superbowl celebration apparently started with someone who didn’t like how someone else was looking at them. Wow.

What to do

Immerse ourselves in the Bible. Study daily. Memorize. Ponder. Repeat His word throughout the day. Keep God in mind. Preach God’s word to yourself.

Work to conform our thinking to the Bible. Work to interpret what we see and experience though the light of God.

Challenge our feelings. Does this feeling conform to what the Bible says?

Examples

When the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.” (Matthew 14:26–27)

The disciples’ fear was challenged by Jesus’ presence.

Do not be afraid any longer, only believe. (Mark 5:36)

Belief conquers fear.

Easier Said Than Done

This, of course, is easier said than done, and requires prayer, discipline, and the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. (Titus 3:5)

Pray

Father, please help me, help us, conform our thinking and feeling to Your word. Help us live our lives in Your light. In Jesus’ name we pray.

Evaluate from faith not pride. 

The news is filled with stories of “narcissists,” self-centered folks, prideful people. The commonality is that they evaluate what happens based on how it affects them, how it makes them feel. 

Of course, everyone, including you and me, is prideful. For Christians, though, we work to stomp it out. (See The Stench of Pride.)

When we evaluate from our faith in Almighty God, the meaning of any, every, circumstance is based on Him, His purposes, His holiness, His hatred of sin, His love for believers. 

Everything looks different. Everybody looks different.

Two examples: 

Something good happens to someone else. We are told to consider others more important than ourselves. If we act from belief in, and obedience to, God, we rejoice with them. If we come from pride, we are upset that that good thing happened to them rather than to us. 

Something happens to us that we don’t like. If we believe God’s word, we consider it all joy, because we know God brings good out if it for us. If we operate from pride, we’re upset, angry, perhaps mad at God, definitely not joyful.

Watch!

As we read the Bible, watch for the many commands that require us to act in faith and not pride. Lots of prayer needed here!

Be Ready Be Alert

Good guys do NOT always wear white hats! Bad guys MAY wear white hats!

Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. (2 Corinthians 11:14)

We must continually be ready and alert.

Be Ready

Know the word of God, the Bible.

Hide His word in your heart.

Be ready to apply His word.

Make reading, studying, and memorizing the Bible a daily routine.

Keep yourselves in the love of God … (Jude 21)

Be Alert

Watch and pray.

Be discerning about what you see and hear.

Compare what you see and hear to what God says.

Recall His word, reciting verses, throughout the day.

Praise God

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. (Jude 24–25)

Scripture tells us to remember who God is and what He has done. Here are two of the reasons:

Remembering cures fear, depression, and more.

David, when he was in despair, deliberately remembered God.

Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him for the help of His presence. O my God, my soul is in despair within me; Therefore I remember You. (Psalm 42:5–6)

Jesus told us not to worry because God knows about our needs, for example, the Father feeds the birds and we are worth more than them. (Matthew 6:25-34)

In a tough, awful place? We are reminded that, no matter what, our loving Sovereign causes all things to work together for good. (Romans 8:28)

But we have to remember! So we have to know!

(See Remembering Cures Scared)

Remembering fuels thanksgiving, praise, and worship.

Praise Him for His mighty deeds; Praise Him according to His excellent greatness. (Psalm 150:2)

To praise Him, worship Him, we need to know—and remember—His mighty deeds and His excellent greatness.The more we know Him, the more we remember Him, the more we give Him thanks, praise Him, and worship Him.

How

In order to remember, we have to know, and, in order to know, we must know His word. Study the Bible! Make pouring over His word a daily routine. The more we hide His words in our hearts, the more our difficult emotions are cured, and the more we worship Him.

For almost four years, I posted every month about praising Him for something specific. You might want to look at Praise A to Z Volume 1 and Praise A to Z Volume 2. Perhaps something there could give you a boost.

Praise God!

Don’t Listen to Lies

In the book of Ezekiel, Yahweh declares wrath and woe on the false prophets who speak out of their own imagination. Those false prophets disheartened the righteous and encouraged the wicked (Ezekiel 13:22). They misled Yahweh’s people. They did much harm by “lying to My people who listen to lies.”  (Ezekiel 13:19)

We are harmed by listening to, heeding, lies.

There are at least two things we must do:

We must take care how, to whom, and to what we listen

So take care how you listen; for whoever has, to him more shall be given; and whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has shall be taken away from him. (Luke 8:18)

We should avoid listening to, heeding, some people and to ungodly assertions.

But, how can we know?

We must be able to distinguish truth from lies

The way we become more and more able to distinguish truth from lies is to know God—Father, Son, Holy Spirit—and know His word, the Bible.

God is truth (Psalm 31:5).

Jesus Christ is truth (John 14:6).

The Holy Spirit is truth (John 16:13).

The Bible is truth (John 17:17).

If a person or a position doesn’t line up with God and God’s word, it’s a lie. Be careful!

Mission Critical!

“Justice is turned back, And righteousness stands far away; For truth has stumbled in the street, And uprightness cannot enter.” (Isaiah 59:14)

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Father, help us know You and Your Word better. Help us be able to use Your standard in assessing truth from lies. Help us tell others of the Truth.

False accusations hurt!

Job suffered false accusations for much of 35 chapters.

Paul, after pouring himself into the Corinthians, was accused by them of not being a true apostle, being deceitful, taking advantage of them, speaking poorly, and more. (2 Corinthians 10-12)

Most, or maybe all, of us have been accused of character, motives or behavior that were not true. The closer the accuser was to us, the more we cared about him or her, the more it hurt.

But God

I love that phrase: “But God!”

But God, our sovereign, loving God is for us and with us. He has a purpose for those accusations in our lives.

The Accuser

We may not ever know the motive of the accuser. Perhaps they are just mistaken and don’t mean harm. Sometimes the accuser knows his or her own tendencies/sins and assumes we have engaged in the same problem. Sometimes the accuser is bearing false witness sinfully (Exodus 20:16).

In any case, pray for your accuser.

What to do

Go to God!

Check your conscience. Is there any truth in the accusation? If so, confession and atonement is in order.

Job was bewildered, and defended himself. God eventually answered Job out of the whirlwind, and Job repented and worshipped God. Job never learned why all that had happened, but we know God, for His own purposes, allowed it.

Paul responded to the accusations because the gospel was at risk. He proved himself to prevent the Corinthians from turning from the truth of the gospel to lies.

Defending ourselves may, or may not, be a good idea. Ask God!

There may be steps to take with your accuser, which will help. Ask God!

Remind yourself about God’s good purpose for you. Everything God brings into our lives, including false accusations, are to make us into the image of Christ.

In Paul’s case, and most likely in ours, God’s purpose was to humble him, to keep him from exalting himself (2 Corinthians 12:7).  It was a gift of God.

Praise God

Praise God that He is making us into the image of Christ (Romans 8:29).

Praise God that He is bringing us to glory (Romans 8:30).

Praise God that He is for us, and with us (Romans 8:31, Matthew 28:20).

Praise God that His grace is sufficient for us (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Press on