There is power in the tongue, power in the words we speak. To encourage someone is actually to put COURAGE into them. I want to master the art of encouragement. I want to be a people that encourage the heart and not the hands; that encourage people in their identity, calling and destiny rather than the acts they do. I want to be someone that is generous with my words, that when I see something God is doing in someone I speak it out because that truth brings life, it builds people up, it literally begins to shift something not only in the persons spirit receiving the encouragement but in your spirit as you give it.
Paul is often looked at as the super hero of Christianity, but if we look back to when he first met God it was Barnabas the son of encouragement who spurred him on to greatness and believed in him when no one else did. When Paul approached the disciples they didn’t believe he had changed; it was Barnabas who sought out Paul and brought him before the disciples and told them all that Paul had done. Barnabas saw what God was doing in Paul and spoke it out. Who knows what would have happened if Barnabas hadn’t believed in Paul and encouraged him in the call on his life.
When Barnabas encouraged Paul he gave Paul the courage to live out the call on his life. Living out the call on your life is scary; it’s stepping out into the unknown. We need courage to live out the call in our life, to become what God has called you to be. I want to be a person that seeks out what God is doing in people’s lives so I can encourage them in their calling. The enemy lives to discourage, so let’s be a people that encourage with weight. By reminding people who they are and who they are becoming in Christ so we can battle the schemes of the devil. Let’s put courage into the Paul’s in our lives. Let’s let our encouragement carry weight, where we encourage peoples identity, calling and destiny.
“and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.� John 8:32
Let’s speak out the truth about who people are in Christ into their lives.
There are times when encouragement is correction, discipline, the truth in love. Let’s be a people that walk in BOLDNESS and love, that aren’t afraid to bring tough love, to call people out of things and into what God has for them. Let’s love beyond ourselves.
God has been stirring this in my heart; I believe this team is going to be a team that creates a culture of encouragement, that seeks what the Father is doing and encourages that in people, this is going to be a team that brings LIFE to each other and the people of Swaziland through our words and our encouragement as we speak things out.
This blog is inspired by a message by Nathan Edwardson from “The Stirring�.
