not mean but encouraging…

let me ask you.  who is there in your life that you trust enough to have those kind of talks where the sparks fly a little bit and maybe the emotions get up a little bit and the conversation isn’t the most pleasant you’ve ever had.  but on the other side of that there’s growth and change for both of you.  who is there? 

i’m not saying that every relationship in your life should be like this because you don’t have time to develop that kind of deep relationship with everyone.  but are the few people in your life that you’ve chosen to have a relationship with like this? 

somebody wrote, “a lot of us are hydroplaning over a lot of shallow relationships because we’re never willing to stop and take the time to go deep with a few.”  that’s true.  shallow doesn’t mean bad.  they’re good relationship, people that you love.  but you never take the time to go deep with the few, the people that you can trust to help you to move towards change in your life.

don’t think that these conversations have to be all nasty and negative and critical.  that’s not how they are supposed to happen.  the bible tells us in hebrews 10:24 (nlt), think of ways to encourage one another to outbursts of love and good deeds.

in order to help somebody to change, you’re not to be mean to them.  that’s not what makes it work.  you encourage them.  . 

look at what can happen.  when you encourage someone like that, it encourages an outburst of love, an outburst of doing the right thing. 

can you imagine that?  you and i have the power with a simple word of encouragement to somebody to encourage them to incredible new heights of love, to do the right thing like they’ve never done before in their lives – just through one person talking to another person.  that’s how powerful this can really be.

just a thought from the front porch…

encouragement and endurance…

follow the example of a guy by the name of solomon in the old testament.  just a simple example that’s good for any of us.  you might remember solomon’s dad was named king david.  GOD had told king david, you’re going to build a temple.  “I'll give you the plans and then your son is going to build the temple.”  when it came time to build this temple for GOD, here’s what solomon said, 1 kings 5.5 (ncv), the LORD promised my father david, “I’m going to make your son king after you and he’ll build a temple for worshipping ME.”  now i plan to build that temple for worshipping in the LORD my GOD.  very simple.  i want you to notice two phrases in that verse.  first, the LORD promised.  that’s where it started.  then, solomon said because of that now, i plan. 

there it is.  that’s the order.  pretty simple.  GOD promises, i plan.  don't get these reversed.  i make a plan then i look for some promise that GOD made to fit with my plan.  that doesn’t work very well.  and don’t leave out the “you planning” part of it.  GOD promised and now i’m just going to set back and watch and not have anything to do with it.  no, when GOD makes the promises HE’s going to make you a part of the plan.  there’s no doubt about that one.  GOD promises and now i plan. 

where do you find GOD’s plan?  where do you find GOD’s promises?  the bible, GOD’s book, GOD’s gift to us, contains over 7,000 promises from GOD.  so when you feel like, “i don't have hope.  i don’t know what to do next,” one of the things to do is begin reading through the bible.  i suggest you read psalms, a book like mark in the new testament or philippians – places to start.  read through some books like that.  you’ll find some promises there that you can plan on.  that you can count on. 

you begin to read and ask GOD for a promise.  romans 15.4 (niv) says this about the bible, for everything that was written in the past was written to teach us so that through endurance and the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.  two important words i’ve highlighted there, endurance and encouragement.  let me just ask you a quick question.  which of those two do you like better?  i don’t know about you but i like encouragement.  endurance?  that doesn’t sound like such a hot idea.  but it takes both.  it takes both encouragement and endurance and GOD’s word gives us the strength for both. 

dale carnegie once said “most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.”  the question is how do you keep on trying?  where do you get the encouragement to keep on trying?  where do you get the endurance to keep on trying?  it’s not easy.  so the bible gives us the encouragement, the endurance that we need. 

just a thought from the front porch…