To Encourage You

1 Thessalonians 5:11 “Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.”

The will of God – it’s often a very simple thing. One of the things God wants us to do is to encourage one another, and build each other up.  Isn’t it interesting, however, that the verse above is written to those who are already doing this?  Why so?  Perhaps one reason is that God is just showing us one way in which encouragement is done.  In the economy of words above, He’s encouraging the encouragers that they are doing a good thing.  What they had been doing had been good in God’s eyes. 

So often, when I think about encouragement, I think about reaching out to someone because they are discouraged or lifting someone up who is tentative or tempted to give up on some effort because they lack confidence.  And indeed, that is one form of encouragement.  However, in the example above, God is showing us that perhaps one often overlooked way to encourage someone is to acknowledge them for the ways in which they have blessed our lives and the lives of others.  Acknowledging a selfless person who doesn’t do what they do to bring acclaim to themselves is a good thing. Though they might not seek it, encourage them, for surely, when we acknowledge someone for the good things they’ve done, it encourages them to keep at it. 

To encourage an encourager, to acknowledge kindness in a person, to thank a giver, encourages that person to keep it up. Though a person may strive to love others and thereby obey the Lord’s greatest commandment day in and day out, we know that sometimes such acts of godliness can be met with great resistance and ungodliness in this evil world. Remember Job, but more than that, remember Christ.  That’s why God has again encouraged us with these words “Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9).  He knows that, to us, it so often doesn’t look like that’s the case.  That’s why He encourages us, and wants us to encourage one another, for someday, somehow, in some way, there are blessings that will be poured out on the obedient, blessings beyond what we might imagine if we walk by sight alone.   

So, if you’ve been loving on someone and they don’t love you back, keep loving them just the same. If you’ve given and given and given some more, and no one notices, give even more.  If you’ve been returning good for evil (Romans 12:21) and more evil seems to result, meet it with good again, for that’s God’s will for us.  You see, our God, Who knows all, sees all, and ultimately controls all, has told us that in due season we will reap, if we don’t give up.  May this encourage an encourager to encourage someone today again, and may we all follow God’s example to encourage godliness whenever we see it in a world with so much ungodliness that so many can see as well.