To Encourage You

1 Thessalonians 5:14 “And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.”

It’s so important to pay close attention to the specific words used in the Word of God.  God created language.  He knows how to say things to us in the best possible way.  Not one word in the Bible is used in a haphazard way. It says things in the way it does for a reason.  An example of this is shown in the verse above.  Notice that that Scripture uses the word “urge.”  It’s a strong word meant to get our attention.  God chose to use this word to convey the thought that what follows is something that we can be prone to neglect.  God wants us to know that what He is saying to us is an urgent matter.  And whatever He’s saying is meant not for some unknown person out there somewhere. No, if you’re a child of God, it is meant for you and it’s meant for me.  It’s personal – so personal that we can put our name in where it says “brothers”.  And because it uses the word “urge” it must point to the fact that we need to be urged. 

So what is the need that is being emphasized here?  It’s the fact that there are people around us that are either idle, fainthearted, or weak.  Whereas it can be tempting to get impatient with people like this, (i.e., those that are more idle than we are, or more fainthearted about something that bothers us not near as much, or weak in an area where we view ourselves as strong) we are to be patient. And rather than ignoring them, or worse yet, being critical, we are to admonish, encourage, and help them as the Lord gives us opportunity. 

In order to do this, we may need to ask the Lord to open our eyes to who they are.  We may need to ask Him for a sensitivity to these fellow believers, for surely, He’s concerned about them, or He wouldn’t have told us these things.  God would have us to reach out to those in need, for they are spiritually vulnerable in their condition, and you or I may be the very ones who can help them at this moment in their life. 

In a verse that just preceded the words above, we are told to “encourage one another and build one another up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11).  Perhaps you have been the beneficiary of such actions by others. Perhaps you can point to specific situations where others have come alongside you just when you needed to be encouraged. They provided just the right words at just the right time, and it meant everything to you at that moment. I know this has happened in my life more than once.  But perhaps, now is the time you or I can be that encouragement to someone else.  And perhaps the need is much more urgent than you or I are aware. 

May God gives us eyes to see those around us as He sees them, and may He enable us and equip so that “as (we) wish that others would do to (us), (we would) do so to them” (Luke 6:31) particularly as it pertains to admonishment, encouragement, or other forms of help that God has specifically and individually equipped us to provide.