Timely words of encouragement

Proverbs 25:11 (NLV)

A word spoken at the right time is like fruit of gold set in silver.

There are times in our lives when we get depressed.  All of us get depressed at one time or another although some get depressed more often than others.  I am not referring to clinical depression where there is some kind of chemical imbalance in the brain leading to chronic depression, but depression that occurs to all of us from time to time because of something wrong occurring in our lives.  When you think about times of depression in your life, what helped you to get rid of the depression?  Sometimes, it just goes away, sometimes a good night’s sleep helps, but many times, an encouraging word from someone else is what you needed.  Encouraging words may be spoken or, perhaps more often, written in an email message or letter.  Such words, even a single word, spoken at the right time compares to a fruit of gold set in silver.

In the Bible gold represents not only a precious and most valuable metal or gem, but also refers to the glory of God, that which is pure, rare, special, beautiful and durable.  When you think of gold in the Bible you think of gold being one of the gifts of the three wise men (representing Jesus’ kingship, Matthew 2:11) and streets of golf in heaven (Revelation 21:21).  However, the use of the word “gold” (Hebrew “zahab”) in Proverbs 25:11 figuratively means something that is clear and fair, like a clear, fair weather day.  That’s what an encouraging word does, make your life seem like a fair weather day.   Silver (Hebrew “keceph”) does not have the value of gold but still represents something of value and was common currency in biblical times (Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver).  The term “silver lining” is an idiom used to assume someone that there’s a comforting or hopeful no matter how desperate or unhappy the situation.  So an encouraging word is like gold that brightens your day and silver that gives you hope. 

When is the right time to speak an encouraging word?  There are times that it is better to be silent (Ecclesiastes 3:7).  When you don’t know what to say it probably is best that you don’t say anything.  Dionysius the Elder wrote: “Let thy speech be better than silence-----or be silent.”  Too often people feel that they have to say something and that something turns out to be insensitive.  For example, people will say “Oh, it’s going to be okay” when it would be far better to say nothing and just hold a hand or put your arm around a shoulder.  If you have not experienced what someone is experiencing it is wrong to say “I understand”.  No, you don’t understand so don’t say anything. 

However, most of the time, saying simple or few words of encouragement---“I care for you”, “I love you”, “Is there anything I can do for you”---can make a world of difference to someone who needs to hear these kinds of words.  People who are lonely, discouraged, worried, unhappy, feeling rejected, unwanted, unworthy always need to hear someone tell them something positive.  Proverbs 12:25: “Worry in the heart of a man weighs it down, but a good word makes it glad”.  Just contacting someone through an email, a phone call or visiting in person and showing that you care for them makes such a positive impact on them. 

Yet, while we all love to be encouraged, especially when times are difficult, so few of us actually do any encouraging at all.  Think about it……..how long has it been since you specifically spoke or wrote an encouraging word to someone else?  When was the last time to spoke or wrote an encouraging word at the right time to members of your family, your neighbor, your co-worker, your friends at church, your pastor, and others you know?  Have you ever, out of the clear blue, written a note of encouragement to someone?  You must know how good it feels to receive encouragement from others, but are you doing it?  Someone needs to hear from you today. 

“The world is full of discouragers.  We have a Christian duty to encourage one another.  Many a time a word of praise or thanks or appreciation or cheer has kept a man on his feet.  Blessed is the man who speaks such a word.” -- William Barclay

Some reasons why God allows people to suffer

II Corinthians 1:3-7 (NASB)

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer; and our hope for you is firmly grounded, knowing that as you are sharers of our sufferings, so also you are sharers of our comfort.

One of the basic fundamentals of learning to study the Bible effectively is to pay attention to how often a word is repeated in a passage.  The more often a word is repeated, the easier it is for you to discern what God is really trying to get through to you in helping you grow spiritually.  In the NASB translation above, Paul uses the word “affliction” or “afflicted” three times while the word “comfort” is used ten times.  You are afflicted anytime you are stressed, anytime you feel knots in your stomach thinking about what you are facing.  The word used for comfort means to encourage, to strengthen.  This passage is saying that God provides to you in your affliction His encouragement and His strength.

Yet do you turn to God when you are afflicted or do you turn to some other source without involving God—e.g. escape through other humans or work or alcohol or drugs or some other temporal outlet?  Even if you are a devout Christian, do you pray that your afflictions disappear?  It is not God’s purpose for your life that your afflictions disappear.  God allows Christians to suffer for several reasons:

·  Suffering enables you to discover what God can do to help you depend more on Him and His strength, not your own.  He is the source of comfort (v 3-4).

·  Suffering is a means for others to see how you stand up to the challenges of life.  Other people are watching you, seeing how you handle the pressures of life.  Are you showing others to face afflictions with reliance on the Lord or are you complaining and showing that the Lord cannot be trusted to help you?  Perhaps more than any other situation in life, suffering enables you to be your greatest witness for Christ.  

·  Suffering causes the need for interdependence, for people to share their problems with one another, for people to learn the importance of encouragement and stop thinking only of their own problems and start thinking about the needs of others.  You fulfill the law of Christ when you bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2).  Perhaps the most important reason why God allows suffering is so that you will lose your natural tendency to be self-reliant, self centered, stubborn, and too much of a complainer.

·  Suffering positions people to be the greatest help to others going through the same afflictions.  You have lost something so important in your life—e.g. your health, a loved one, your job.  Who helps you the most dealing with the emotions surrounding this loss?  Someone who also has gone through the same experience as you are now going through.  You learn you have cancer.  Who helps you the most?  Someone who had the same cancer as you have and beat it.  You are dealing with a difficult family situation.  Who do you listen to in helping you face and overcome this family problem?  Someone you know and trust who has faced the same kind of situation.

The Bible scholar, Ray Stedman, wrote the following, based on the verses above and continuing through verse 11 of II Corinthians 1[1]:  “Suffering is sent to us to show us that we are not individuals living all alone in life. We are members of a family, we are members of a Body, and we need each other. When you have a difficulty or a trial, share it with others so that they can pray with you, for many prayers will bring great deliverance. That is the reason for requests for prayer, for sharing our needs with one another, and for enlisting the aid of others in praying us through times of pressure, as we ought to be ready to respond to those who are going through pressure with prayer for them ourselves. Now that is the way the Christian community ought to respond to stress and pressure, to difficulties and trials and disasters. God has sent them. God has allowed them to come as opportunities that you might learn again this amazing secret of inner strength, inner comfort, inner peace that can keep your heart quiet, even though you are going through troubled times.”

May all these words give you significant comfort and renewed strength as you face your troubles with the help of the Lord through your prayers

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[1] http://www.raystedman.org/new-testament/2-corinthians/why-does-it-hurt-so-much

Keep your father's commands and don't forget your mother's teaching

Proverbs 6:20-23 (NCV)

My son, keep your father's commands, and don't forget your mother's teaching.  Keep their words in mind forever as though you had them tied around your neck.  They will guide you when you walk. They will guard you when you sleep. They will speak to you when you are awake.  These commands are like a lamp; this teaching is like a light. And the correction that comes from them will help you have life.

Chapters 1 through 7 of Proverbs focus on a father’s advice to his son to be wise in all respects.  I count at least 16 times where the phrase “my son” or “my sons” is used in these seven chapters.  Much of Solomon’s advice to his son warns against sexual misconduct and it takes great wisdom to resist such temptation.  Wisdom comes from the Word of God and is personified in the Person of Jesus Christ (“who became to us wisdom from God”—I Corinthians 1:30).

Have you thought of the father commanding and the mother teaching?  According to Proverbs 6:20 the father sets/establishes the rules and the mother implements the rules.  This may not be true anymore in today’s society where both parents work full time, but historically, the father would work away from home all day while the mother stayed home.  Therefore, the father did not have nearly as much time to spend with his children and teach them continually whereas the mother did have the time.  Think about your upbringing……who taught you the most---your father or your mother?  Of course, in two parent families, both fathers and mothers teach their children, but this biblical model teaches that the father commands and the mother teaches with both commanding and teaching related to knowing and understanding the commandments and teachings of the Bible.

In writing this, it is so sad to reflect on the fact that a large percentage of children live in homes without a father and how devastating divorce is on the upbringing of children.  God intended fathers and mothers to have complementary roles, not roles that either one can do without the other.  Unfortunately many children grow up with a single parent trying to be both father and mother and this is not God’s intent.     

What are children to do with the father’s commands and the mother’s teachings?  Bind them continually on your heart and tie them around your neck.  The heart is the center of your life and must be fed continually.  The feeding here is nourishing from the Word of God. The words “bind” and “tie” convey the sense of strength, something that cannot be broken or taken away.  To bind is to commit God’s Word to your heart.  To tie is to be reminded of God’s Word in your life every day.  Do you try to memorize verses of the Bible that mean the most to you?  Do you apply those verses to your life every day, especially verses that give you wisdom to deal with daily temptation, stress, and other life challenges?  In the context of these chapters dealing with sexual temptation, to tie God’s Word around your neck will keep you from turning your neck to lust upon women.            

What will your father’s commands and your mother’s teaching do for you if you bind them to your heart and tie them around your neck?

·    Guide you when you walk—always lead you in the right directions and make the right choices in your life, both in your personal and in your professional life

·    Guard you when you sleep—allows you to have peace of heart and mind that, among other things, enables you to sleep well

·    Speak to you when you are awake—a heart full of godly wisdom will enable you to have an ongoing dialogue with the Lord throughout your day and produce wise decisions, actions, words, and thoughts.   

Psalm 119:105, made famous by Amy Grant’s song, says that God’s Word is a lamp to your feet and a light to your path.  Your father’s commands are the lamp, your mother’s teachings are the light.  They keep your pathways in life straight and enable your life to be free (John 8:32) and abundant (John 10:10).

As a father or a mother and as a son/daughter, what do these verses say to your heart?   

“By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he's wrong.” --Charles Wadsworth

Seven hates of the Lord

Proverbs 6:16-19 (NLT)

There are six things the Lord hates—no, seven things he detests: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that kill the innocent, a heart that plots evil, feet that race to do wrong, a false witness who pours out lies, a person who sows discord in a family.

The word “hate” is such an ugly word, yet this passage describes seven “hates” of the Lord.  These are also called the seven abominations of the Lord, although realize that Scripture speaks of other abominations (67 times) besides these seven.  When the word “hate” is used with reference to the Lord, it means His rejection of fellowship.  He has no desire to have a relationship with those who commit these things.  As you think about these seven wicked things, examine yourself to determine if you are guilty of any of these.  Be encouraged that although God hates these things, He still loves you and is willing to forgive you if you are willing to confess your wrongs and resolve to turn away from them from now on.  Of course, there are still consequences of committing these evil deeds for which you will have to pay the price.  

 

God hates haughty eyes.  Haughty eyes designates pride.  Pride is the number one sin of mankind.  It was the cause of original sin by Adam and Eve.  Pride most commonly is the cause of most of the greatest evils that occur in life.  Pride results in murder, war, anger, selfishness, and so many other egregious (as well as subtle) sins against others.   

God hates a lying tongue.  A lying tongue includes not only being untruthful with another person, but also being deceptive, misleading, not following up on promises, and being fraudulent.  Lying is part of human nature.  Bella DePaulo[1], a researcher at the U. of California at Santa Barbara, reported that we are likely to lie several times a day or in one out of every three conversations.  Although the majority of lying are “white lies”, typically untruths about ourselves to make us look better to others or to spare others’ feelings, serious lies, most commonly about affairs and money, involve people we care about the most and typically cover up what we are ashamed of.  Lying seems to be rampant in politics and in the business world.  No matter what kind of lying and who does it, God hates it.

God hates hands that kill the innocent.  This includes murder, of course, but Jesus also exclaimed in Matthew 6:21-22 that anger with your brother and calling him names is viewed by God as the same as murder.  However, Proverbs 6:17 is specifically referring to the action of killing another.    

God hates a heart that plots evil.  Mark 7:21-22 lists at least 12 sins of a heart that plots evil that will incur the wrath of God. 

God hates feet that race to do wrong.  God not only hates the heart/mind of a person that plots to do evil, but also the actual carrying out of that evil.  The verb “race” used here emphasizes the fact that a person who hastens with no hesitation to do wrong is hateful to the Lord.   

God hates a false witness who pours out lies.  Another emphasis on how much God hates lying although this sixth hateful thing is lying in public, particularly in a courtroom. 

Most of all, God hates a person who sows discord in a family.  When Hebrew literature uses the phrase where it starts with a number—in this passage the number six---then finishes with a higher number—in this passage, seven---the emphasis of the listing is on the last one.  So, the worst of all, God’s hates is the seventh one, the person who sows discord in a family.  Family here refers both to the family unit in a home as well as the family of God, e.g. the church.  Some translations used the word “brethren” rather than family.  God hates divorce.  Sowing discord in a family can lead to divorce.  What might be a huge surprise to you is the fact that God ranks causing family discord in the same category as being a liar and a murderer, an emphasis clearly pointed out in this passage.

Do whatever you need to do, if any of these abominations apply to you, to remove them from your life through prayer, forgiveness, and taking positive actions to remove them through the help and power of the Lord.

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[1] Bella DePaulo, The Hows and Whys of Lies, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2010, p. 14

Satan seeks opportune times to tempt you

Luke 4:13 (NASB)

When the devil had finished every temptation, he left Him until an opportune time.

The story of Jesus being tempted by Satan (Matthew 4:1-11 and Luke 4) is well-known in Christian circles.  In the Matthew story, after Jesus told Satan to go away, he did as Matthew 4:11 says: “Then the devil left Him; and behold, angels came and began to minister to Him.”  However, in the Luke story, you read verse 13 that the devil left Jesus “until an opportune time”.  Have you ever thought about what “an opportune time” means?  Was there another time later when Satan returned to tempt, harass, and perhaps harm Jesus? 

Scripture does not record another direct communication between Satan and Jesus again.  However, Jesus spoke about Satan several times in the gospels (Matthew 12:24-28, Matthew 13:19, Matthew 13:36-43, Luke 10:18, John 12:31-32, John 12:43-44).  Jesus always spoke about Satan being the enemy of Christians and always attempting to turn people’s hearts away from Jesus.  The parable of the sower in one example where in Matthew 13:19 and Mark 4:15 Jesus described the seed planted by the road as people who hear the Word of God but do not understand it and “the evil one” comes and snatches away what was sown in that person’s heart.  Luke 8:12 goes further and writes that the devil takes away the Word of God from people’s heart so that they will not believe and be saved. 

When Jesus was speaking about His death and resurrection in Matthew 16:21, Peter rebuked Jesus in verse 22 and what was Jesus’ response?  “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me”.  So Satan chooses an opportune time to oppose Jesus any chance he can get where he will oppose Jesus’ words and keep people from following Jesus.  He did this with Judas as you read in Luke 22:1-6.  

Luke 22:39-46 records Jesus’ time at the Mount of Olives right before He was betrayed and arrested.  While Scripture does not record any direct conversation Jesus might have had with Satan, Luke twice uses the phrase “enter into temptation” (verses 40 and 46).  This was in reference to His disciples that they pray not to enter into temptation.  Who is the tempter?  Satan.  When Jesus prayed in Luke 22:42 that His Father “remove this cup from Me”, isn’t it logical to believe that Satan was tempting Jesus right then?  Satan had many opportune times during Jesus’ waiting to be arrested, during His sufferings and being crucified, yet like the temptation in the desert, Jesus prevailed and did not allow Satan to have his way.  Such triumph over Satan demonstrated Jesus’ indescribable love for people more than any fear He might have had of pain and death.  

Satan looks for opportune times every day to tempt you and me.  He is the great deceiver (Genesis 3:1-7, Revelation 12:9), the father of lies (John 8:44), and a prowler seeking to devour you (I Peter 5:8).  Satan even disguises himself as “an angel of light” (II Corinthians 11:14) which is a common method for him to deceive people and pull them away from following the Lord.  He deceives people as an angel of light imposter by false teaching; that is, teaching that is contrary to the Word of God.  So many people who call themselves Christians do not know the Bible and, therefore, are easily deceived.  Two very common ways that Satan deceives people as an angel of light is through human pride, often manifested through sex and money.  It’s okay to be greedy, it’s okay to commit sexual immorality, it’s okay to be selfish and self-centered, etc.  That’s how Satan distorts the truth of God.

As Peter warns in I Peter 5:8, you must always “be of sober spirit, be on the alert” because Satan always looking for an opportune time to “devour” you so that you question your faith, you question the Bible, you think that your way is the right way (Isaiah 53:6).  The only ways that you can resist these satanic opportune times to destroy your faith and testimony are (1) to stay away from whatever you know tempts you in the first place and (2) use Scripture as Jesus did to counter attack any assault you feel Satan is aiming at you.  If you resist Satan through quoting God’s Word, he will flee from you (James 4:7). 

“Thanks be to God who gives us the victory though our Lord Jesus Christ” — I Corinthians 15:57