Monday, May 27, 2013

365 Days of Spirit-Filled Fruits Challenge-Day 181 & 182

We had family in town yesterday so I wasn’t able to use my computer in the morning as usual. We went to church together and both my hubbie and I were delighted with the topic being “encouragement”. Some people just have a negative attitude and are critical about everything. They tend to say negative things that really don’t need to be said at all. The sermon was about encouragement and how we should go and encourage others. I especially loved the story our pastor told about another pastor who was working at starting up a church in a 3rd world country. For two years, he prepared sermons for each Sunday and nobody came. But every Sunday, he would look up the hill and would see a cross at the top of the hill. This cross helped sustain him through these two years. He decided to climb the hill to the top. At the top, he found a hotel and the cross was on top of one of the buildings. He went inside to talk with the manager. Let’s just say the manager was not in a very good mood. “What do you want?” he asked gruffly of the pastor. The pastor told him about his trying to start a church and preaching every Sunday with no one showing up and that the cross on the top of the hotel helped him. The manager broke into tears and told the pastor he had in the time since he put up the cross always received negative comments about it and this was the first time he had received a positive one. The pastor ended up preaching at the hotel and his ministry flourished. He was in need of encouragement himself but gave encouragement to this manager and God blessed his ministry. Some people have the gift of encouragement but all of us are capable of sharing encouragement with others. So go encourage someone today with your smile, hug and kind words.
Romans 15:4 For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

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