The Encouragement of Community

Spending time with God’s family is an important source of encouragement.

Folks at Valley love the Lord and really love people. The relationship and kinship in which I participate encourages me! Sharing life together with the people who make up our local congregation inspires me! I love my Valley Fellowship family!

I also love my home. Time with Patti and my daughters is a blessing. We appreciate holidays with brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles and aunts. Mom had the Simon clan gather in Nashville for Christmas 1993 (four months after the death of my Dad), and visiting the Gaylord Opryland Hotel during the Christmas season became a family tradition. Look at us last year!

Don’t we look happy? We had fun – together. One reason for my joy is that my natural family is made up of people who love the Lord.

Although you can encourage yourself all by yourself (read more in tomorrow’s post), enormous encouragement comes from relationship with Christ’s Body, the church. The writer of Hebrews connects your call to encourage others with a call to meet together. “Let’s see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshiping together as some do but spurring each other on, especially as we see the big Day approaching.” (Hebrews 10:24-25 MSG)

You need encouragement that only comes from a face-to-face, in-the-flesh encounter with another child of God.

Mutual encouragement results from time invested in fellowship, connection, community. Consider Paul’s stated desire to the family of God in Rome: “When we get together, I want to encourage you in your faith, but I also want to be encouraged by yours.”  (Romans 1:12 NLT) Paul was certain that time spent with the Roman believers – whom he had yet to meet in person – would generate encouragement. Upon what was this certainty based? At least partially, His experience!

• Early in his walk with Christ, Paul received encouragement from a peer relationship with Barnabas whose nickname actually means “son of encouragement” (Acts 4:36).
• Paul was a member of the team that hand-delivered a letter from Jerusalem that prompted encouragement in Antioch, “When they read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement.” (Acts 15:31 HCSB)
• In Antioch, Paul witnessed how prophets and church leaders “said much to encourage and strengthen the believers.”  (Acts 15:32b NIV)
• Paul personally benefited from his relationship with the church family, “Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the Lord’s people.”  (Philemon 1:7 NIV)

Paul understood the presence of an individual can release encouragement. That is one the big reasons why Paul regularly sent individuals on assignment – to impart encouragement.

• “We sent Timothy, who is our brother and co-worker in God’s service in spreading the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you in your faith.”  (1 Thessalonians 3:2 NIV)
• “I am sending him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are, and that he may encourage you.” (Ephesians 6:22 NIV)
• “I am sending him [faithful minister Tychicus] to you for the express purpose that you may know about our circumstances and that he may encourage your hearts.” (Colossians 4:8 NIV)

May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  (Romans 15:5-6 NIV)

As you encourage others, pray for them, and give them insights into God’s Word, you’ll grow in confidence and self–value. You’ll discover that you do have something to give away—you have the Word of God and the Spirit of God resident in you and freely flowing through you to others. The prophet Jeremiah wrote about the children of God that even though they were clay pots, they were as valuable as fine gold (see Lam. 4:2). You, too, are a vessel that God desires to use. He is seeking continually to pour Himself through you to others. Open your mouth and your heart, and begin to encourage people the Lord sends your way. (Charles Stanley, The Source of My Strength, 1994)