SPEAK WORDS OF EXHORTATION

Friday: 11th May, 2018

Reference text: Acts 18:9-18

Acts 18:9-10 Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace: For I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee: for I have much people in this city.

At the time of hearing these words from God, Paul had been in ministry for some time. He had faced difficult situations: being imprisoned and had a number of near death experiences, yet, he had showed no signs of relenting and kept going. It is therefore a bit of a surprise that God appears on the scene at this particular moment to offer him words of comfort and encouragement to keep him going even when he was already doing so well.

It isn’t that people like Paul, don’t know how good they are or have a need to feed on the applause they receive from others, but words like the kind God spoke coming from others, can go a long way to sustain the drive they have for whatever task is at hand. God gave reassurances to Paul that he was not alone and the boost in confidence and courage that comes from that knowledge, cannot be quantified.

Beloved, the times when we appear to have need of nothing, are often those moments when we can actually do with some words of encouragement. Even when we think others are at their strongest, we should not starve them of words of comfort, love and reassurances because at those times when we are certain that people are at their strongest, could also be the times when they are at their weakest.

You could even make an argument to the effect that ‘too much of this could make others proud’, but are you ready to take that gamble of ‘nothing versus too much’ when it comes to speaking words of exhortation? My dear, it does not take a PhD to speak words of comfort or exhortation – so why don’t we all get speaking.

Remember # exhort and encourage, because you can and you should.

#sly