God commanded that His people encourage each other because He knew we would need it. Jesus warned that “in the world, you will have tribulation…” which He followed with much-needed encouragement, “but take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
We live in a broken world where everything calls us toward selfishness and despair. Sin steals joy, our bodies break down, our plans falter, our dreams die, our resolves weaken, our perspective dims. We are promised to suffer (1 Peter 4:12), persecution (John 15:20; 2 Timothy 3:12), and trials of all sorts (James 1:2-3).
When encouragement is absent from life, an individual will feel unloved, unimportant, useless, and forgotten. God knows His people are in need of grace-filled reminders, which is why He calls us to encourage each other every day until His Son returns (Hebrews 3:13).
We are a chosen vessel of God and it was nothing of our doing, he called us before the foundation of the world. “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:” (King James Bible, 1769/2017, Ephesians 1:4). God chose to bless us in Christ Jesus and gave us a heart to believe. “Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me” (Isaiah 43:10). We can’t take no credit for God’s work; it is his grace that made us who we are. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). In all that we do, we must remember that God loved us before we were saints. “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Roma...
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