The Importance of Giving and Receiving Encouragement

Mike Hosey, An Elder

Very often, negativity is bred from discouragement.  Discouragement is that state in which there has been a dispiritedness, or a loss of enthusiasm or confidence. Life is full of barriers, setbacks, storms, problems, mistakes, sins, failures, difficult people, crimes, pitfalls and other difficulties that make discouragement inevitable. If you have positive, desirable goals or expectations of any kind, you will be disappointed and subsequently discouraged at some point along your journey in this world. When you’ve had enough discouragement and disappointment, negativity will be knocking at your door.

When that happens, you don’t need to open the door.  Instead, you need a shot of the opposite of discouragement. You need encouragement. Encouragement is rooted in giving someone enthusiasm, confidence, or hope.  It is helping a person to move forward in the midst of, or in spite of, all of those barriers, pitfalls, and disappointments.  But there’s something even more important in these two words than concepts like enthusiasm or confidence.  Notice that the root of both terms is the word “courage.” When you are discouraged, your courage has been removed. When you are encouraged, your courage has been restored.  Courage is having strength in the face of pain, grief, difficulty or fear.  And this may be why the bible puts so much emphasis on encouragement.  One of those places of emphasis is Hebrews 3:13, where the bible tells us to exhort or encourage one another daily so that we are not hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, and thus rendered ineffective in our Christian endurance. The command is that we should encourage one another.  Not that we are to simply receive encouragement from others, but that we are also to engage in the process of encouraging others. Doing this creates a double shot of the encouragement medicine for God's people!  It’s obvious that receiving encouragement from others helps us to realize our potential for victory as we walk out our faith.  But encouraging others will have the same effect on our own lives.  When we take the time to intentionally see the Godly positives in another person’s life, and to point out those positives, it is very difficult for us to maintain a negative outlook in our own life. You cannot effectively maintain discouragement in your own mind while at the same time pointing out hopeful things for your brother or sister in Christ that will also be true for you.

So how do you encourage your brothers or sisters? You point out to them how God has used them and is using them. You remind them of their victories, and of God’s plan for their life. You intentionally look for the things in their life that are uplifting and tell them about it.  And finally, you do uplifting things for them. So be of good courage (Psalm 27:14 KJV) and don’t open the door to negativity.