The Wake-Up Call

For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation. (Ps. 62:1)

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Pure joy is joy untethered from even the slightest shred of happiness.

When we encourage each other in this sense, we—in the most real and tangible way—become the bearers or agents of God to one another.

To the man or woman reading this thinking all is lost—be assured, perseverance is finishing its work in you.

Perseverance does not come from us. It comes from God.

Don’t be afraid. Do not be discouraged. No matter how bad or hard it is, Jesus has you, and you have him—and he has this!

Even in the midst of his anguish, David understands and foresees that God is his fortress and final hope.

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

To encourage someone in the midst of a trial is to greet them with the embrace of Jesus, welcome them into the house of love, and sit with them until they are ready to walk again.

There comes a point in this journey, if we can stay awake with Jesus and deepen our awareness of his presence, our attention to his words, our attunement to his voice, and our attachment to his heart, that we will find him abiding in us all the time and we in him.

Courage is not the absence of fear, discouragement, or despair. Courage is the presence of Jesus.

In this way of life, this way of delighting oneself in the Lord, we come to desire the life Jesus desires for us.

God’s Word is a consuming word. It is a totalizing, comprehensive script of absolute wisdom for our whole lives.

Even in the midst of his anguish, David understands and foresees that God is his fortress and final hope.

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

The biblical concept of meditation carries the image of a lion growling over, eating, and savoring its freshly caught prey.

I am here to encourage you to get off of the bleachers of passive faith and get onto the field of active awakening.

Will you be in the world for Christ, or will you be in Christ for the world?

Encouragement, in the biblical sense of the term, is never “You can do it!” It is always “God will do it.”

Our God, the God of heaven and earth, the only true and living God, almost always begins very, very, very, very small.

God sends his power to deliver us, but he also sends us the sure word of his faithfulness, even as we languish in the midst of difficult times, still awaiting his deliverance.

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Come, Holy Spirit, and bring deep awakening to the deepest places in our hearts. Soften our hearts. Show us the hardness. Break up the fallow ground. Declare a season of sowing in our hearts.

One of the everyday ways we can hear the voice of God is through the encouragement of other people.