Bonus: Encouragement

Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report

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Welcome to the Rap Report Daily Edition, where we provide a quick biblical interpretations and applications.

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This is a ministry of striving for eternity. This was from our

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Rap Report Daily episodes. In other words, we do a Monday through Friday two -minute version of the

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Rap Report every Monday through Friday, just two minutes for people who like the shorter podcasts.

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What I try to do every once in a while is we get a series of something that I think is good for a little bit of a longer podcast,

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I want to put them on here. This was two weeks that we spent discussing the issue of encouragement on my daily podcast.

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I know not everyone listens to the daily, and so sometimes I put these together just to encourage you with what you can get if you listen just to that daily devotion.

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We did it so that those folks who like to get daily, short little devotional type things can get a short two -minute daily devotion.

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Sometimes maybe other podcasters or people would want to play that on their podcast and interact with them.

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So that's what we've done them for, but I put them together as a little bonus episode for my regular

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Rap Report, the longer edition. So this is not going to be as long as some of the other bonus ones, but I hope that you'll find this encouraging, and I hope that this really gives you some ideas of how to encourage other people.

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So enjoy the series on encouragement. Have you ever gotten something that really greatly encourages you?

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I want to talk this week about things that encourage us, and I want to give you some examples.

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But we need encouragement. Many of us, well, we try to go through life pretending like we can handle everything.

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We don't need anyone else. We don't need to know what other people are thinking, because we're good enough, strong enough, whatever it may be, to be able to do this on our own.

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And the reality is, every one of us, if we're going to admit it, needs encouragement. In fact,

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Scripture says that we should be encouraging one another.

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We don't like to admit that, do we? But we should. We need to encourage one another.

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There's actually many one another's in the Bible, and maybe one day I will do a podcast on that.

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But what I do want to do is look at the fact that we should be about the business of encouraging one another.

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It's something we need to do. It's something that the Bible calls us to. And when we think about it, and by the way,

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I should mention this is in 1 Thessalonians 4 .18, that it says, therefore encourage one another.

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And so the thing is, is we should be about that business.

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We should be doing that. And I want to encourage you this week in different ways.

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I hope that you're encouraged, first off, by reading the Scriptures. That is the greatest source that we could ever have of encouragement in our life.

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In 1 Thessalonians 5 and verse 11, we see it says, therefore encourage one another.

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And build one another up. This is something we should be doing, and unfortunately not enough of us do this.

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We should be trying to encourage one another as much as we can. We often think about the fact that we would like to be encouraged, and yet we don't think as often as we should about other people needing the encouragement.

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In fact, one of the things I often find in counseling people is the fact that they are upset when someone is not encouraging them, and they gave very little or no thought whatsoever about people they could be encouraging.

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We should be encouraging one another in the body of Jesus Christ, in the church.

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It's something we should be doing, and yet many of us, if we're going to be honest, fall short of that instruction.

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We should be looking about the people we are in contact with today.

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Think about this, and think about as you go about your day, who can you encourage?

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Seek out someone in your day today to encourage.

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Because there's somebody that you're going to come in contact with that you can encourage even today.

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You may not have thought about it before today, but do it today. Many years ago when I started doing my

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Striving for Eternity Academy, the free courses that we offer on YouTube for people to learn theology, introduction to the world of religions, how to interpret the

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Bible, how to disciple someone, we have all these courses out there. I was struck over many years at the fact that when

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I would go to funerals, I would hear people say some of the most encouraging things about a person who just passed away.

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The thing that always strikes me is how much those people, when they were alive, would love to have heard about those things.

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I started at the end of my shows to try to find one person that we could seek to, as a group, encourage each week, because I realized, and maybe if you think about it too, if you've ever been to a funeral, you hear how encouraging people speak of someone.

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I remember once with a young man who actually took his own life in despair, and person after person after person came up saying what an impact he made on their life, and I realized this young man probably never even knew it, because people kept that to themselves.

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I wonder if things would have been different if they encouraged him while he was still alive, and that's what

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I would like to encourage you to consider to do, to encourage others as much as you can while they're still alive.

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You don't know the impact it might make. Encouragement means to give someone confidence or boldness to do something, and I want to encourage you this week, but one of the things that encouraged me was a

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Twitter that I got. We got a tweet from a pastor down in Cebu, Philippines.

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Pastor David wanted to encourage both Justin Peters and myself because of the conference that we had done down there, and he sent a message, and this is a very encouraging message.

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Now let me let you know that in the Philippines there's an issue with tithing. They put it up as a doctrine that's almost like a sin if you don't give 10 % to the church.

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That comes into play. We had spoken also about women's role in the church and whether women should preach, and this is what he said.

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The conference, by the way, was called Snatch, so you're going to hear that. Here's what he said. Update on Snatch.

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Local pastor in Cebu preached on Sunday that from now on they will only preach from scripture and have rejected tithing as a doctrine.

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A woman was also asked to preach, but she said, quote, no, I won't find a man to do it, unquote.

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That's greatly encouraging to both Justin and I. Why? Because it says that people understood the things that we are teaching as being from scripture and they were willing to stand up with boldness and take action.

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That encourages me to encourage others. So after discussing encouragement this week, have you been encouraged?

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Have you encouraged others? Here's the thing. When we look in the scriptures, we see that there are many people who have relationships with one another where their relationship is one of encouragement.

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We see this with Jonathan and David. They were friends who were so close that they were of great encouragement to one another.

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We think about this with Paul and Barnabas. In fact, if you know the meaning of the name

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Barnabas and you know the account in the book of Acts, you realize that was actually not his given name.

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Barnabas is a nickname. It means son of encouragement.

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In other words, Barnabas was such a man of encouraging others that it became his nickname.

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He and Paul went on missionary journeys together and were able to have an impact for the kingdom of God.

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But think about Barnabas. Can you be a Barnabas to others, to be such a person of encouragement that you would have a nickname of son of encouragement?

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Would that be your nickname? Well, it may not be today, but can each of us make a plan that this will be how we want to be known?

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We want to be known as someone who encourages others so much so that people will start to nickname us one of encouragement.

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Encouragement. So many of us want it. We say we need it, but so few of us actually look to provide it for others.

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What I want to do is give you some practical ways that you might be able to seek to encourage others even today.

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There's a lot of different ways that we can encourage people and we often don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about it.

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So one of the things I'd encourage you to do as my way of encouraging you is to encourage you to encourage someone else today.

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One way of doing this would be to send an email. You can find someone, go through your phone book and look at different people in your phone book.

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Maybe it's someone you haven't spoken to in a really long time, but go through and think through each of the people in your phone book and I'm sure if you think through it hard enough you're going to find some people in your list that you can send an encouraging note.

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Something that they have done for you that you just can thank them for.

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Maybe it's on years ago and you never even recognized it or acknowledged it, but send an email to someone just letting them know you appreciate something they've done or something about them.

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It goes a long way in building relationships with people. Just being able to let them know you appreciate something that they did.

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So do that today. Go encourage someone by email today. When we think about encouragement, maybe some of us can think of that person, someone in our life that when we just think about them it's like, wow, that person is so encouraging.

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You know, one of the amazing ways that you can do something to encourage people, especially people you don't see very often or meet once and then you see them again, maybe even a year later, is to remember their name.

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It's an amazing thing. I'm horrible at this. I'm trying to work on it, but it is amazing.

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You know, one of the things that encouraged me when I got to meet Kirk Cameron is the second time

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I met him, he not only remembered my name, he remembered a conversation that we had.

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In fact, every time I saw him, he would remember details of things we've talked about.

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He'd remember my name, be able to spot me in a crowd of people. And that is something that amazed me because he meets so many people.

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So what it does for the individual is you go, wow, that person took the time to remember my name.

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So if you are someone who meets a lot of people, it becomes really difficult. But a simple thing of really encouraging people is remembering details, remembering things about them.

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This is one thing that I try to do is to pray for people, and in praying for them regularly, it helps me to remember details of what we discuss, and it helps me to encourage them the next time

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I see them. You know, when you want to encourage other people, the more you remember about them, it becomes greatly encouraging.

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We are commanded in Scripture, encouraged to encourage others. We should be encouraging one another.

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And yet, what we see is we are so self -absorbed in our busy lives, we often don't take the time to think about other people.

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I'm saying this as someone who was working on this myself. But one thing I do know is when

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I'm praying for someone regularly and I take my prayer notes and I think about them regularly, I remember those details.

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I remember that there was a gentleman named Jason Cross. He was an unsafe person that I'd meet in Union Square.

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Every year, he'd be there for probably seven, eight years that I had been going there.

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And Jason would never want to shake my hand. It was just one of the things he wouldn't do.

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And I would always tell him I was praying for him. One day, he didn't believe it until I told him

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I was praying for him. He said, no, you're not. And I opened my phone, my prayer list, and he saw not only was

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I praying for him, but I had been praying for his aunt. I'd been praying for his cousin who had been in prison.

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He didn't even know I knew about those details. You know, in six years, he would never shake my hand.

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That day was the first time when I went to leave the park that he shook my hand. Why? Because he was encouraged to know that I wasn't just saying

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I was praying for him. You know, all Christians like to do that. I'll pray for you, brother. And they don't actually pray. But he knew

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I was praying for him, and that encouraged him. What are some things that we should be encouraging others to be doing well?

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Here's some things to think about. We see that we should be encouraging others in God's Word.

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We should be encouraging them to do good works. We should be encouraging them to be acting more like Christ.

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These are some things we see in Scripture. We should be encouraging them to be bold and strengthened for Christ's sake.

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So as we go through and think about different things we should be encouraging others for, it may help us to think of a list of things that we should be looking out every day for people in our lives that we could be purposely saying, okay, let me see if I can encourage someone to get into the

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Word of God today, spend some time. Maybe you're seeing someone who's struggling in some specific way, and you know some

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Scripture verse that would help in that way. That can be an encouragement, not only encouraging them in this situation, but maybe you can use it to encourage them to get into God's Word.

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We should be encouraging people to stand fast in the Word of God, to be praying to God.

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You know, we live in a culture that is fast paced, always busy, always looking at self, and always trying to distract us from the things

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God would call us to do. And so with that, all of us know, if we're going to be honest, we need people encouraging us to be doing the things

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God calls us to do. And one way to do that is to encourage others to do it. It'll be a reminder to ourselves.

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We've been talking about encouragement and how to encourage others, but I want to tell you a little secret about encouragement, that maybe if you haven't tried to encourage others, you didn't notice this.

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And if you have been a person who encourages, maybe you already know this little secret. But here's a little secret for you.

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When you encourage others, it actually comes back and encourages you, especially if you're encouraging them in things of God's Word.

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Because what you're doing when you're encouraging them is also reminding yourself of the very Word of God, that often we need the encouragement as well.

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So we don't do the encouragement to others so that we could be encouraged, but it is a benefit.

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It is something that comes back to benefit us. And the thing is, we all, every one of us, want encouragement from others.

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But how much more will people want to encourage us if we also are putting on display a pattern, a behavior of encouragement?

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And that's something you and I should be doing. We should be going about encouraging others.

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I hope that as I've done this little bit of a series on encouragement, that you've been encouraged to encourage others, to strengthen them, to embolden them to do what's right, to get out of their comfort zone maybe and do what you know

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God calls them to do. Whatever it is, may you have been encouraged to encourage others.

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And let me say this to the many of you who've been trying to encourage me throughout these weeks of discussing encouragement.

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Thank you very much. It was encouraging. This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry.