The Encouragement Blog

To paraphrase author Stephen Covey, “Nothing is worse than climbing the ladder of success, only at the top to find it is leaning against the wrong building.” What this aphorism means is that many of us go through life trying to amass the biggest piles of sand in hope of finding our identity and significance through stuff! This is a

Why do we feel anxious about the future? Why are we waking up at 3:30 A.M. worrying about the kids, the job, the bills, our marriage or the fact that we are not married? We obsess about the future and fret about things we cannot control. And, we do these things in the face of Paul’s assurances that God has

In an earlier blog post we wrote about The Power of the Cross. We detailed that God was a Holy God that cannot abide sin in any form. That being the case, we as sinful human beings were in a lot of trouble in the eternal destiny department. We were going to have to pay for our sins somehow if

Lots of people give God the heave-ho when things in their lives don’t go according to plan. Prayers are sent upward to Jesus asking Him to bless the business, the kids and to watch over their flight when they take off from JFK. We recite a “wish list” for God to tend to as we clamor about thinking of new

“You can’t always get what you want You can’t always get what you want But if you try sometimes you just might find You get what you need” There is a story recorded in the Bible (Luke 5:18-25) of a paralyzed man being lowered through the roof of a house by four friends of the man, so that they could

Artist Hieronymus Bosch, in his three-paneled painting,The Garden of Earthly Delights, c.1503-1504, depicts, in the second, main panel, the joy, lusts and delights that humans enjoy during a portion of their lives. The third panel of the triptych depicts a dark vision of the punishments of hell. Death and destruction follow the sins of man as humanity is forever trapped

So often we hear these words and fail to fully understand what “The Power of the Cross” really means. What does it mean and what important impact does it have for our lives. The discussion begins with the often-asked question, “Why did Jesus have to die?” We wonder why God just didn’t snap His fingers and take away the sin

When sales-professionals are successful there are many common threads. Three of the most important are a strong belief in their product, product knowledge and the ability to face down the fear of rejection. High producing sales people embody these three things and many others, but if they have these three, they are on the road to sales stardom. If we

The late, Brennan Manning wrote this in an essay on Forgiveness in his book, Souvenirs of Solitude. “The proof par excellence of the Christian who has experienced God’s unbearable forgiveness and infinite patience is that he is able to be forgiving and patient with others.” This statement reflects what Jesus taught in the parable of the Unmerciful Servant in Matthew

In the previous blog, we talked about the most encouraging thing anyone could hear is God saying to us “I love you.” To be loved by the Creator of the Universe is better than having the direct dial phone to the greatest lawyer, movie star or politician. To be loved by God is to affirm our worth. We are worthy