The Encouragement Blog

Sin is real. Anyone who truly believes that sin does not exist has not been paying attention! In real-life, when we are honest, we look anywhere and see the evidence of sin. We see greed, snarky comments on social media, and mean and angry attitudes. Just think about your language the last time someone cut you off on the freeway!!

God, Jesus—whoever You are—I am frightened. You see, I have never been loved in my life. I cannot remember when I truly felt the warm flannel blanket of a mother’s love around my shoulders. God, I have trouble with any father figure in my life because mine hit me for years and
my mother did nothing to stop it. In my

Does it mean [Christ] no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or are hungry or cold or in danger or threatened with death?… I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels can’t, and the demons can’t. Our fears for today, our worries about

God has an individual, specific plan for each one of us. From before we were born, God knew who we were going to be and what His plan was for our lives. He made each of us perfectly different for exactly the role He has in mind for us to play. He also gave us the ability to decide for

Many of us believe that because of the sinful we have done, God could never love us. The devil whispers to us, “God could never love YOU. You’ve had an abortion!” Or, he spits, “You’re a drug user, c’mon, get real, dude, you’ve blown it…God has thrown you aside” As usual, the devil’s got it wrong! One of the amazing

In Part 1, we discussed creating the right Climate for the Fruit of the Spirit to take root and grow successfully. We talked about how we must avoid the super-storms of pornography, greed, anger, lust and other besetting sins from sending a “killer frost” over our tender Fruit of the Spirit vines and killing them. Today we discuss the long

The Fruit of the Spirit, i.e., Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness (Generosity), Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control, are things we all hope, trust and pray become apart of our everyday lives. Yet, so many of us are at a loss to figure out how to get the Fruit of the Spirit to grow in our lives. Let’s look at two

We will all find ourselves in the S-L-O-W lane of life at some point. Whether it is being in-between jobs, staying home with the young children (not always so slow there!!) or when we are taken ill or find ourselves being care-givers to someone else, maybe our elderly parents, for example. When God has us in the far-right lane of

Easter 2020 will be remembered mostly for the Corona virus and how it will keep almost all of us in our homes and away from our places of worship. In spite of the quarantines and lockdowns, we still celebrate the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus in our own quiet ways. Let us remember why the grace of God, expressed through

Most of us do not look forward to times of pain and sorrow or discomfort. We try to avoid all of these things by living careful lives and praying steadily for God’s blessings on all that we try to do and say. We pray for our businesses and our children. We pray for safety for our grandchildren. We offer “traveling