The Encouragement Blog

We wonder sometime why things happen in our lives and if God is really listening or paying attention. Why am I not married? Why doesn’t God answer my prayers in this vein? How come I am stuck in this dead end job? Why can’t I get that promotion? I need more money. Our health is not so good. My marriage

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

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

In our last 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 we

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

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 in a

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 18:21-35. There, Jesus

The fairy tales like Cinderella and Snow White all revolve around a damsel in distress being rescued by a handsome prince. These stories are timeless and were our favorites and now are the favorites of our children. Evil surrounds our heroine and she faces death and poverty unless someone comes to her rescue. Events always look dire and awful with

In our last 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 of

The most encouraging news that anyone could ever hear is the message that “God loves you.” Just exactly why that is so heartening lies in the Bible verse, Romans 5:8, But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Note that this verse doesn’t say Christ died for us AFTER