Encouraging - Actions

It was typical of Jim that, once sure of God’s leading, he did not turn aside easily. The “leading” was to Ecuador, so every thought and action was bent in that direction. Jim practiced what he preached when he wrote in his diary: “Wherever you are, be all there. Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God”.

Elisabeth Elliot, Through Gates of Splendor (Crossings Classics, USA: 1981), 9.

Encouraging - Actions

The great thing is to prevent his doing anything. As long as he does not convert it into action, it does not matter how much he thinks about this new repentance. Let the little brute wallow in it. Let him, if he has any bent that way, write a book about it; that is often an excellent way of sterlising the seeds which the Enemy plants in a human soul. Let him do anything but act. No amount of piety in his imagination and affections will harm us if we can keep it out of his will. As one of the humans has said, active habits are strengthened by repetition but passive ones are weakened. The more often he feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, the less he will be able to feel.

C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters (Harper Collins, NY, NY: 1996), 66-67.

Encouraging - Actions

Scripture even says that when Jesus chose Judas, He knew Judas would be the one to fulfill the prophecies of betrayal. He knowingly chose him to fulfill the plan.

And yet Judas was in no sense coerced into doing what he did. No invisible hand forced him to betray Christ. He acted freely and without external compulsion. He was responsible for his own actions. Jesus said he would bear the guilt of his deed throughout eternity. His own greed, his own ambition, and his own wicked desires were the only forces that constrained him to betray Christ.

How do we reconcile the fact that Judas’s treachery was prophesied and predetermined with the fact that he acted of his own volition? There is no need to reconcile those two facts. They are not in contradiction. God’s plan and Judas’s evil deed concurred perfectly. Judas did what he did because his heart was evil. God, who works all things according to the counsel of His own will (Ephesians 1:11), had foreordained that Jesus would be betrayed and that He would die for the sins of the world. Jesus Himself affirmed both truths in Luke 22:22: “Truly the Son of Man goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom He is betrayed!”

John MacArthur, Twelve Ordinary Men: How the Master Shaped His Disciples for Greatness, and What He Wants to Do with You (Thomas Nelson, Nashville, TN: 2002), 185.

Encouraging - What draws your attention?

As your attention goes, so goes your life. So pay careful attention to what you are paying attention to. Pay attention to the things that are competing for your attention. Pause before devoting your attention to anything. And devote special attention to those things that deserve your attention. For as Jesus said, your eye is the lamp of your entire body. And if your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light.

Andy Stanley, The Principle of the Path: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be (Thomas Nelson, Nashville, TN: 2008) 155.

Encouraging - Hypocrisy

This creates a wicked double jeopardy: older born-again believers may be emphasizing lifestyle and avoiding sin as a means of measuring faith maturity, but the behavior and perspectives of young Christians only intensify the perception that Christians are hypocritical. Older born-agains need to look more carefully at what Jesus teaches, that spiritual maturity is demonstrated in a life as an outcome of the condition of a person’s heart and soul, that behavior follows belief. And younger born-again Christians need to take an honest assessment of their lives and realize that they are increasingly poor witnesses of a life and mind transformed by their faith. Embracing personal integrity and rejecting compromises to personal purity are crucial goals for young believers. We cannot hope to shed our hypocritical label if our lifestyles offer no proof of the “fruit” of Christlikeness. These are tough realities to think about, but we must do so if we hope to shift our reputation from un-Christian to Christian.

David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity... and Why It Matters (Baker Books, Grand Rapids, MI: 2007), 54.