Journals @ Awaken This HeartThe musings of Pastor Corey Gibson on leadership, ministry and life.

Hebrews 10:19-25 (NIV)

 19 Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Every single person in your life needs encouragement!! I do not know anyone that would ever turn down some encouragement, whether they work in the ministry or not, whether they know Jesus or not, whether they are talented or not, everyone needs encouraging! I have a friend that every time that I have the opportunity to spend some time with, I leave feeling like a new person. I leave SO encouraged, because he calls me “champion” all of the time. He constantly speaks life into me, he reminds me of the calling of God upon my life, he builds me up… and not for flattery but for encouragement! We need some more people like that, those are the kinds of people that we need in our churches, on our teams and in our world!!

I don’t believe that it takes a scholar or prophet to look around our world and see the vast amount of insecurity in people’s lives. There are preachers that don’t feel good enough, moms that don’t feel adequate, teens that don’t feel pretty enough, business men that don’t feel smart enough, and on and on it goes… because so many people are living their life completely driven by insecurity. We will never know the full extent of the impact encouragement will have on people, because they are in desperate need of it and as Christians we should be the foremost distributors of encouragement!

A man that rarely gets talked about in the scriptures, Barnabas, is one of the greatest examples of encouragement you will find. In fact, his name was Joseph but they changed his name to Barnabas which means “son of encouragement” (that is how much he encouraged). Although he slightly lived in Paul the Apostle’s shadow, I think people got just as excited about seeing Barnabas as they did Paul, especially if they had a bad day, week or year… but if they could just spend some time with Barnabas they would leave encouraged.

That’s what I want to be said of me, that when people leave they feel encouraged, lifted and pointed to Jesus… I hope that becomes your prayer, lets become people that live to encourage and point people to Jesus!

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[Pastor Jordan Sharrett is the associate pastor at Gateway Church in Suwanee, GA where he and his wife, Nikki leads theExchangeYA ministry. For more information, please visit www.gatewayatsuwanee.com]