God Promises to Encourage You

Suggested Reading: Romans 15:1-13

May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus.—Romans 15:5

The word encourage literally means to be filled up with courage. So, in essence God comes to “fill you up with courage!” in addition to so many other wonderful characteristics such as endurance. In the past when two of our granddaughters stayed overnight and we would enjoy a hearty breakfast the next day they would always say—with full tummies—”Nana stuffed us full!”

God promises to stuff us so full of encouragement nothing the enemy can do or say will stop or discourage us. No doubt the devil will try his best. Until we apply the name of Jesus and the promises of God to his fiery darts he does not take no for an answer, he does not back off just because we want him to. But throws one thing after another, shoots one fiery dart after the next, bombards us with problems, pile on sorrows, assigns minions to interfere, agitate, and make us miserable. Anything that he thinks will work. He will use all the things that used to work on us, use the people who used to be able to impact and alter our mood, our disposition, steal our smile, our joy, our peace.

When we are completely stuffed with God’s encouragement, when God has stuffed us so full of encouragement, we are not moved or affected by the devil’s strategies and simply keep on keeping on. Which is exactly what God has in mind. The Bible is packed full of promises from God. If we think of Genesis to Revelation as one long letter from God, we would be considering there are nearly nine thousand promises within that letter, and approximately seven promises per paragraph (chapter); give or take. That means whatever page or paragraph we are reading at some point we are going to come across one to several promises that will contribute to our fullness.  

The more we read God’s word the more we become familiar with his wonderful promises that never fail, the more we start to rely on them for strength and encouragement, the more we find ourselves reciting them in our head, speaking them aloud to others or when we are in a tight spot, writing them out, highlighting and bookmarking them so we can easily return to them, until eventually we are like our granddaughters, stuffed full; our cup of encouragement runneth over and we are actually living them!

It is said the best way to give up any junk food is to replace it with something good and that is good for you. That way you have no room for anything else. That is how God wants to fill you up with encouragement. His good and truthful promises of encouragement start to take up the space where negativity, doubt, self-loathing, the devil’s berating, and accusations used to occupy and soon we no longer ascribe to them. Without our realizing it, God’s encouragement does a work of transformation in our soul, our emotions, our way of thinking and rubs off on our behavior. Our God won’t stop encouraging but keep stuffing us full all the way to heaven’s door. Let’s pray,

Heavenly Father thank you for stuffing us full of the best things. We truly need that encouragement you are stuffing us with. May we become so full of encouragement that nothing the devil throws at us diminishes the good you do in us. In Jesus’ name. Amen