Daily EncouragementSample

Here is a wonderful ministry for the servant of God: to commission, encourage and strengthen one who can do for the people what he cannot and take them further than he can. It is a ministry to be accepted without any sense of jealousy or regret for past failure. Such might well have been Moses’ reaction, but he accepted the Lord’s “That is enough” (Deut. 3:26) and went ahead to give the charge to Joshua.

How well he did it we read further on: “Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him . . . ‘Be strong and courageous . . . The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged’” (Deut. 31:7-8).

What an encouragement for Joshua to be commissioned by Moses, for Timothy to receive his charge from Paul: “In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word” (2 Tim. 4:1 ff). Those who give such charges magnify the Lord rather than themselves, yet in thus humbling themselves under his mighty hand they are exalted (1 Pet. 5:6).