Daily EncouragementSample

New disciples need encouragement, and so Paul and Barnabas returned to these cities for that purpose. Their aim was to encourage them “to remain true to the faith” - that is, to the gospel, “the word of truth” (Col. 1:5) - and to go on as they had begun: “just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught” (Col. 2:6).

Their method was, partly at least, to remind them that hardship is part and parcel of the Christian life. The best encouragers, even from a worldly point of view, never hide the difficulties - think of Churchill and his warning of “blood, sweat and tears.” Our Lord and his apostles never presented the Christian way as an easy path. Theirs was no prosperity gospel. “Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Jesus Christ,” said Paul to Timothy (2 Tim. 2:3). An African preacher turned to a missionary at the end of a journey - of which the first part had been on a tarred highway and the last on a rough bush road - and said, “The Christian life is not a tar road.”

True disciples always respond to this kind of encouragement.