Momentum: How To Ignite Your FaithÖrnek

THE BLESSING OF VOICE AND THE VOICE OF BLESSING

I saw a human interest story on television about a woman who had severe physical and emotional struggles. During the interview, this woman took the camera crew upstairs to her master bathroom. Her young daughter had written a note on the bathroom mirror in lipstick. The note said: “The best gift I could give you is the gift to be able to see yourself as I see you. You are my hero.”

Mother Teresa once said, “Kind words can be short and easy to speak but their echoes are truly endless.”

The echo of Jonathan’s kind words in David’s life was truly endless. In the middle of a very stressful time notice what Jonathan did for David. “Jonathan went to David at Horesh and helped him find strength in God” (1 Samuel 23:16).

Six short but very powerful words: Jonathan “helped him find strength in God.”

We don’t know exactly what Jonathan said to his good friend David, but we do know that his words were life-giving to David.

Jesus was the master at making people feel valued and encouraged. In Luke 13 Jesus healed a woman who had been crippled for eighteen years.

Later in the passage, Jesus was criticized by the synagogue ruler for healing on the Sabbath. Jesus responded “Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?” (Luke 13:16).

Notice that this time Jesus didn’t just call her a crippled woman; he called her “a daughter of Abraham.” He saw her as a child of the great patriarch of the Jewish people. Imagine her walking home that day. She stands up straight. She sees things she hasn’t seen in years. And ringing in her ears are the words “daughter of Abraham.”

In a world where people are beat up and put down, we have the unbelievable privilege of saying to people, “You matter, your life counts, God loves you, and you are valuable.”

WHAT ABOUT YOU?
What would it look like for you to be excessive and over the top with your encouragement this week?

Today’s Takeaway
Your words have the power to breathe life and grace and hope and love; they also have the power to cut and slice and poison and destroy. Choose them wisely.