The Power of Encouragement

Thursday, September 21, 2023 – The Face of Saul

When Stephen was being stoned to death, did he see a face in the crowd… the zealous face of Saul, his enemy? If he’d only known that person filled with so much anger and hatred against Messiah who wanted him dead, would be touched; changed and become the greatest apostle the faith would ever know; bringing the gospel to the nations; and writing the majority of the New Testament. He’d have rejoiced for that face in the crowd. But it was almost impossible for Stephen to see or know it. When everything is coming at you, stones are being hurled at you, and it seems like everything is going wrong in your life, remember though you might not see it; there’s always a higher reason, a greater purpose of blessing and glory. It might even, like Saul, be part of the problem at the moment, but be turned for God and solve that problem. Rejoice in your problems, in your crisis, because in that situation, there’s a Saul that’s going to turn into the greatest blessing for the glory of God. Just look for that face in the crowd.

Here’s another one. The lord speaks to Paul in Corinth in acts 18.
One night, the lord spoke to Paul in a vision, it says, do not be afraid.
The spirit gives you power to overcome fear.
Do not be silent for I am with you, and no one will attack you and to harm you in this city.
I have many people in the city. Paul needed encouragement. He was afraid.
The power of the spirit is not only the power to go against fear, go against your fear, overcome that fear.
But the power of encouragement. God brings against us. God is the god of what? All encouragement.
How? By the spirit? I remember when we lost the vote for this building, the town board, and there was no we were told that was it.
There’s nothing else. We law we we had we had we were losing our we were renting our first building.
The rent had was it was all ending. We put everything in faith in this building. By faith.
We believe that was the lord, and then we lost it. In other words, you couldn’t enter it.
You could store things here, but that’s it. So now what everything was over.
And we were told there’s no legal way it’s finished. There was this hopelessness.
But I remember the next day in the midst of that, this thing starts welling up in me.
I said it was like, no. I don’t care if it’s impossible.
We’re gonna stand and we’re gonna fight this in the spirit.
I have no idea, but I just had it was no reason rationality and made no sense.
It just it just welled up in me. It was the spirit of god.
And there was no hopeless after that. And there was no reason for it.
And to this day, I don’t know how it happened, but about a month later, they did.
They had another they decided to had another vote, and they voted 7 or nothing to give us the building.
I have no idea how it happened to this day, but I know the next day, there’s spirit just changed everything when there was no reason.
God wants to encourage you. The spirit gives live in the spirit. You’ll be living in encouragement.
Don’t be bound by, you know, everything has to make sense.
It may not make sense, but god encourages because he’s greater than what makes sense.
When you feel discouraged, you need to come to god.
Lord, you’re a spirit, weeping indoors for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. You need encouragement.
The spirit filled life is the an encouraged life. It keeps you going forward. It keeps you consistent. Hi.
I’m Jonathan Khan, and I hope you were blessed with the video.
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