My sermon today is a lot about encouragement. You know for me, I require some encouragement. I know we have some pretty in shape people in here – Roland right, pretty in shape, right. You know we got strong people in here - for me it's really hard, you know for me to stay in shape and I'm supposed to right, my job requires me to.I have a biannual test that I'm supposed to pass for physical stuff every six months and you know as every real athlete will tell you I do what you're supposed to do, I do nothing for five and a half months, and then two weeks before, you know, I start running and I try to catch up. And people, they always tell me you know, ‘running is such a stress reliever’ right. And I'm like all right, it's a stress reliever - I just start running and the stress just melts away. So last night I decided to give it a shot - because my test is in two weeks -and I decided to go out, I started running. You know I'm like, ‘All right, the stress is gonna start fading away any second now.’ You know I’m just kind of waiting for that sense of euphoria to come over me and you know I started to get that cramp like right underneath your ribs. I’m like, ‘Ah, if this is what stress running away feels like I don't want it.’ And I get done and then I look my time and it was in a moment when I look at my time that I realize, you know it’s not a stress reliever for me it's a stress inducer because now I’m like stressed out because I see how far behind I am.

So for me, I need encouragement. Right, I need that encouragement to keep going so I found the best app in the world. It was made by Nike and it’s a running app and you listen to your music and then every once in a while the app will kind of interrupt the music and stop it, and they’ll have a professional athlete come over and start giving you words of encouragement. “Come on, you can do it!” Like, “Let's go!” And I don't know why it seems so silly, but it works for me, right! Like I start running and Saquon Barkley comes on and he’s like, “You can do it! You Got this” And I don't know why but if Saquon says I can do it, I just feel like maybe I can, and I start running and it just gets me through those last few laps. You know that last little bit. And I know so many of you guys have little things that you do to give yourself encouragement, to just push through that little bit more.

You know encouragement in the world compared to encouragement in the church are actually two very different things. Right? Encouragement in the world teaches you to dig a little bit deeper into your own strength, into yourself, so that you can just get that little bit more of strength. Encouragement in the church - in the Bible - the type of encouragement that the Bible teaches is that you would get rid of your own strength, that you would abandon your own strength, and instead come into Christ and pull from the Almighty One. Amen.

I know that so many of us have real trials that we are struggling with, real things that we are going through, and our strength is finite. Right? We are going to run out of strength. I see it all the time, people who can’t deal with the reality anymore and can’t deal with what's going on in their lives. Why? Because they're running out of strength, they only have so much to give.

But my prayer today is that we would stop looking to ourselves, and instead we would begin to look to God. Instead of looking into ourselves and looking to dig a little bit deeper into our own strength, today my prayer is that you would come into a sense of encouragement as the Bible teaches - and what that teaches is to let go of your own strength and instead come into Christ.

So our question today is, where does your encouragement come from? What motivates you through the troubles of this world to be able to connect with God and to keep going and to come into a more deeper and intimate relationship with Him? Today I want to explore how to gain encouragement from Christ, because it is needed to continue on in this walk. I want us to look at how the things of Christ should be propelling you forward through the trials, through the hard times, through the things of this world and into Christ - into Him and reliance on His strength.

So the first thing I want to talk to you about today is that you can be encouraged by His victory. We have to look at what encouragement means in the Bible. And I’m gonna have it up here – it’s gonna be like school, I’m gonna define the word encouragement because I hope if anything else that you guys get this out of the sermon today. Three definitions that can help you understand what encouragement in the Bible means; it means to embolden you through the Holy Spirit, to impart courage, and to build on top of a foundation of Christ.

Now those three things might seem a little bit different, but in truth the encouragement in the Bible, they actually all play together very nicely. We have come in the world to know encouragement as digging deeper into our own strength, but that is not what the Bible teaches. And today I’m praying that the Holy Spirit might encourage your soul to stop looking to self, to stop looking inward and to start looking upward for the strength of God. To be built upon a foundation of Christ – stop being built upon your own foundation, and instead come upon the foundation of Christ: the unshakable one, the unmovable one, and that God through His Holy Spirit would embolden you in this world and fill you with courage, amen.

The Christian - we can't look like the rest of the world. We can’t look to be encouraged like the rest of the world, because that's not who we are. We see so often, even in the church, that there's a mixture. Right? We see messages and sermons that are all about making you a better you, teaching you to be a better you so that you feel great about you. Right, there’s a lot of “You” in there. It's all about flesh, it’s all about making your feelings feel better in that moment and building you up. But that's not what the Bible says. Right? We as a church have to stop looking like the rest of the world. We have – there has to be a separation and we can’t look and be looking to be encouraged with a nice word or a nice saying. No, we need to be encouraged to go into the strength of God, to be emboldened by His Spirit, to be filled with courage that comes from God and to be set on a foundation of Christ.

The verse that I’m gonna start with today is John 16:33. All the verses that I have today – there’s three different ones, they’re very common versus but today I hope that these verses hit your heart. I hope that they encourage your soul. I don't want these to be like mantras like the rest of the world where they’re just nice sayings, I want these to be the promises of God to your heart that encourage you to go deeper with God and deeper with Christ.

My first verse is John 16:33. It says, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” We could have encouragement in the victory of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I want us to understand today that Christ has had victory over everything in this world. Everything you will face, everything that this world will throw at you, everything that you will encounter, Christ has had victory over it.

We look at when Jesus was in the desert. Right. He was tempted far beyond any temptation that we have encountered in this world and He overcame. Satan pressured Him to fold over and over again - things would have been so much easier if He had just compromised just a little bit, yet He overcame. He knew hunger and thirst and pain in ways we cannot comprehend, yet He overcame. And everything that we see in our lives should be seen through that lens of this verse.

I understand we're going through things, but when we look at the victory of the Lord Jesus Christ – when we are encouraged, not on our own foundation but we are standing on the foundation of Christ, these verses begin to come alive. And we look - I know some of us are going through tough times at our job, but Jesus Christ had victory. Your family’s giving you some trouble, yet Jesus Christ has victory. Amen, maybe you’re surrounded with pressure today. Maybe it’s sickness and heartache and bills and work, yet Christ has overcome it all!

When you are built on a foundation of Christ that victory encourages you, that victory emboldens you, that victory gives you courage to face all the things of this world, because I am set on Christ and greater is He that is in me, than he that is in the world, amen.

That makes us abandon our own self. That makes us stop looking inward for our own strength. And it encourages you and emboldens you to go out into this world and face the circumstances of this world knowing that you serve a God in victory. The circumstances from our boss and our kids and this world cannot compare to the victory that the Lord Jesus Christ had on the cross - that gives you courage to walk. And even in the hard times, even in the times when you feel like you're gonna bend or that things are becoming too much, you go home and you go into your closet and you bend a knee and you approach the throne of grace boldly coming to God with your petitions and with your prayers because you go to the One who has had victory over this world and everything in it. Hallelujah.

Look that should embolden us. It doesn't mean that the problems of the world aren’t hard. It doesn't mean that things are even gonna get easier. It doesn't even mean that Christ is gonna make you stronger to deal with them. The key to this verse is that He overcame the world and if He is living inside of you, then we shouldn't be looking to our own strength, we should be looking to the King of Kings who overcame this world, who died on the cross and beat hell, death, and the grave. The resurrected one, the most high God. The one who is seated at the right hand of God - that is the God that should be living inside of you.

There’s an important part of this though, and a lot of people like to skip this step. Christ must have had victory in your life before He can have victory through you in this world.

"When we have submitted ourselves to Him, then the same power that had victory on the cross is now working through you. "

People want to claim: ‘I claim my healing. I claim this job. I claim this and I claim that…’ but if Christ has not had victory in your life, how could He have victory through you in this world? Christ must possess you. He must possess your will, your desires, your flesh. He must have overcome everything that you are - let me tell you that a man must willfully submit his will and his life before the King of Kings. He must bring it to the cross and say, ‘God, here it is. I lay it down before you.’ No one can make you do that. No one can tell you and teach you and yell at you until you do it. A man must decide in his heart to go before God and to lay down his will and his life, and Jesus Christ comes in and by the power of the blood that was shed, He claims victory over our lives, over our flesh, over our carnality - and when He has taken away our reliance and our dependence and our connections to this world - well then He can begin to work through you to establish the Kingdom of God in this world. Amen.

When we have submitted ourselves to Him, then the same power that had victory on the cross is now working through you. The Godhead lives in bodily form and is working through you to overcome all the things of this world. That should embolden us. That should embolden us and give us courage, impart courage. That should set us on a firm foundation of Christ that when we go preach the word of God, that when we go with our testimony that it is not in timidity but it is with boldness for we know the God that we serve.

Ephesians 6:10 says, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.”

" I walk with that message. Why? Because I know the victory and I know my God..."

Be strengthened in His might. You know the world teaches, especially our children, a false type of self-confidence. Right? A false type of having it all together and being the one that goes in and is the most confident. But I look back in my life and the people that I look back upon as the most confident that I saw are the ones that crashed the hardest. Are the ones that fell the farthest. Why? Because our strength can only get us so far. The things of this world - I'm sure most of the adults here can tell you - this world can throw heavy things at you. But when we abandon our own strength, when we abandon our own self-reliance, when we let go of the pride and this false sense of self-confidence and instead look to have our identity as Christians wrapped up in the victory of the Lord Jesus Christ, well now we are relying on the strength of God. Now we can go out into the world in boldness and in courage and set on a firm foundation of God, not because we are stronger but because God is mighty.

That's what makes a Christian unmovable. That's what makes a Christian unshakable. I'll tell you, I stand in boldness today to say to you that I truly believe that if every man and woman in this world bowed a knee to God, that the problems that plague this world would be solved. I believe that all hunger and poverty and sickness and hate and crime and politics and lies and all the things of this world would be solved if every man and woman would bend a knee to God this day. Why? And I walk in that boldness. I walk with that message. Why? Because I know the victory and I know my God, He has overcome this world. He stands in victory today, amen.

So we can see that we need to be encouraged in His victory and secondly, we need to be encouraged by our redemption.

Luke 23, again another popular verse. It was the thief on the cross. The thief on the cross, one of the two men that were crucified next to Jesus and one of them looks to Jesus and he says, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

I want us to look at the difference of the world, how the world works and how the world encourages compared to how God encourages. You know, the world wants to give you a encouraging word when you're going through a hard time. You here things like, ‘What doesn't kill you will make you stronger’ or ‘There's light at the end of the tunnel.’ What does that do for anybody? Right? Like how does that impart hope? What does that mean? That’s just an awkward thing you say when you don't know what to say to somebody that's going through a hard time. Right? What hope does that leave someone? Now I look at the two thieves on the cross, they’re at the end of their roads. They're facing death, and one was encouraged in that moment. It wasn't his own strength that encouraged him. Jesus didn't say to him, ‘Hey you know, it's gonna be okay.’ He didn’t say, ‘Hey, just dig a little bit deeper. You’ll be all right.’ He didn't say any of that to him, did he? It wasn't his own strength that gave him encouragement. His encouragement didn’t come from himself, but it came from the salvation that can only be granted through the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a salvation, He is the gatekeeper, He is the only way to heaven and I tell you today, He is the only one that can give us that blessed assurance that’s encouragement. It does not come through a nice word. It does not come through a mantra, it comes from our redemption. There is a blessed assurance that comes with salvation. It takes away all fear and doubt and it encourages the soul.

Look, I know so many of us in the world and so many of us here have come from a past of abandonment. Right? There’s that hurt and there's that pain of being alone – and that fear of being alone again. And I know so many of us had to work through that, but let me tell you there is no isolation when you are in the hands of God. No one can snatch you out of the hands of God. Even in death. Even in the moment when a man is supposed to be the most alone - their entire life - death is the moment that you would think a man would be most alone by themselves, but even in that moment we do not walk by ourselves. That thought, that blessed assurance, that encouragement – it comes from my salvation. That no matter what this world may bring. No matter what circumstance we may go through. No heights, nor depths, nor angels, nor demons can separate me from the love that is the Lord Jesus Christ.

I will never be alone. I will never be abandoned, but I will walk with my God all the rest of my days. My future is not just gonna be a happenstance. My future has been planned out by God. He has made promises - promises of transformation and Godly offspring and a legacy, and even in death - even in death people of God -I will not walk by myself, but I will find myself walking hand-in-hand with my God into paradise.

That type of assurance, that type of confidence, it is not found in this world. We see people walking around hurt, broken. Right? Filled with all sorts of abandonment issues. But we do not walk as those who fear the terror that stalks at the night, but we walk as ones who have been redeemed by the all mighty God. When we come into this salvation, there is a transfer that happens. Right, there’s a transfer of authority. There is a transfer of ownership. It means that you are no longer under the authority of this world. And I tell you, when I speak to people about my faith and I begin to talk to people - this is something I bring up a lot, because it always kind of shocks people and it always kinda leaves them like; ‘I never thought about that…’ When we are in Christ, there is a transfer of authority but before that we are under the authority of this world. So what do I hear a lot; ‘Hey it’s not fair.’ ‘This happened…that happened…’ ‘I don't feel like this was right and that was right,’ and there's all these things - these injustices of this world. Look, I get it. We live in an unjust world. But the question should be not ‘is this right or is that right’ - the question should be ‘Are our lives submitted under the authority of God?’ Has there been a transfer of ownership, because if we are still under the authority of this unjust world then of course things are going to happen. But when you come under the authority of God, all of a sudden God now has authority over your life, and that is something that a man must willfully lay down. And all of a sudden God is doing something in our lives. By submitting your life to Christ the authority that Satan had over your life is taken away, and you willfully lay it before the cross.

I walk encouraged today. I walk emboldened and filled with courage, not because I am great, not because I am powerful, but because the God that I serve is more powerful than anything in this world and that God has rescued me and lives inside of me.

How much different would our lives be if we were fully submitted before God. And that's a question the church has to ask themselves. Right, I’m not even talking about people on the outside. That's a question we have to ask and say, ‘Is my life and my household submitted fully under God. Does the devil have any foothold in my life because I don't want to have that - I want God to have authority over me. I want God to have authority of my son. I want to have God have authority over my wife and my household.’ Amen.

The thief on the cross in that moment, he was encouraged. It’s not that what he was about to go through wasn't going to be hard. But he was encouraged - filled with courage to face what was to come because he knew in that moment that his soul was secure with Christ. That it was the end of the road for him, but he knew as soon as those words left Jesus’ mouth that his name had been written inside the Lamb's Book of Life. That his life was no longer under his own authority or the world's authority, but it had been submitted fully to God, and now God had taken ownership over his life. You see there is a confidence that comes with redemption because we are submitted to God, because God has authority over our lives, and when God has authority over us - when we willfully lay it down and we get rid of every attachment and foothold to this world, God takes ownership over us and I know that I will walk hand-in-hand with God through this life and into eternity.

I know I am encouraged today because I can look and say that I am no longer the same person. A lot of you can look and be encouraged today because you can look back and say ‘I am no longer the same person that I was.’

" Be emboldened in your spirit that those who look to Him have radiant faces and are never covered with shame..."

I need you to know that encouragement is part of the Holy Spirit - it’s one of the attributes of the Holy Spirit. So if you are filled with the Holy Spirit, right, you are filled with encouragement. There are spirits of this world and they look to do different things. The spirits of this world look to discourage and cause division and disheartening and doubt. But the Spirit of God looks to impart courage upon you, embolden you, and set you on a foundation of Christ. God is looking to come in. God is looking - if you have never submitted your life before God, He is looking to come in and overtake your heart and overtake your will and overtake your flesh and carnality, and instead He is looking to take authority and ownership over you. I can look back and I can say, ‘God, thank you that I am no longer the same person that I was.’ In every Christian's life there should come a moment when you look back and say, ‘God thank you that I am no longer the same.’ Because of His salvation, it wiped away my past and my heartache and my pain. People walk around with open wounds - you guys ever see like a boxing match and somebody gets hurt? Maybe they break a rib or they get a kidney shot and it hurts. What do they spend the rest of the fight doing? Covering up. Right? All of a sudden they put that one side back. They’re trying to stop themselves from having to relive that same pain that they just went through. This is people in the world - this was me. Walking around, covering up. Not wanting to go through that same pain because I was walking around with open wounds, open heart aches, open pain, open past, open abandonment issues, and I was covering up and I would lash out just so I didn't have to face that same pain. But there comes a moment - there should have been a moment in the Christian's life when we are encouraged by our salvation. When we look back and say, ‘I am no longer that same person. You have healed up my wounds and bound up my heart. I no longer fear abandonment. I no longer fear being exposed. I no longer fear being hurt. Amen.

We can be encouraged in our redemption, because we can look and say, ‘I'm not that same old guy. I'm not that same old girl. No, I’m different. I've been redeemed by the King of Kings. Thank you God that you have done the work inside of me.’

We are emboldened by our redemption because we are no longer vulnerable to the world. You walk around with the armor of your salvation that does not allow the flaming arrows of the enemy to come hit you. And despite any troubles that we may have in this world, we rejoice in our salvation and the redemptions of our soul, and there is no circumstance, nor sickness, nor anything in this world that can take that away from us, amen.

So we can be encouraged by His victory, we can be encouraged by our redemption, and finally we can be encouraged that the King of Kings knows your name.

I remember times that maybe someone recognized my name, but today I'll say to you - I want us to be encouraged not by someone even in the world noticing your name, but I want to be encouraged that when the King of Kings looks at you and says, ‘I know your name.’ When the creator of the universe, when the creator of the heavens and the earth looks at us and says ‘I know your name.’

Psalms 34, one of my favorite Psalms. It says, “I sought the Lord, and He answered me; He delivered me from all of my fears. Those who look to Him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. The poor man called, and the Lord heard him; He saved him out of his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and He delivers them. Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him.”

I’m going to go through this verse real fast. It says, “Those who look to Him are radiant; they are never covered with shame.” Remember the Psalms are not just nice sayings. They’re not encouragement like the rest of the world gives. These Psalms are promises of God. Be encouraged today. Be emboldened in your spirit that those who look to Him have radiant faces and are never covered with shame, never covered with the shame of this world. Never covered with the shame of sin or the shame of our past, but we have radiant faces. We walk in this world with our chins raised high and our shoulders back. Not because of how great we are, not because of our own strength, not because maybe we're not even going through stuff - but because we have been chosen by God.

It goes on and it says, ‘The poor man called, the Lord heard him and saved him.’ Those who are poor in spirit. Right? Those who are not held up in pride and stature, but know that they are emotionally and spiritually and maybe even mentally bankrupt, but in need of a savior. God knows the ones that are in need of a savior. God knows the ones that are poor in spirit looking to be saved. This verse doesn't say that we’re not gonna have troubles. But what does it say? ‘When they do, they cry out to the Lord and He will hear them and He will rescue them.’

This is a promise of God. And look I know that many of us here today have trials that we are dealing with. My family has been going through some - probably the last few months, one of the most trying times we have ever been through. But I’ll tell you, when we get together, we pray. Right? We know that our deliverance is only going to come from God. Look, the internet, it’s filled with a ton of great information. Doctors are really smart some of them. But we know that our deliverance is ONLY going to come from the Lord Jesus Christ. So it’s not to say we don't talk or look or read or research - but when we’re done, we’re coming together and praying and saying, ‘God, all this stuff might be great, but God we are coming to you for we know deliverance is only going to come from your hands.’

" The distinction will be that when the waters rise we have a God who is fighting on our behalf that we can call upon."

The verse says, ‘The angel of the Lord encamps around them and He delivers them.’ We need to know that the wars that we fight are not of flesh and blood, but of rulers and principalities. But we do not fight alone. God fights on our behalf and He sends His angels concerning us. Be emboldened today, be filled with courage, push on to a deeper relationship with God - not because we are strong but because God is mighty. We are encouraged by His promises, we are encouraged by His word, and that word and those promises they make you move forward. There is no stagnation in the Kingdom of God. There is no sitting back in the Kingdom of God, there is only moving forward through the things of this world, persevering and finding God, and finding Him and getting a deeper and intimate - being more intimate with God and coming out stronger - not stronger in us but filled with more of the Spirit of God.

There is no stagnation in the church. The verse says, ‘Taste and see…blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him.’ See God must make a distinction between us and the world. The distinction is not gonna be that you’re not gonna have any problems. The distinction is not gonna be that everything’s gonna be great, and you're never gonna face a challenge in your life. The distinction will be that when the waters rise we have a God who is fighting on our behalf that we can call upon. And I tell you, this is what the world must see. This is what the young people in this church must see.

I was thinking even about - we commend His acts from one generation to another, right. That to me speaks so much. Look, Joshua maybe doesn't remember some of the hard times that I've been through. He wasn’t even alive for some of the hard times that I've been through. But when I begin to praise, when my voice begins to sing out to God, when I begin to say, ‘God, you are a deliver. You are awesome, You are there for me, You remember me.’ You see I am extolling the acts of God that He has had in my life from one generation to another.

I pray that when we read this verse, God would be emboldening you, imparting courage upon your spirit to overcome this world, for He knows our name.

You know we talk about somebody knowing your name, I remember when I first met Jessica, right. In high school, you know. I had a whole plan set out, it was real smart - worked out well for me obviously, right. So ,I as a lot of young men do, had this whole plan. You can’t just go up to somebody and start talking to them, you know you gotta set the groundwork. You know, so I had a buddy of mine go up and start to like, you know drop my name in her presence, right. Just so that she would get comfortable with hearing it, you know. Like you can’t just walk up, you know. So I remember the first time I talked to Jessica and she said, ‘Oh, Hey Kris, how are you?’ And I thought, she knows my name, you know. Like when somebody knows your name, as any married guy in here, hopefully all the married guys in here can tell you, it emboldens you. It gives you courage. All of a sudden I felt like ‘Oh this is great!’ It doesn't necessarily make you smarter, but it definitely emboldens you, right? I remember I went to Myrtle Beach like a few weeks after I met Jessica with my family vacation, and I go down there and we go into a gift shop and I’m looking around and there is these - they’re like in a blue tube they were like literally dead sharks, right. And they were real and they had them in a tube, I guess it’s a tube of formaldehyde, and it said like “Myrtle Beach” on the bottom. I’m like “Yes!” Like you know so I grabbed one off the shelf, I come home and I’m like “Look what I got you!” What every teenage girl wants, a dead shark in formaldehyde. You know like, but I was emboldened, I knew she knew my name! Right? When she said “Hey Kris” I realized in that moment she knew who I was so I got emboldened, I got filled with courage. You know, maybe not the smartest, but again filled with courage to be able to go. So I remember coming back and giving that to her, and she was very gracious like “Oh thanks” you know, “That’s awesome, dead shark.” You know, but I remember feeling emboldened, right. Maybe some of you guys can relate – I don’t know if you did anything like that, but maybe you can relate.

You see we get emboldened when someone knows us. It emboldens us and fills us with courage.

"Our identity is meant to be wrapped up in His victory and the fact that He knows us"

My prayer today is that when you realize the God of the universe knows your name, it should encourage you to overcome this world. That has to be the whole point, people of God. That has to be the entire point, is to overcome the world. Not so that we can have an easier life, not so that we can be even happier. It is so that you will no longer be held down by the sin and the laws of this world. Let me tell you today, there is laws that govern this world, there is laws that have been set in place by darkness since Satan was cast down to this world that have affected men through all these generations. But we are not supposed to be subject to them. Let me tell you, the laws that you are not supposed to be subject to – and these are just examples.

You do not have to be like your mother or father before you. You do not have to learn just how to cope with sin, but you can truly be delivered from sin. Your kids do not have to just go out and find their own way in the world but they can be kept Holy and blameless before God.

Today I want to encourage you to break out of the ways and the laws and the sin of this world that holds so many people down, and I am praying that God would encourage you to overcome. Amen.

We are meant to be Christians, or little Christs - filled with Christ. Our identity is meant to be wrapped up in His victory and the fact that He knows us. I want us to walk as ones who walk above those things in the world. To stop relying on self and instead be set on a firm foundation of the victory of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want the fact that the God of creation, the one who overcame all sin of this world - the fact that He knows your name and lives inside of you – that that would embolden you and fill you with courage and make you overcome this world.

That type of strength is not about our own strength or own skills, but it's about God and His victory. It gives you the strength to maintain your household and keep it Godly even when it seems impossible. It gives you the confidence to go out into this world boldly, and then when you're behind closed doors to bend a knee to God and be praying to Him. It gives you the courage to say “No” to ungodliness even when everything around you is pressuring you to say “Yes.”

Look people of God, we do not serve a dead God. We do not serve a God of wood or metal that demands everything from us and yet does nothing in return. We serve a living God. We serve the one true God, the all powerful all knowing God who today says that ‘I know your name.’

Where so many in this world are struggling and faltering, the God of heaven has chosen us to be set apart. Encouragement is not about a feeling, it’s not making somebody's feelings better. It's about being encouraged to overcome this world and the sin of the world. It's about not relying on our self but instead knowing the God that we serve. Knowing His victory, knowing the power of His salvation, and knowing that He knows your name and is filling the hearts of those who love Him. This is not a message of self-reliance, but it is a message of being empowered by the Holy Spirit to break off the chains of this world and to come into the supernatural power of our living God, amen.