<\/p>\n
Exhort consistently.
\nFriendship is not threatened by honest criticism. It is strengthened. \u2014 Charles Swindoll
\nPeople often think that exhortation and encouragement are synonymous. That is partially true. Exhortation is encouragement but it is so much more. In the original Greek language, the word for exhort in Hebrews 3:13 is parakale\u014d. It means to admonish, advise, warn, challenge, teach, console, and yes, encourage.
\nOn any given day, there is a part of exhortation that is easier for us \u2014 teaching, consoling, and encouraging. But the harder part of exhortation is where we admonish, advise, warn, or challenge someone. What makes this difficult is that people don\u2019t always want to hear what we have to say. Even the people in our community.
\nLet\u2019s discuss both aspects of exhortation:
\nAdmonish and challenge appropriately.\u2028We are never short on people\u2019s advice at any time. Everyone has their own opinions about almost everything. And that is basically what it means to admonish someone\u2014 to offer them advice or a warning. But admonishing or challenging someone with the \u201cwisdom of the world\u201d is not good enough. We must be grounded in what our God says in order to offer the life-giving wisdom from His Word. If we care about the people in our close-knit community, we must be willing to offer our thoughts and advice to them, even if our words are unpopular. And we must also want the same done in return. Just like we need to offer godly counsel, we also need to receive it as well.
\nEncourage and teach continually.\u2028This world we live in is full of challenges and struggles. It is so difficult to keep a positive outlook when much around us is negative. When we encourage someone, we are instilling courage in them. It\u2019s as if we are giving them some of our courage when we do this. We all need this\u2014even the people who are really good at encouraging others. So, let\u2019s speak life and godly wisdom into someone\u2019s character, circumstances, and trials. According to Hebrews 3:13, if we don\u2019t encourage others, we will become deceived by sin. If we don\u2019t receive the encouragement we need, our spirits will be spiritually malnourished.
\nLet\u2019s not be afraid to be distributors and recipients of exhortation from the people in our community. It will make us better versions of ourselves for God\u2019s glory as well as deepen our earthly friendships.<\/p>\n
In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. Albert Schweitzer <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Exhort consistently. Friendship is not threatened by honest criticism. It is strengthened. \u2014 Charles Swindoll People often think that exhortation and encouragement are synonymous. That is partially true. Exhortation is encouragement but it is so much more. In the original Greek language, the word for exhort in Hebrews 3:13 is parakale\u014d. It means to … Continue reading “65.c. Hebrews 3:13”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-199453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-prayers"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199453"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":199455,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199453\/revisions\/199455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}