What Are You Doing? Part 4 {What Are You Doing to Encourage Others?}

What are you doing to encourage others? 

Encouragement is such an important thing! Those who are filled with pride will miss opportunities to be an encourager. Why? Because they're focused on themselves and not those around them! There are several verses that deal with encouraging one another (another term in the Bible is exhort), and there are countless ways to do it. So what are you doing to encourage others?

Here's a simple list of ways you can be an encouragement to others:

• Pray for others.  Ask someone if there's any way you can pray for them! Prayer is a powerful thing and it's always encouraging to me when someone says "I'll pray for you".  (Philemon 1:4; I Timothy 1:3 - Paul encouraged others through prayer.)
• Be a friend to those who need one. I can't tell you how many people I've met that just needed a friend... Someone who needed an ear to listen and just be there for them. There have been times where I needed a friend and someone would walk into my life and be that friend for me. "Iron sharpenth iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend" - Proverbs 27:17 KJV
• Be faithful to your church.  "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more as ye see the day approaching." -Hebrews 10:25 Nothing is probably more discouraging than seeing people drop out of church. Be faithful! It'll help you and it'll help others! 
• Live a clean testimony. We all fail... I fail every day. But we should strive to keep a sanctified life the best we can. Anytime I see someone who is living right before God, it always encourages me! (II Timothy 2:19-22)
• Be a Servant. Ask your pastor's wife/youth leader's wife what you can help with! They might not have you do anything for them, but knowing that you're willing to help out will be an encouragement. Find someone in your church who needs help with something and do it if you're able to! "Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it." -Proverbs 3:27; "Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others." -Philippians 2:3-4
• Have a joyful spirit. "Rejoice in the Lord alway; and again I say, Rejoice." -Philippians 4:4 Being around joyful people encourages me. No, you won't always feel like smiling... There is a time to weep, and a time to mourn, but there's always time to have a joyful spirit. In the midst of trials and troubles, He'll give us the joy we need to get through it. People see how you respond to those troubles, and when they see a joyful attitude instead of a complaining spirit, they'll be encouraged! 

What are some other ways you can encourage others? Let me know in the comments!

• PREVIOUS POST: What are you doing? Part 1: What are you doing with your life?
• PREVIOUS POST: What are you doing? Part 2: What am I doing with my life?
• PREVIOUS POST: What are you doing? Part 3: What are you doing to win souls?

Hebrews 3:13 

"But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin."