"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Come, Holy Spirit, and bring deep awakening to the deepest places in our hearts. Soften our hearts. Show us the hardness. Break up the fallow ground. Declare a season of sowing in our hearts.

One of the everyday ways we can hear the voice of God is through the encouragement of other people.

A meek person is not a weak person but one who has come to the deep conviction that all of their strength is as weakness to the Lord.

There is only one appropriate, effective, and redemptive response for a person who has turned away from the Lord: turning back to the Lord—returning to the Lord—with all your heart.

Our words carry great weight. Words create worlds, and they can also destroy them.

God sends his power to deliver us, but he also sends us the sure word of his faithfulness, even as we languish in the midst of difficult times, still awaiting his deliverance.

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

This is why the stakes are so high when it comes to encouragement. It takes a while to reach hardness of heart, and it comes through the subtle deceitfulness of sin.

Father, thank you for giving us a different spirit, one that causes us to follow you wholeheartedly.