Encourage

Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity.

1 Timothy 5:1-2 ESV

We're to encourage one another. No man is an island. We need one another.

Sometimes rebukes are necessary, but Paul tells Timothy that we shouldn't rebuke people who are older than us. Instead we should seek to encourage them.

Even if we need to rebuke some younger person, we should be seeking to encourage them. We're not just to try to put people down. Instead, we should seek to build people up.

We're to be pure in our dealings with people. We're not to lose our tempers and to be impatient. We're not to be about self promotion to make ourselves look good but for the good of others.

'Heavenly Father, please help us to encourage one another, and even to rebuke where necessary, as we seek to become more like the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, amen'


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