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Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.

1 Thessalonians 5:11, ESV

Paul was encouraging the people of the Church to be encouragers of one another. He wasn’t criticizing them for not, but building them up to continue giving encouragement to one another. It is easy to find things to criticize and tear down. We all make mistakes and are sinful. We all fall short. We all need to know how wonderfully God created us. God didn’t make us for sin and He gifts us  with wonderful things to help build up the Church. We can build grand buildings and make beautiful things to fill our spaces, but these are not the things of importance. When we come together in worship nothing outshines the beauty of a community joyfully praising God in unity. No amount of gold, art, or architecture can outdo the beauty of worshipful people. When hearts are enraptured with the love of our Lord nothing greater can outshine the beauty that emotes from our bodies. Our Lord didn’t give Himself for us in order to angrily show us our failures but to show us His love. Let that reality shine through us all and let Christ’s love be what people see in us. So, all may know His peace.

Let us pray. I thank you, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, your dear Son, that you have kept me this night from all harm and danger, and I ask you to protect me this day also from sin and every evil, that in all I do today, I may please you. For into your hands, I commend myself, my body and soul, and all that is mine. Let your holy angel watch over me, that the wicked foe have no power over me. Amen.