Don’t forget who is the most important audience you have. If you share online, share in person. If you have an encouraging word, send it to a friend. Write a letter. Send a text or a voice memo. Find someone on Sunday and share how God has encouraged your soul. Be attentive and aware of the lives of those closest to you, and make it your aim to encourage them, knowing that theirs might be the only “like” you get.

In the age of social media it is so easy to send out an encouragement. Just open up your phone or computer and type it out. The access we have to people on the other side of the globe is unprecedented. I can encourage a brother or sister in another country with just a keystroke. And this should be how we use our global access. We should be glad to use our internet access to “by all means… save some” (1 Cor 9:22). But I’m afraid that with this global access we often forget the most important people to encourage: specifically, the people right around us.

When I read the “one anothers” in the Scripture, I become aware that those have a zip code. Of course I want to encourage as many people as I can, but the most obvious people to encourage are those in my local church. Who are those who I know well enough to give the word in season? Those folks who I see week in and week out. Whose burden can I bear best? With whom can I most obviously rejoice and weep? Those in my local church with whom I share in their joys and sorrows. Yes, I want to encourage everyone, but not at the expense of those around me.

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