With an old head and a young heart, you can be a source of real strength [to others] who need your cheer and encouragement.

Sometimes we encourage someone without even being aware of it. Even the example we set by attending church may encourage someone who is searching for God.

Renewal is brought by the Holy Spirit. Believers will learn what it means to minister to one another and build each other up. No longer will our lives seem ordinary and indistinguishable from the rest of the world.

It is vitally important for local church leaders to keep in touch with the spiritual state of their members, to discuss their level of biblical knowledge, and to teach them how to study God's Word and pray.

If people stumble, we help them get back on their feet; if they veer off course, we urge them back. On this journey we are all brothers and sisters in the same family—the family of God.

Ruth once wrote, "Dear Journal, Never let a single day pass without saying an encouraging word to each child . . .'More people fail for lack of encouragement,' someone wrote, 'than for any other reason.

If we are going to touch the people of our communities, we too must know their sorrows, feel for them in their temptations, stand with them in their heartbreaks. Jesus Christ entered into the arena of our troubles, and He wept with them that wept and rejoiced with them that rejoiced.

Thinking of and serving with others can be an antidote to negative and unhealthy introspection.

Your life is intricately woven into the lives of scores and hundreds of others around you. Consider the variety of lives that you influence in one day. Somewhere within your circle of contacts someone is being hurt. Are you aware of it?

Without Ruth's partnership and encouragement over the years, my own work would have been impossible. We were called by God as a team.

He went to the wedding at Cana as well as to the home of Mary and Martha when Lazarus died. He wept with those who wept and rejoiced with those who rejoiced.

There are countless opportunities to comfort others, not only in the loss of a loved one, but also in the daily distress that so often creeps into our lives.