God’s Holy (and wholly) inspired Word is an amazing document. More than merely the greatest (and best-selling) literary work in the history of humankind, it is a love letter from the Creator to the pinnacle of His creation. The Bible does not merely claim for itself inspiration (that is, being “God-breathed”) but also demonstrates it through numerous internal and external evidences such as fulfilled prophecy, scientific foreknowledge, internal consistency, historical and geographical accuracy, etc.
But this is not a book about apologetics (defending the Bible). It is instead a compilation of 100 passages of Scripture that encourage and build our faith. The world can be a dark and depressing place at times and sometimes it seems like we have far more tears than laughter. The Bible is not afraid to face this reality head-on; it does not depict the world as “sunshine and lollipops” all the time. God has not promised us nothing but blue skies and rainbows. But He has promised His children that through the darkest storms, He is there by our side and He is more powerful than the most terrible tempest life can serve up.
The cover illustration of sunflowers was selected not only because they are bright and cheerful flowers, but also because throughout the day, sunflowers rotate to keep facing the sun in order to maximize their growth. So too we, if we wish to stay strong and continue to grow, must keep focused on the Son as we go through our lives. 
Some of the encouraging verses in the Bible are obvious but others…well, you may have to look a little deeper to understand how God is encouraging you. And sometimes, the obvious and subtle are mixed together. For instance:
The thought of Jesus making you free is very encouraging! But if you go a little deeper and look at the immediate context, you discover that this was a statement made to believers and that it is conditional – that is, the world’s most powerful two-letter word is used: “if.” IF we remain-stay-continue (what the original Greek word for “abide” means) in Jesus’ word, we will be His true disciples. And by that, we will know the truth, which makes us free.
Additionally, Jesus’ statement flies in the face of the current post-modern, post-truth conventional wisdom. Not only can the truth make you free, notice that Jesus suggests two radical ideas: 1) there is objective universal truth (“the truth”), and 2) that truth can be known. For the truth atheist (there is no truth), this is hard to swallow. And for the truth agnostic (maybe there is truth but it can’t be known or it’s all relative), it is equally difficult. But Jesus is very clear about this: live in His word –> know the truth –> be set free. So when we go deeper we discover even more encouraging words from the Creator of the world who never lies – certainly He is in the best position to know and tell us if there is Truth and how we can know it!
Presented here is a compilation (generally organized by specific topics, though there will be some overlap) of encouraging passages of Scripture to help build your faith and remind you of what you already know – God loves you and wants you home with Him for all eternity. The focus is on direct excerpts from His word as I cannot with mere human uninspired words add any power to His living word.
While this book can be read in the traditional cover-to-cover page-by-page manner, it is not meant to be an exhaustive study of encouragement. The book also works well with simple flipping and skipping. Skip to a subject in the index that you feel needs some boosting in your life, or just flip through the pages and stop as His word resonates with you. Or use it as a basis for your daily devotional – take one page a day and see where God’s word takes you.
Sometimes, the best you can do is get through the day and just pick up the nuggets of gold that are laying on the ground near you. But when you’ve been strengthened and encouraged by those, pick up a shovel and pickaxe – dig deeper into God’s word and uncover the immensely wide and deep veins of God’s riches of wisdom and knowledge. It is my hope and prayer that this book will serve both purposes – the immediate nuggets to help strengthen and encourage, and some context and clues to go even deeper.
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