Welcome to this daily encouragement from our daily bread.

I'm James Banks, and I titled today's meditation, People of Encouragement.

Shear Encouragement.

That was the phrase J.R.R. Tolkien used to describe the personal support his friend and colleague C.S. Lewis gave him as he wrote the epic, The Lord of the Rings, trilogy.

Tolkien's work on the series had been painstaking and exacting, and he'd personally typed

out the lengthy manuscripts more than twice.

When he sent them to Lewis, Lewis responded, all the long years you have spent on

it are justified.

Perhaps Scripture's best-known encourager was Joseph from Cyprus, better known as

Barnabas, meaning son of encouragement. The name the apostles gave him in Acts chapter 4.

It was Barnabas who advocated for Paul to the apostles. Later, when non-Jewish believers began to place their faith in Jesus,

Luke tells us Barnabas was glad and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts.

Luke describes him as a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, adding that because of

him a great number of people were brought to the Lord.

The worth of encouraging words can't be measured.

As we offer words of faith and love to others, God, who gives eternal encouragement, may move

through what we share to transform someone's life forever.

May he help us to offer sheer encouragement to someone today.

Today's our daily-bred devotional scripture reading is from Acts chapter 11, verses 19 to 26.

Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, spreading the word only among Jews.

Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to

Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus.

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