1) Willing to be Barnabas 2) Encouragers

Extract from crosswalk


1) Willing to Be a Barnabas?

Then Barnabas brought him to the apostles and told them how Saul had seen the Lord on the way to Damascus and how the Lord had spoken to Saul. He also told them that Saul had preached boldly in the name of Jesus in Damascus.--Acts 9:27

You would think that upon returning to Jerusalem after his conversion that Paul would have been greeted as a her "Can you believe it? Our worst enemy has now become a follower of Jesus! Isn't this glorious? Isn't this wonderful? God has saved the notorious Saul, and he is now a fellow believer!" But that is not what happened at all. In fact, when Paul returned to Jerusalem, the church didn't believe that he was really converted. They thought it was some kind of trap. Here he was, a new believer, and they didn't think he was even converted.

Enter an unsung hero, Barnabas. Effectively the believers were saying, "You can't come to our worship service, Saul. We don't trust you." But Barnabas essentially said, "Paul, you come with me." Then he took him and brought him to the apostles.

That is what we need to do with new believers. We need to take them to church with us, because the greatest danger a new believer faces after making a commitment to Christ is falling through the cracks and going back to their old friends and their old ways. They need a brother or sister in Christ, an Ananias or a Barnabas who will take them and say, "You are coming with me to church."

Everyone wants to be a Paul or a Simon Peter, but who will be a Barnabas? It doesn't matter whether you are a hero or an unsung hero; just don't be a zero. Just do something, and realize that God has a place for each of us to be used for His glory.

2) Encouragers

For instance, there was Joseph, the one the apostles nicknamed Barnabas (which means "Son of Encouragement"). He was from the tribe of Levi and came from the island of Cyprus.--Acts 4:36

Acts 9 tells us that it was Barnabas who brought the newly converted Paul to the apostles in Jerusalem. The name Barnabas means "son of encouragement," and his actions reveal that he was an encouraging guy. We all know a Barnabas--the one who always has an encouraging word. When you are down, that is the person you want to call, because you know he or she will encourage you.

You may not be called to preach and teach like Paul did, but you can be an encourager like Barnabas was. You can do your part, because right now, you probably know someone who needs some encouragement--someone who has failed in life, someone who is hurting, or someone who is a brand-new believer. They need someone like you to stand in the gap. You don't have to know every verse in the Bible. You don't have to have the answer to every theological question. You just need to be a real Christian who can show them what it is like to live in the real world.

You can be a Barnabas, an encourager, because everybody needs encouragement. And everyone needs help. Everyone stumbles and falls in some way, shape, or form. Everyone has their down days, even the heroes of life. They may wake up on the wrong side of the bed, be feeling a little cranky, or don't always have the perfect answer for every question. They are human like you are. They need someone to just encourage them. So be an encourager.

Thank God for the Barnabases of the world who help those in need--and all of us need it at one time or another. These are the unsung heroes who play an important part in the lives of great men and women of God.