God: "I looked for someone to take a stand for me, and stand in the gap" (Ezekiel 22:30)
God commands his people to hope. To be sure, it’s only as He gives us hope that He commands us to hope, yet command us to hope He most certainly does. For this reason the mediaeval rabbis used to say that the arch sin is despair.
Giving “spiritual” encouragement in a biblical sense must mean to encourage based from a standpoint of absolute Truth as opposed to opinion, conjecture or hope. “Spiritual” encouragement, therefore, will be consistent, traceable back to the Bible and rooted in biblical principle.