Are you discouraged?

Have you ever looked at your life and you feel that God must not think very much of you.? All you are experiencing is trouble, grief, sickness, lack, and you blame yourself or others.  You sense your life is barren, that you have no purpose.  You begin to justify your situation by thinking this is your ordained suffering, that God is punishing you for being the low down creature you are.  You know you lack faith, but you hate hearing those people tell you that all you need is more faith.  Sure you should be happy for that person who is being blessed, but it can make you feel like something is wrong with you.

You know you are going to Heaven when you die, but you are living in Hell before you get there.  You try to study the Bible, but it seems distant and cold.  All you can do is look up those Scriptures that justify your pitiful situation.

Perhaps you have attempted to believe God for blessings but it has not worked.  Or perhaps you are a new believer and really don’t know where to start.

You are made to feel ashamed, guilty, and you can even feel that you deserve what you are going through.  Perhaps you have experienced broken dreams, financial and marital failures, sickness, disease, fear of the future, loss of family members, and the list goes on.  You might say, “If I had just done things differently, I would not be in this mess right now.”  You can get into a grieving and even a self-pity process that puts you into deeper despair, and depression.  You try all kinds of remedies, but they all are short-lived.  You pray but it seems like God does not hear.  Or worse, perhaps you feel He did hear but refuses to fix your lives right away because of some fault of our own.

Maybe you are a Christian but you have not been living for the Lord.  Perhaps you have just drifted away and gone the way of the world.

God has a message for you!

He has a message that will encourage you where you are, He has compassion for your present situation without condemnation, and at the same time He will pick you up and put you on the path to blessings, purpose and fruitfulness.  The message consists of mercy for the present, and for the future, vision, faith, hope, and love.  It begins with God’s initiatives to bring you into His presence from which all healing and victory will spring forth.  It includes the promise of purpose for your life.

1.   Hope and vision. Someone once said, “The woe and waste and tears of life belong to the interlude and not to the finale.”

2.   Hope and mercy. Your problems carry in them the very raw materials God needs for your success.  If you had your life together, you would not have the materials God needs to bless you, use you, and make you fruitful for His Kingdom.  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3).

3.   Faith.  “Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live” (John 5:25).  “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17).

The Lord will perform those things that you are unable to perform.  He is your performer.  He is your advocate.  He is interested in you.  Abraham needed to make no new beginnings of his own.  God took the initiative with him.  Abraham never thought of Canaan as his goal, he just followed and responded to the call of God to go somewhere, not knowing where.  Abraham was not worthy, he simply heard God when he was as good as dead, and responded in obedience (Genesis 12).

4. Purpose. There is purpose in your afflictions.  We will see how your overcoming afflictions will defeat demons and will set other people free.  Just by overcoming your afflictions you will be able to sweep other people into God’s Kingdom.  You also see your generational curses eradicated and your junk turned into jewels for the Kingdom of God.

5.   Love. God’s love is what draws you, and His awesome presence is what keeps you.  “Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?” (Romans 2:4).

 

God’s love was manifested through Hosea.

In the book of Hosea God compared His people to adulterers because they had turned from Him, their husband.  Then He shows us the cause and effect of their restoration.  First, God freely forgives them (Israel) and the result is that they turn to Him.

Read God’s heart in this passage.  “How can I give you up, Ephraim?  How can I hand you over, Israel?  How can I make you like Admah?  How can I set you like Zeboiim?  My heart churns within Me; My sympathy is stirred.  I will not execute the fierceness of My anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim.  For I am God, and not man, The Holy One in your midst; And I will not come with terror” (Hosea 11:8,9).

 

God must cleanse your conscience in order to give you His abiding presence.

Jesus always meets us where we are located.  He never asks us to “measure up to Him,” but rather He finds ways of “coming down to us.”  If we are in some sort of pit, or are in someway experiencing a “shadow of death,” He wants to come to our pit.  If you are really hurting, then Jesus wants to start out with you at “square one.”  He wants you to know that you are pardoned and forgiven.  You may feel like you have failed the Lord, perhaps time and time again.  This feeling probably makes you feel guilty and condemned.  Perhaps you feel like a burned out failure in ministry.

Hebrews 10:22 states that we cannot draw near to God with a guilty conscience.  Satan knows that.  He knows that drawing near to God will heal you.  God knows that your only chance to make it is to draw near to Him with a clean conscience.  “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (Hebrews 10:22).

However, if you have failed and failed again, how can you draw near to God?  You may be thinking, “God must really be tired of me by now.  I just cannot measure up to Him.  I keep failing Him.”

You are in a vicious cycle!  The more you sin and fail, the worse your conscience becomes, and the further away from God you become.  The solution is to draw near to God, but you think that you just cannot.  The more you feel condemned the more you sin and continue to do things that are not pleasing to God.

Perhaps you have been the victim of sin.

Perhaps you have been abused, physically, emotionally, or even sexually.  You may think that no one knows how you feel.  Well be sure that at least one person know how it feels to be abused, and that person is Jesus.  He was horribly abused, even sexually abused when He hung naked on the Cross.  You may find it impossible to forgive the person (s) who abused you.  Think of this.  God is very angry at what happened to you.  His wrath is kindled.  He is not passive about your abuse.  However, all of God’s wrath was put on Jesus instead of you.  Also, all of God’s wrath was put on Jesus instead of the person who hurt you.  That is forgiveness; to put all of God’s wrath on Jesus instead of your abuser.  Do it and you will be set free!

Jesus’ love and your experience of that love is the answer.

Jesus is waiting for you, not to condemn you, but happy to have you come to the Cross to give Him your sin and the sin of those who hurt you.  So many Christians run from God in shame and guilt when they discover sin.  God’s grace is amazing!

God’s remedy for sin is to come to the Cross, and then come to the Holy of Holies into His presence and let His character flood your character.  His holiness will replace your sin and your unforgiveness.  This is the only remedy.  You cannot do it yourself.  It is the displacement method.  You cannot just empty out your sin, rather God floods you with His holiness and love and the sin must leave.

Do not be discouraged if you have to do this time and time again.  God is not the one who condemns, Satan is.  God will take you back as many times as you come.  When you stop coming is when He is grieved.  Walk out into the light of reality.  Drop your self-deceit and face this sin for what it really is.  Take sides with God against it.  Purpose in your heart never to go back into that sin again.

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”(I John. 1:9).  Forgive means to remove.  God will remove your sin like a surgeon removes a cancer, and He will put it on Jesus at the Cross.

“The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.  He will not always accuse, nor will he harbour his anger for ever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.  For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Psalms 103:8-12).

 

The woman taken in adultery was given the power to change.

“When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, ‘Woman, where are those accusers of yours?  Has no one condemned you?’  She said, ‘No one, Lord.’  And Jesus said to her, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more’” (John 8:10,11).

Notice that Jesus did not tell this woman that she had broken the Law; she knew that.  She was unable to break out of her cycle of adultery.  Once she was forgiven, she could draw near to God in the flesh, the love of God in the person of Jesus, and she obtained the power to “go and sin no more.”  But without the pardon, she would have remained in the endless cycle.

Make no mistake about it, however, Jesus does not just forgive us so that we may go our own way.  Forgiveness is not something He put in the cafeteria line so that we could just pick and chose as we desire.  Forgiveness cost Jesus His life.  He died with your sin.  He cannot just pardon your sin.  He must take your sin on Himself and suffer the consequences of it.  When He suffers your sin, attached to that package is that fact that He purchased you with His blood.  You no longer belong to yourself, but to Him.

After we are cleansed we can follow Him.

We need to heed what Jesus said during this incident with the woman caught in adultery.  He said in John 8:12. “Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, 'I am the light of the world.  He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.'"

You have been purchased with the highest price that could be paid, the very life and blood of Jesus.  “For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Corinthians 6:20).  If you wish to participate in the wonderful blessings of God, especially in the power of His resurrection that turns your junk into jewels, you must settle the ownership issue now.  You are not expected to be perfect, but you should be perfectly submitted.

Now is the time to be honest with God and give Him those areas of your life that are not under His Lordship.  He will love you freely and you will once again sense His love.

What is your responsibility? "Faith without works is dead."  You must begin to understand that God expects you to develop your relationship skills with Him, and that these skills are blood covenant based.  He wants to "know" you and for you to "know" Him intimately.  Are we saved by grace? Yes, no.  We are saved by grace which activates works; works in keeping the blood covenant relationship.

What if you married, and your husband never spoke to you, and you never poured your heart out to him or visa versa?  What if he said, "I told you I loved you at the wedding, that should be enough"?  What kind of relationship would that produce?  In the same way we need to pour out our hearts to God and allow Him to pour His Word into us!

Also, what if the next-door neighbor woman constantly knocked on your door asking your husband to come over and talk to her?  Your job as a wife would be to "resist" her.  How often?  As often as she knocked.

 

Satan and his assistants are knocking on your door 24/7. You need to continually resist with the spoken Word of God.

 

Psalms 23:6 says, Surely goodness [prosperity, moral goodness] and mercy [checed, meaning His unconditional covenant love, akin to agape] shall follow me All the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the LORD Forever.”

Some would ask, "Why would God's prosperity, His goodness, and His unconditional covenant love follow me, rather than go before me"?

It is because our past needs help and healing. God is covering our past with His love, forgiveness, and mercy.  When we know our past is taken care of, our wounds, our sin, our mistakes, our former enemies, then our present and our future can be abundant.  We can then dwell in His house forever, or in other words, have intimacy with Him.

 

Psalms 23:6 says, "Surely goodness [prosperity, moral goodness] and mercy [checed, meaning His unconditional covenant love, akin to agape] shall follow me All the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the LORD Forever."

Some would ask, "Why would God's prosperity, His goodness, and His unconditional covenant love follow me, rather than go before me"?

It is because our past needs help and healing. God is covering our past with His love, forgiveness, and mercy.  When we know our past is taken care of, our wounds, our sin, our mistakes, our former enemies, then our present and our future can be abundant.  We can then dwell in His house forever, or in other words, have intimacy with Him.

 

 

Our suggestion is to develop your relationship skills with God as outlined in the appendix A.

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