The person I was talking to was all gloom and doom, and it
was as if they were personally attacking me on every level they could. That’s
why it felt like it was coming straight from the pit of hell. But even though I
could recognize it for what it was and I know enough and have learned enough in
my Christian walk to be able to say with assurance, “The enemy is a liar!” What
they were saying was still sinking deep into my heart and my spirit and it left
me feeling weak and despondent and dejected and discouraged.
Discouragement is one of the enemy's biggest and most useful
tools – useful for the enemy of course, and not for anyone who is really trying
to get things done for God in the world. Discouragement is something that can make
us give up just before we are about to walk into our blessing – the bigger the
discouragement the bigger the blessing that’s coming. That’s the way it always
is, but even though I know that in my head, in my heart I was feeling very,
very weak.
The night before, on Sunday, I was listening to another
great sermon from Times Square Church, www.tscnyc.org,
Pastor William Carrol again, preaching a powerful word titled, “Where Is God?”
As I walked through my day yesterday with my heart feeling so full of pain and
dejection, I heard something in my mind that he’d said in the sermon. I don’t
remember the exact words, but it was something like, “No matter what your enemy
says to you or about you, he’ll never be able to take away the name that God
has given you.” And then he said something else, “God loves you and he hates
your enemy.” He went on to say that as we faced our enemy, all we had to do was wait for God to come shining through. As I walked through the day, feeling so low in energy and so much
under the enemy’s feet, those words came through the heaviness straight from
heaven and gave me something to start a little smile.
In Isaiah 54:17 we read, “No weapon formed against you shall
prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against you in judgment you shall
condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their
righteousness is of me, says the Lord.” That is a passage that the Lord has
given me over and over and over again in the past year and a half. He’d given it to me before through
other people saying it to me, but in this past year and a half He’s been
speaking it directly to me over and over and over again. As the enemy tried to
bring me down yesterday, those words came back again, and they were
strengthened by the words that Pastor Carrol shared on Sunday.
We can’t live in a vacuum as Christians. That’s why the Lord
encourages us in Hebrews 10:23-25, “Let us hold tightly without wavering to the
hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep His promise. Let us think of
ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not
neglect our meeting together as some people do, but encourage one another,
especially now that the day of His return is drawing near.”
Proverbs 27:17 tells us, “As iron sharpens iron, so one
person sharpens another.” There is a song by Hezekiah Walker, “I Need You To
Survive.” We need each other as part of the body of Christ, each one helping
and supporting the others, saying, “ I won’t harm you with the words from my mouth”
as the song goes, “Stand with me, agree with me, we’re all a part of God’s
body.” When we think about ourselves as a part of a greater whole, selfishness
and selfish striving must go. When we think of God as being the Head and all of
the rest of us as the parts, we will be able to work together and support each
other in a healthfully functioning way. I realize as I write this now that when
the enemy comes to attack as he did yesterday, he brings a sickness to a part
of the body. And just as with a healthy body that has a strong immune system,
the stronger we are individually in combination with the rest of the parts of
the body of Christ, the more quickly and resoundingly we can put the enemy back
under our feet where he belongs.
One of the enemy's greatest strategies is to isolate people –
to make them think they’re better off alone or that there are no real friends
to be found anywhere. This morning the Lord gave me a Psalm He’s given me
before, but in a new way, and it’s just coming to me clearer now. He had given
me Psalm 116, and He had me looking more closely at verses 10-12, “I believed
therefore I spoke, I am greatly afflicted. I said in my haste, ‘All men are
liars.’ What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me?” When I
read that this morning, I was still feeling under the heavy weight of the words
of the enemy that were afflicting my heart and my spirit. When I read the
words, “What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me?” I
thought it was a reminder He was giving me that I have much to be grateful even
with this current heavy burden I was carrying. But now I see that it is
something much more present that I have to be thankful for, it is the ever
present help in time of trouble (Psalm 46:1), the many ways that the Lord
encourages and strengthens us, the ways that the different parts of the body
always come to our aid just when we need someone to give us a word to help us
keep standing. It can come in a sermon, it can come from a friend, it can come
from someone you meet on a bus. I’ve had those words come to me in the most
unlikely places, and always when they come they are right on time.
Blessings,
Jannie Susan
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