Tuesday, October 1, 2013

An Encouraging Word

I was having a really bad day yesterday. Someone was talking to me about something and it was like talking to the enemy – I don’t even like to give that dark one a name – the enemy is much better sounding to me, and in some ways it’s a better description because it can mean all of those things and people that try to bring us down, including our own minds and weak-hearted thoughts.

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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