Yes, we all still live in this world.
We can get disappointed.
We can get discouraged.
Disappointments are inevitable, but discouragement is a CHOICE!
We can choose to be discouraged, we can choose to be encouraged.
As Christ-followers, we actually have to remind ourselves that we have NO reason to “stay in discouragement”, or to “continue to be” discouraged.
If you have a plan, a game plan, a vision, that you believe that God has put in your heart to accomplish, something that you feel is your responsibility to do or to complete, then yes, of course be ready for warfare!
It will be a spiritual warfare, first and foremost, because if it is a PLAN that you know and feel in your heart is IN LINE with God’s Will, then, yes, you will have detractors, distractors, enemies, opponents and they will come from all different directions and places!
At times, it will be a warfare in your brain! The battlefield of the mind as you are inundated with self doubt.
Often, the enemy will even use those who are closest to you even, to plant those seeds of “doubt” in you, with their non-chalant snide remarks, or ridicule, or unsolicited advice, as if they know better than God who planted that assignment in you to begin with.
So TAKE COURAGE!
Choose courage!
Want an example?
What if you got chosen for a mission, a risky mission, and “it’s all systems go” – then people from out of the blue try and stop you.
My answer to that?
“It’s my assignment, not yours. The things you are scared about, I am not scared of. I guess that’s why I got chosen to do this, and not you. Just pray for me that everything goes well. I’m doing this anyway, and I am not asking for any “man’s permission” to accomplish something that I feel My God has orchestrated everything so that I get picked to do this. I feel led by My God Almighty to do this. ”
End of THAT story. 🙂
Yeah, it’s a strong statement. It might even come off to others as plain old stubbornness.
But hey, you know your own weaknesses, and you also know your own strengths!
More often than not, people will stop you from doing the things that they cannot find themselves doing.
Following Christ has a lot of realizations. And you will stumble and fall.
But rise back up again and again.
It’s not meant to make Christ followers doormats for evil people.
God will raise ordinary people, broken people, and can use them to do as He says, for the greater good.
Often, the rescued are better rescuers.
They have “been there”, “done that”
God rescued me. And I can only share and give testimony to the New Life He has given me.
He has used other people, other resources, other books, other websites, other articles, but it points straight back to HIM!
So why resist?
And what better way than to go into the internet world and use my lifetime’s worth of acquired technical skills, patience, tenacity to SHARE His Goodness and His Word, to the World?
Yes, there’s a whole lot of bible apps around.
A lot of websites, too that talk about God and Jesus Christ.
A lot of websites that talk about the offshoots, different religions, rituals, some watered down Christianity where God’s words are so diluted and corrupted that it no longer bears the whole truth, but just a “little bit” of the truth, and mixed with a ton of deception.
One GREAT THING about studying the Old Testament, especially the Book of Deuteronomy, is we can see and read, how the very people that God, through Moses, rescued from Egypt to Israel – those who have seen with their own eyes, God’s majesty and power, can even fall into sin, over and over again, or would forget the commandments.
So can we imagine our struggle these days?
Where any which way you look, everything is battling for our attention!
Temptation and lies and deception is all around.
It’s easy to feel discouraged when you are faced with what seems to be a herculean and big task.
Want another sample?
Look at this screenshot:
And then I end up laughing. Yes laughing! Can you imagine, this little old website is being attacked, since June 12 2018, by, so far, two thousand seventy five (2,075) spammers.
2,075 spammers!
And WHY?
Well, your guess is as good as mine.
People are visiting this website.
I pray for the spammers, so that they can change and use their technical skills to do the right thing, that they might decide to follow Jesus Christ, instead of trying to hijack or attempting to hack our website.
I mean, God protects His children, whether or not people believe Him, He is and will always BE GOD.
So sorry – you can’t hack our website. 🙂 That’s why I laugh.
Almighty God protects His children and His people.
And in those and these type of days when it is easy to be discouraged,
It felt like I got hit BULLS EYE!
There is power in God’s WORDS!
“1 Now after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord it came to pass, that the Lord spake unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ minister, saying,
2 Moses My servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel.
3 Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses.
4 From the wilderness and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast.
5 There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.
6 Be strong and of a good courage: for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give them.
7 Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses My servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper withersoever thou goest.
8 This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.
9 Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.” – God Commissions Joshua – (Joshua 1:1-9) KJV
Being courageous is not “natural”. Because it is much easier to “fold” and give up.
But as Christ followers, we are not dependent on our own strength, but on the strength of our Creator. Because we are weak.
But in our weakness, God’s strength is made perfect.
If you go to war, and you know you have no one to back you up, then you are already defeated in your mind. I can’t do it alone.
But if you go to war, and you know God is on your side, the Almighty God, all powerful, all knowing, omnipotent and omnipresent, who has YOU at the palm of His hand, who promises you to “Never Fear” because He is with you? Then what reason do you have to fear?
No reason.
So go forward – move!
You can’t steer a ship that ain’t moving!
Never be afraid to do the right thing.
And if Jesus taught His followers, and gave His followers the great commission to spread the Good News and spread His Gospel?
Go on ahead and do it!
Despite the mockers!
Despite the spammers!
Despite the exhaustion!
Despite the self doubt!
Be strong and courageous!
Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is forging ahead, despite the fears!
For you can rest and know, “I can do all things, through Christ who strengthens me” – and “greater is He, who is in me, than he who is in the world”.
“Be gracious to me, O God, be gracious to me,
For my soul takes refuge in You;
And in the shadow of Your wings I will take refuge
Until destruction passes by.” – Psalm 57:1
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What is the bull’s eye? Focus on the goal, and get it done. No matter the noise around you. You have an assignment to do.