Have you had a bad day. A day when you just felt like you can't go on. You just want to call it quits and say "that's enough!". Well, you might do that with some things in life, but let me tell you something...don't ever quit on God!
I want to encourage you today if you are weary and tired in your Christian walk...don't give UP!!! PRESS ON!! Philippians 3:14 says we are to press on to the mark, Jesus! Hey, it's hard! I understand (trust me)! The Christian life is hard but so worth it (I can say that from personal experience)! Oh, did you know that God knows how you are feeling too? YUP. He created you! He knows you better than you know yourself. What's more, He had to press on too. Do you think He was looking forward to the cross? uhm...no. That was going to be tough, there was going to be pain, He was going to die! But He pressed on because He loved you and me, and He made it! Hebrews 12:2b, "who for the joy that was set before him (Christ) endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." God walked on! You can make it too! Don't give up, but keep walking on with God! The enemy, Satan, wants you to quit. He does not want you to make it to heaven (Read 1 Peter 5:8). Satan is looking for any way to drag you down to hell with him. Don't stop walking with God! It is not worth it! Turning away from God and stopping to walking with Him leads only to death (spiritual and natural), pain, remorse, loss, bitterness, hatred, sadness, unhappiness, and (do you want me to go on?). God did not say that things would be easy; example: you can't have a baby without first going into labor and then you have your bundle of joy. There is a price to pay to follow Christ. In fact, John 16:33 says we will have tribulation, but to be of good cheer and be encouraged because Christ overcame (He faced the same things and won) and so can you! I want to encourage you to not grow weary while doing good (Galatians 6:9). In the right time and season, you will reap a great harvest for what you are doing for the Lord. You will get a reward for your perseverance and pressing on in your walk with God. God loves you!! He wants you to make it and so do I!! If you feel like you need help. Go to you church and talk with your Youth pastor or pastor. Talk to your parents or guardian or someone you can trust and is a strong Christian.
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The Word of God is our defense, and the more we spend time with God the more His Word will become part of us. For example, the more a sponge is touching a liquid, the more it will absorb. A pastor I used to know wrote an encouraging phrase. He said that we should quote Scripture just like Christ did because the Word of God is powerful and will defend us from the Enemy. We should also pray that Christ would give us a listing ear as King David cried out in Psalm 40:6. Then when voices of doubt come, we will have developed a listening ear to the voice of God. We should desire to listen to the Voice of Truth, because it is that same truth that will set us free (John 8:32).
Do we love God more than our human desires? Are we willing to put aside whatever could cause us to miss the mark? When the storms and high winds of doubt from the enemy come blowing down upon us, will we stand firm because we are built on Christ the Rock or will we fall because our foundation in Him is weak (Matt. 7:24-27)? Christ is the best pattern we could have in our lives. He showed us that we can overcome the desires of our flesh, even though it is a struggle. He loves us so much (do not doubt it) and does not want us to miss out on all He has planned for us. I just need to add something here. So many people have this wrong idea of God. They think He is some mighty person on His throne with a bat waiting to hit them when the mess up. Well you are wrong. He does correct us, but because He loves us and never out of anger. He only wants the best for you. (Check it out: Proverbs 3:12, "For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.” and Psalm 103:8 that says Christ is slow to anger). Do not let fear and wrong thinking's of God keep you from coming to Him. Joshua 24:15b says, “but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Who will we choose to serve? Will we serve the Lord God and obey Him or will we serve our flesh and its desires? I pray that we all make the right choice. May God shed His light on you. It was at Christ’s weakest moment, hunger, when the Deceiver attacked (Matt. 4:2-3a).
Ya'll know who the deceiver is? John 8:44 points out that Satan is the Master Deceiver because he is the father of lies and all lies come from him. Satan used his "power tool" by saying, “if thou be the Son of God…” (Matt. 4:3). Personal story again. I struggled for a time rather I was saved because I was bombarded with wrong thoughts. I thought that since wrong thoughts came to my mind then I must not have Christ in me because Christians never get wrong thoughts. Uhmmm, not the case. If anything, Christians are bombarded with wrong thoughts the most because they are saved, but they must not let those thoughts become their thoughts by agreeing and thinking on them. Satan wants to turn away as many people as he can from God, and he begins by trying to fill their minds with junk. My parents helped me see that those thoughts were not from me because that was not my heart. My heart was to live for God and serve Him and when I understood that, when those thoughts came to me that I was not saved, I firmly said out loud, "those thoughts are not from me or God, they are from the Deceiver/Devil!!" Now dear read, understand that we cannot stop the enemy from throwing his thoughts into our minds, but we can stop them from growing or by thinking on them. Just because we struggle with thoughts does not mean we are not saved; it's another test to pass! We should do what Philippians 4:8 says. There are 8 gates, so to speak, that we should use on thoughts that come to our minds. If they do not agree with one of the gates reject the thought. If you are one of those who have a really hard time with overcoming doubt of any kind, image how much more of a struggle it was for Christ to overcome thoughts that He was not the Son of God! A great man of God wrote in his book, The Life of Christ, that Christ had to have a tremendous amount of faith to believe He was the one and only Son of God. With Satan's flaming arrows of doubt flung at Christ, making Him weaker than He already was from the hunger, Satan now went in for the kill. After using doubt, Satan continued attacking Jesus by saying, “…command that these stones be made bread” (Matt. 4:3). It was not that Christ could not eat because, after all, He also was the Son of God who could have easily commanded a steak dinner with a Cesar salad. Christ was not one who out of impulse satisfied His natural desires. My Theology prophesier said that the way Jesus lived His life was on the dependence of the Father and Holy Spirit, and the Father had not permitted Him to eat yet. The point was not if Christ could turn the stones into bread. "The point was that the Enemy was seeking to disqualify Christ from hitting the mark by provoking Him to react out of the flesh to do something outside of His Father’s will" quotes an author from my text books, The Life of Christ. It was Christ’s love for His Father and being deeply rooted and founded in the Word of God that He was able to overcome and defeat Satan. The flesh is one of the hardest areas in life to overcome, and not many win the victory. A little break here to explain "the flesh". The flesh is our human nature and its desires. We can see what the flesh is from Galatians 5:19-21 which include things like hatred, selfishness, murder, and fornication. However, when God’s Word is the weapon nothing can stand against it (the flesh) (Rom. 8:31). Jesus had spent much time in prayer with His Father; learning to hear His voice and obey it. In Matthew 4:4 Jesus Christ said, “…It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Christ cared more about listing to God and being submissive to Him. In so doing, Christ passed His test. Our flesh-tests will come in many different ways. Yesterday I was struggling to overcome the flesh just like Christ was. The Lord told me to keep my mouth shut, but my pride overcame me. I disobeyed God, but I did ask for forgiveness. We should pray and ask God to reveal and remove anything that could cause us to miss the mark. We should be willing to give up even our social media if it is a hindrance. Don't worry, you won't die! Hey, I have been off Instagram for a month now and I am still breathing. We need to press on and strive by the grace of God to hit the mark that we might win Christ, and be overcomes like Him (Phil. 3:14). It will defiantly be a struggle in giving up our desires, and that is why we need the Word of God. How do we get the Word of God in us? This is very simple and yet not many are faithful or disciplined to do so. It comes by spending time in with God. I don't mean by a plane ticket to heaven and have a cup of coffee (or tea for the tea lovers) with Him. I mean reading the Bible, talking to Him, and praising and worshiping Him. Hey, you can still have coffee or tea with Him. Many nights I make a cup of tea and I say, "It's tea time, Lord. Let's hang out." Now, I don't see Him but many times I do feel Him, in my heart, sitting with me. to be continued... There are many tools in the world like the power drill and power saw. There is also another powerful tool, the Power Doubt. It is Satan’s greatest tool of destruction (Bailey 49). He tried to make Christ doubt that He was the Son of God and prove Satan wrong by turning some stones into bread. That would have been an act of disobedience toward God the Father and would have disqualified Christ, which is what Satan wanted. However, Christ chose not to give in to His flesh. He loved His Father more than food and overcame by using the Word of God.
I hate to break it to you, but like Christ, we will be tested in our flesh by Satan to cause us to miss the mark (God's purpose for our life and heaven), but here's the good news: we can also overcome by using the Sword of the Lord. You're probably thinking, "A test!! Seriously!?" But look, read what happened to Christ. After Christ was baptized, the Holy Spirit came upon Him and led Christ to fast in the wilderness for forty days to test Him (Matt. 3:16, 4:1). (This sounds like a terrible idea, like go to a wilderness with out food for 40 days and be tested! Like why go to a wilderness of all places to have a test?) Like with Christ, God will bring us through wilderness experiences. The purpose is to make us stronger (HEY!) by testing us in our weaknesses (Yikes!) and to overcome them (oh yeah!) so that our end will be greater (Deu.8:16). Okay, I think we need to pause here to explain what "our end" means. That means when we die, to put it simply, and we stand before God. Okay, back to the account. Let me give you an example. A math test (I know, math right, boring) is not the death penalty, and it is the teacher who gives the test. The purpose of the test is to see if we have learned and are ready for the next level; the teacher is not out to fail or kill us. We gonna get a little personal here. I want to share something with you. I'm in my last year of college, and let me tell you it is getting a little tough. I've got only a few weeks tell my next to last semester ends and there have been times when I want to just go back home and quit. But I know that if I quit now, I will also quit in other things in life when the going get's tough. I am being tested by God to see if I will remain faithful and discipline, (yo, you hear that? DISCIPLINED!) Yes!! It get's stink'n hard and homework can be overbearing, but it's the wilderness I am going through and it is only for a TIME! If I pass this test from God, the percentages of me accomplishing something else or a greater task will have shot up. God has great plans for everyone of us, yet He wants to make sure we are ready for them (Jer. 29:11). A Pastor I knew stated that Christ’s test that He endured was to see if He would be found worthy to do the Father’s will. That's right, even Jesus, though He was the Son of God, was also the Son of Man and had a body and feelings and desires like we do, and He had to be proven to be worthy for God the Father's will for Him (1 John 4:15; Matt. 25:31). If you like into the account in Matthew 4, it was on the 40 day of Christ's fast that the Master Deceiver showed to try and tempt the Christ. to be continued.... I'm going to tell you something about myself. I have struggled with my image; accepting myself for who God made me. I used to dislike what I would see in the mirror. Many times I would ask God why He made me this way. I did not like how much I weighed, or how tall I was, and I even thought at one point that my hair had to be a different color.
Then something amazing happened. I realized I was saying to God, "I do not like what you made." YIKES!!! God created me and I was telling Him that what He did was a bad job. I learned/am learning to accept who I am (not my faults). Guess what!! I can now look in the mirror and be like "WoW! I am beautiful." I still have not reached the weight I would like to. I am still the same height and still have the same color of hair. But now I can see myself the way God does! Genesis 1:27 says that we were created in God's very own image!! Jeremiah 1:5 says that God formed each of us in the womb. Psalm 139:13 says God knit us in the womb. Genesis 1:31 talks about how God looked back at His creation and said it was good. Well, you and I are His creation and when He finished creating us He said, "Wow! This is great!" Proverbs 31:30 says ,"Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised" God says that what is in the heart matters; that is where there is true beauty. Yes, we want our outward appearance to be good too, but you see, what is in our heart will come out (Matt. 15:18). God loves us for who we are and not for how we look. I will never be the top 10 most beautiful girl in the world. I will never be the "ideal" barbie most guys want. But I am God's most beautify girl. He has said it in His Word, the Bible. You are His most beautiful girl or handsome guy; check out the Bible, you'll find it. God says that what attracts Him to us is our heart towards Him. If a guy or girl goes after someone for their looks, they're not worth it!! Looks will fade over time, but what is in the heart will last forever. Now, yes we want to be attractive on the outside, but I have found that when the inside is beautiful, the outside follows. Be encouraged!! You are gorgeous/handsome!! You are special, you do have value! God sees you so differently than you see yourself. If God has marriage for you, your spouse will love you for who you are on the inside and outside. But what will attract the right person is always what is in the heart. I hope that you can see yourself the way God does. It has been a journey for me and it is a choice I have to make everyday to see myself as God does. This does not mean I ignore my faults, but I let God deal with them. But I do not put myself down, I look at myself straight in the eyes in the mirror and tell myself how beautiful I am. You can do the same. Look in the mirror and see the real you. Look into that perfect face of your's and see what God sees!! He sees a person of value. |
AuthorHi everyone! My name is Joy. I live in Costa Rica and absolutely LOVE writing (no, I'm not crazy! LOL). I love sharing what's on my heart with the hope that it will make some's day just a little better than yesterday. I love spreading joy, hope, peace, goodness, and most especially, I love sharing about the truth and true love. I hope that my writings, though not something I do everyday, will be of great encouragement to you. |