Category: Encouragement For The Downcast

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The LORD, My Refuge

2 I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” 3 For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence. 4 He will cover you with His pinions, and under His wings you will find refuge; His faithfulness is a shield and buckler ~ Psalms 91:2-4

The Psalmist starts out with, “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.” We Christians do not wait until disaster is upon us before we start praying; no, we are in prayer continuously. Therefore, we abide permanently in the shelter of the Almighty. That means that we are always under His great protection.

Think about it this way. You are on the school playground, and bullies are coming toward you, and you know exactly what their intentions are. They are there to bully you and make your life a living nightmare. But as they come into range, your big brother, who is two or three times bigger than them, turns around and looks. He is so close to you that you are standing in his shadow. What do you think those bullies will do? They will turn around and leave without saying one word or making one move. They are out of there.

That is how it is with Jesus. He said that He will never leave us nor forsake us but will abide with us forever. It’s like the poem Footprints. A man was looking over his life and saw two sets of prints in the sand, and he knew that it was Jesus who was with him. But then he realized that in the hardest times of his life, there was only one set of prints. When he asked Jesus why this was, why He had left him in his most troubled times, Jesus replied, those were the times that I cared for you. That is a very comforting thought. Even when it seems like the whole world is against us, remember, God is with us. It is in those times that Jesus will carry us.

Heavenly Father, thank You that You are with us in the day and in the night. In the highs and in the lows. In the good times and in the bad. Thank You for carrying me in my most troubled times. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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God Is Good

Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever! ~ Psalms 107:1

God is good even when things are happening in your life that are out of your control. Even when you are suffering terribly and God seems to be far away. Understand this, His love is never far away, even in those instances, for His love is a steadfast love that is forever. There is nothing that can come between or separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.

Paul said in Romans 8:35, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?” Well, the short answer to these questions are a resounding NO. Nothing can or will separate us from the love of God because God is good, and He wants good for us, even when it does not seem like it. But even in trials and the tribulations, which are hard for us Christians who live in the West with all our freedoms that we enjoy to imagine, God is still good.

But there are those living in our world who are not so fortunate. They suffer all of those things for God: persecution, tribulation, and even death, yet they believe in His goodness, and they trust in His steadfast love. Just yesterday, I read about an Egyptian Christian who was kidnapped, tortured, killed, and then mutilated until unrecognizable and then fed to the dogs. Even in horrific events like that, God is still good. His love is still a steadfast love.

We look at the temporal, but God considers the eternal, which is by far the best. Suffering in this world is not even a second in eternity. Paul said, for him to live is Christ, and to die is gain. Because no one can even imagine the good things that God has in store for everyone who loves Him and is obedient to His commands.

The very last verse (Psalms 107:43) says, “Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things; let them consider the steadfast love of the LORD.” So, let us consider, think, ponder, meditate on, and celebrate the goodness of God, for He alone is good.

Father, thank You that You are good, and Your steadfast love is forever. Help me to consider and understand Your goodness, even in times when it does not seem like You are around or that You even care. Help me to hold on and to never doubt Your goodness to me. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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The Great Mercy of God

4 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. ~ Jeremiah 29:4-7.

This is the beginning of a letter that God had Jeremiah send to the Israelites in captivity to encourage them. Think about this. They were in punishment for abandoning their God. But listen to the letter. Build houses and enjoy your house. Plant gardens and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Go on and get married and have a family, and then let your children also get married and have families of their own. I don’t just want you to increase and not decrease, but I want you to multiply.

Understand that multiplication is way much more than addition. God’s mercy is so great that even when He punishes His people for wrongdoing, He can’t help Himself by blessing them because of His steadfast love. Please realize that God was very angry with them, yet in His anger, He remembered mercy, and in His wrath, He remembered to bless. That is mind-blowing. That would be like us putting our children in timeout because of their disobedience and bad behavior, then turning the TV set toward them so that while they are in timeout, they can watch a little TV while munching on their favorite snack on a nice soft cushion.

The letter goes on to say that after seventy years, I myself (the LORD God) will come and visit them and bring them back to the place He had promised them. Their own homeland of Jerusalem in Judah. He will give them back their land. It is amazing that even in punishment, God’s mercy is very, very great. You can never outlive or run away from God’s mercy. He doesn’t want them miserable in their punishment, He want them to have hope and be comforted in their hope. It’s just amazing.

Thank You, Father, for Your great mercy that does not end and for Your steadfast love that endures forever. Help me never to take advantage of Your great mercy and Your steadfast love. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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Don’t Focus On Them

11 But evil shall come upon you, which you will not know how to charm away; disaster shall fall upon you, for which you will not be able to atone; and ruin shall come upon you suddenly, of which you know nothing. ~ Isaiah 47:11

The Scriptures say, ‘But evil shall come upon you, which you will not know how to charm away.’ What does that mean? There is coming a day of reckoning. A day of dread for those who oppose the LORD. Those who live in open rebellion against Him and His laws.

Only those who have submitted to authority and to His rule will be acquitted. In other words, have their sins forgiven for all time. If you have submitted your life to Jesus by repenting of your sins and by following His commands, you are assured eternal life.

Therefore, don’t be discouraged or envious of the prospering of the wicked. One day, they will stand before the Judgment Seat of God and have to give an account of their lives to the LORD. They will then be separated from God for all eternity, while we who have followed Christ will spend eternity in peace with Him. Therefore, focus on Christ and seek Him. Don’t look at the world and all that it promises you because those promises won’t last. They will be but for a moment compared to eternity.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Don’t Focus On Them.

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All In Plain View

37 you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. (Acts 10:37–38)

The things Peter began to explain to Cornelius, and to those he had gathered in his home to hear what Peter had to say about Jesus, were things that they already knew. He said, “You yourselves know what happened throughout Judea.” What Jesus did was not obscure. He did not do His good works in secret so that no one knew what was going on. Instead, He Himself testified to the high priest when he questioned Him about His disciples and His teaching, “I have spoken openly to the world. I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret.”

The things Jesus did were all done in the open and in public spaces, He did nothing in secret or in hiding. Everything was done in plain view for all to see. Therefore, when the testimony of the early Church was proclaimed, those who heard could easily verify what was being said because everything was done in plain view for all to see. That means that the letters and the accounts that we now have were written down by eye witnesses and verified by those who were there and could testify to the authenticity of the reliable accounts. Therefore, we have no need to feel unsure or skeptical about what was handed down to us.

We, today’s Church, the body of Christ, must do the same. We must let our light shine so that others may see and glorify our Father who is in heaven. But Today’s Christian is obscur; it’s like they are in hiding, and so they go unnoticed. I used to work with a certain woman who turned out to be a Christian woman. I had no clue that she was. She didn’t partake in any of the office gossip or anything like that. She just kept to her, never spoke about her faith, and she didn’t seem to be very happy. I later found out that she was a Christian.

What I’m encouraging you to do today is share the Gospel with someone. Smile, let others see your joy because the joy of the LORD is our strength. Encourage others, be light in your dark corner of your world. For the love that you show will be the love that someone else needs, just like the light that you shine is the light that will cause someone else to see and not to stumble. Be like Jesus who did all His good works in plain sight for all to see, and so did His followers.

Father, help us to show Your Son Jesus in our day to day actions and proclaim His Name in our day to day interactions. We want to be a witness for You, but we cannot be a witness in silence. Therefore, give us boldness to speak loud and proud about the goodness of Jesus. Thank You Jesus for Your bold statements. Help us to be like You. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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Don’t Succumb

8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; ~ 2 Corinthians 4:8-9

There’s a show called Downton Abbey, and within this show, one of the main characters’ husband dies in a car crash right after she gives birth. He was on his way home to get the rest of the family to see their new baby boy, but he never made it home. That destroyed this main character. She was once strong and confident, but now she is scared and unsure of herself. She and her brother-in-law, who lost his wife (her sister) during childbirth, get into an argument of sorts one day, and this is what he told her:

You’re frightened of being hurt again. But let me tell you this. You will be hurt again, and so will I, because being hurt is part of being alive.

Pain is a part of this life. It was never intended for mankind, but it has become an unavoidable part of our lives since Adam and Eve were removed from the Garden of Eden. Pain is an unavoidable side effect of Adam’s sin in the Garden of Eden. We can’t erase it. We can’t run away from it. It’s something that each one of us has to go through. We have to endure, lest it consume us, as it did the main character of Downton Abbey.

She gave up on work as well as love. She just gave up in life, completely. The fact of the matter is life is hard. It’s easy to give up. It’s easy to allow pain and suffering to consume us, but that’s not our destiny. That’s not what God has called us to. Yes, pain and suffering is unavoidable, but succumbing to them is a choice.

We, the Church, the body of Christ, are blessed and highly favored. We are the very bride of Christ. We may be struck down, but we are not destroyed. We may be persecuted, but we are not abandoned. We are in the hands of the Living God. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last. He is the Good Shepherd who has given Himself for His sheep.

Therefore, when troubles come our way that begin to weigh us down and try to consume us, we have to lift the burdens off of us and lay them at the feet of Jesus. We have to cast our anxieties upon Him because He cares for us.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Don’t Succumb.

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Prepare Yourselves

18 The nations raged, but your wrath came, and the time for the dead to be judged, and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints, and those who fear your name, both small and great, and for destroying the destroyers of the earth. ~ Revelation 11:18

The Bible seems to indicate that God believes that His earth is being deliberately destroyed, and He will deal with those who are destroying it. The Scripture said that the time had come for God to destroy the destroyers of the earth. What does that mean, except that there is a time and a season for everything under heaven, and their time, the destroyers of the earth, will come?

I believe that all that is happening is fulfillment of the signs of the times and speaks of the late season that we are living in. In other words, it is past the eleventh hour. It is, in fact, ticking to midnight. These happenings and these signs herald the Good News that Jesus is on His way—He is coming back real soon. We need to encourage ourselves with this.

See, 2,000 years ago, when Jesus walked this earth during His earthly ministry, He Himself promised that “I’ll be back.” That did not originate with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Jesus Himself said, “I will soon return.” He further stated that the one who endures until the end will be saved (Matthew 24:13).

Jesus is coming back to judge the living and the dead (2 Timothy 4:1), and we need to be ready for His return. Although there is chaos in the world, let not your heart be troubled. Yes, things are happening around us that are way out of our control. Events and phenomena are occurring that are perplexing. Sometimes, it seems like all hell has broken out against us.

But let not your heart be troubled. You might feel alone, but here is the truth. Yes, Jesus was taken up into heaven, but that same Jesus who was taken up into heaven in a cloud on the day of Ascension over 2,000 years ago will return in like manner to get us so that where He is, there we shall be also (Acts 1:10-11). Therefore, we must be the voice crying out, “Prepare yourselves, for the return of the LORD is at hand, and His judgments are with Him, to repay good with good and to repay evil with evil.”

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Prepare Yourselves.

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Not One-Sided

7 Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort. ~ 2 Corinthians 1:7

God did not promise us Christians a rose garden with continued sunshine, no rain, and no thorns. But Jesus plainly told us that in this life, we will have tribulation. There is no fine print that you need to scrutinize with a magnifying glass or have your lawyer read over. Jesus told us plain and straight that if we wanted to follow Him, we would have to pick up our cross daily and follow Him. It should not come as a surprise when we experience hardships for the kingdom of God. It’s not a one-time thing where we can hurry and get it over and done with and then breathe a sigh of relief, “Glad that’s over. Now clear skies and smooth sailing from here on out.”

On the contrary, if we want to share in the comfort, we must also be willing to share in the suffering. Christians cannot shrink back from persecution or from suffering. I believe the greater the suffering, the greater the reward. Now that is not to say that only those who suffer for the kingdom will receive a reward. Not at all, but what I am saying is that we must all be willing to share in the suffering and not shrink back or fully avoid it. Because Jesus is coming back soon, and the Bible says that His rewards are with Him.

Paul also was fully convinced that if Christians, not just the Corinthian Church, but if all Christians share in the suffering of Christ, they will also share in the comforts of Christ. He told them plain and straight that he did not want them unaware of the affliction that he and his companions experienced in Asia. He was not complaining; he was encouraging them that nothing they would experience here on this earth would be able to compare to the glories we would share with Jesus if we only held on to the very end and did not give.

So, I encourage you today, if you are going through a rough time or if you are being persecuted, however slight, just because you are a Christian, hold on; something better is on its way. Jesus is coming to get us to give us an inheritance that no eye has not seen, neither has ear heard nor has it entered into the imagination of man what He has in store for us.

So, let’s encourage each other as we hold on and wait for the redemption of our LORD Jesus. And remember, our faith and our suffering are not one-sided. We will be rewarded for what we have done and what we have gone through for the sake of the kingdom of God.

Heavenly Father, thank You that You do not forget what we have done, and neither do You withhold blessings from us. But You give to each one as he or she deserves and has earned. Thank You that sufferings and comforts are not one-sided but that You repay each one exactly what they have earned. Thank you, Father. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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Steadfast And Immovable

58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. ~ 1 Corinthians 15:58

Paul is encouraging the Corinthian church to be steadfast, which means to be unchanging, as in a firm and fixed foundation. Then he reiterates with another adjective, immovable, which means basically the same thing: firm, unshaken, and steady. So, here we get the idea that Paul is really trying to emphasize something to them. He is trying to encourage the Corinthian Christians not to be weaving and swerving in their faith but to be steadfast as a sure foundation and as immovable as a Royal Palm that grows in the Cayman Islands.

Many years ago, there was an accident in the Cayman Islands where a car traveling at a very high rate of speed with four men in it hit a Royal Palm Tree. The car was actually broken in two, and three out of the four men were killed on impact. The tree, however, was not noticeably damaged. The next day, after all the wreckage was cleared, no one could even tell that there was a triple fatality there. Only a small brown spot, which could have been caused by anything, served to mark the spot, and you had to look closely to even notice that.

This is the steadfast, immovable faith Paul is encouraging the Corinthian Church to have. He is encouraging them to never let anything disrupt their faith. Just like that palm tree withstood the impact of an event that should have caused more damage than it did, they, too, must stand firm when all sorts of trials and temptations come against them.

Those words were not written to them alone, but, by extension, they were written for our benefit as well. We are to be steadfast, immovable, without swaying to the left or to the right, but with our eyes steadfast on Jesus, we are to run our course; we are to finish the race with all perseverance. It is not easy, or even possible, for us to do if not for Jesus, but through Jesus, all things are possible for us. Therefore, we can and will finish the race and win the prize as long as we stand steadfast and immovable in Jesus’ mighty Name.

When we are steadfast and immovable, things that would knock a regular person off their feet will only bounce off of the Christian whose hope and faith is in the LORD Jesus. He is our firm foundation and with Him and through Him all things are possible for us, and all adversities are overcomeable for us.

Thank you, LORD Jesus, that You are our firm foundation, and through You, we are overcomers. We are steadfast and immovable, just like Your great faithfulness and love, and the race is winnable. I give You praise, Almighty God, because there is none like You. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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The Whole Earth

14 For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. ~ Habakkuk 2:14

Can you imagine a time when peace will reign, and the glory of the LORD will Cover the whole earth, and Jesus Himself will be in charge to extend true equity to everyone? What a glorious day that will be.

God has not forsaken us, nor has He left us defenseless. He will come in our time of trouble, for He has promised that the whole earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

There is coming a time when the LORD will say enough is enough, and He will return for His people. Every tear will be wiped away, and every heartache healed in the presence of the LORD. Peace will reign, and Jesus will sit as king.

Here’s the thing, though, only those who choose to follow Him now during a time of chaos and tribulation will enter into this rest. This time of peace that is promised. So, don’t be discouraged by the times; they won’t last. They won’t be forever. Paul said that these are just light afflictions compared to all that God has in store for those who love Him.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Look For His Glory.

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