Four Powerful Words Every Discouraged Christian Needs To Memorise

Discouragement. Many of us feel this. Christians who say they haven't felt any form of discouragement in their pursuit of God are likely lying, or perhaps just got born again a few seconds before reading this. Seriously.

Common Problem

Discouragement has got to be one of the most common things Christians around the world are facing. What's discouragement? It's simply defined as "a feeling of having lost hope or confidence."

We can see it in the lives of many who leave their churches because they feel that certain Christians are "un-Christian." We can see it in the number of Christians who feel like they can't do great things for God because they "don't know what to do" or perhaps feel inferior to "that person on the stage." We can see it in the pastor's face when the church suffers from loss and he feels ill-equipped to handle it.

We see discouragement everywhere.

On a Personal Level

Many of us may hate to admit it, but we might feel discouraged right now. Perhaps, this is the reason why you opened this article – you're discouraged yourself. If you are discouraged, my friend, I want to encourage you. Remember these four words:

GOD'S NOT DONE YET

There might be no Bible verse that directly says that, but we see in the Bible that God isn't done yet. Christ hasn't returned yet. You aren't dead yet. You're still reading this article, and you're looking for a reason to keep going forward. That's why you clicked on the title of this post.

God's Not Done With You Just Yet

Friend, God's not done with you just yet. You might feel like you've blown it. You wasted your chance. You missed the opportunity. You feel like you won't be able to do great things anymore. And so you want to quit.

Friend, don't quit. Don't give up. Let me encourage you: If God's not done with you yet, then don't give up on yourself. If you can't believe that God can still use you, then believe in Him who died for you because He loves you (see John 3:16). He has great plans for you – plans that are way beyond your imagination. (see Jeremiah 29:11; Isaiah 55:8-9; 1 Corinthians 2:9)

Put your faith in Him, not in yourself. (see Philippians 3:3)

God has a proven track record of picking up discouraged, even dishonoured, people and turning them into glorious stories of His goodness.

•   He turned Saul, a Christian-killer, into Paul, the apostle who lived and died for Christ.

•   He took David's adulterous relationship with Bathsheba and used it to establish the lineage of Christ Jesus.

•   He took Peter, a man who denied Christ, and turned him into a martyr who preached a Holy Spirit-powered message that led to the salvation of thousands.

•   He took me and all my failures, saved me and loved me through Christ, and used me to write this message of hope for you.

I hope you don't forget that God's not done yet. Don't give up on Him who's not giving up on you.

"The godly may trip seven times, but they will get up again..." (Proverbs 24:16 NLT)

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There's A Time For Everything – Including These 3 Things

"To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven..." – Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NKJV)

Everything has its place and time before God. His purpose never goes unfulfilled, and His plans never go undone. He has made all things beautiful in its time, but it does take time: either sooner or later.

One thing that I want to talk about with regard to this is our cooperation to God's plans. While God surely doesn't do bad and evil things to us, there are times we think He does us harm. That's not true, friends. God is good, and wants the best for us. But in order for us to experience the best that He has planned for us, we need to cooperate with Him and follow hard after Him.

A Promise Of Abundance

The Lord Jesus Christ promised in John 10:10 that He came so that we'd have abundant life. The key to receiving that abundant life, however, is receiving Him as our Saviour, and giving up our lives to Him as our Lord. His promised abundant life can only come within the confines of His Lordship over our lives.

Submitting to the Lordship of Christ means letting go of all things that aren't His. We let go of the things that hinder us from pursuing Him. We let go of our own comforts, desires, and dreams if all these aren't His. While some might think that's painful, wait until He tells you "I don't know you" when judgment comes.

No, friend, don't wait for that time to come, ever. Follow Him while you still can. Follow Him.

A Time To Do These

Knowing this, here are some things that we should be willing to do as Christ's followers. Ecclesiastes 3 tells us there's a time for everything, and that "everything" includes these.

1. 'A Time To Kill' (Verse 3)

Let me clarify: We are commanded not to literally kill. But there are some things that we should put to death if we want to follow Christ.

Put to death whatever earthly desire is in you (see Colossians 3:5). Put to death the desires of your flesh and allow yourself to live according to the Spirit of God (see Romans 8:12-13). Put to death your wrong desires to glorify yourself.

2. 'A Time To Refrain From Embracing' (Verse 5)

There are times when we need to have solitude. Yes, it's good to have friends and companions in the walk of Christianity, but it we want to grow we need to learn to refrain from being with people so that you can hear God, not public opinion.

There are also some things that we need to let go of as we move on to different seasons in life (see 1 Corinthians 13:11). The newly-married man has to let go of his childish, single ways. The new father has to learn to grow up and be a father to his kids. We all need to let go of some things if we want to embrace newer, better ones.

3. 'A Time To Gain, And A Time To Lose' (Verse 6)

As they say, "you win some, you lose some." That's not godly, biblical wisdom. In Christ we're all victors and more than conquerors (see Romans 8:37), but that doesn't mean we'll have it all nice and easy. We'll face some hardship, testing, and tremendous trials if we are bent on following hard after Christ. (see John 16:33)

Friends, there are times we feel like we're winning and gaining. It's also true that we'll have times where we feel like we're not advancing. What matters is that we continue holding on to our salvation, fighting the good fight of faith, and advancing the Kingdom of God by preaching the Gospel to all creation. (see 1 Timothy 6:12; 2 Timothy 4:7; Mark 16:15)

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How the god you worship influences the ghosts you see

Gallowglass, CC BY-SA

If you’ve ever seen a ghost, you have something in common with 18 percent of Americans.
But while there’s evidence that our brains are hardwired to see ghosts, the apparitions we see tend to vary.

Historians who study and catalogue ghostly encounters across time will tell you that ghosts come in a range of shapes and forms. Some haunt individuals, appearing in dreams or popping up at unexpected times. Others haunt a specific location and are prepared to spook any passersby. Some are the spitting images of what were once real humans. And then there are the noisy and troublesome poltergeists, which appear as uncontrollable supernatural forces instead of people.

What might explain such discrepancies? And are some people more likely to see ghosts than others? It turns out that our religious background could play a role.

Religion might ease one fear

Some argue that religion evolved as a terror management device, a handy way to remove the uncertainty surrounding one of the scariest things we can imagine: death.

Almost every religion offers an explanation for what happens to us after we die, with the assurance that death isn’t the end. And there is, in fact, evidence that very religious people don’t fear death as much as others.

Protestants, Catholics and Muslims all believe in a day of resurrection and judgment, in which our souls are directed to heaven (“Jannah” in the case of Muslims) or hell based upon our good deeds (or misdeeds) during our time spent on Earth. Catholics also believe in a halfway house called purgatory, in which people who aren’t quite worthy of heaven but are too good for hell can pay their dues before getting a ticket to paradise.

Buddhists and Hindus believe in a cycle of death and reincarnation that can eventually result in a permanent spiritual state, provided you play your cards right over each successive lifetime. Even the Jewish faith, which doesn’t really focus on the afterlife, assumes that an afterlife does exist.

By following a clear set of rules, worshipers can assert control: They know what they have to do to make good things, rather than bad things, happen to them after they take the big dirt nap.

Tormented souls and sinister demons

But there’s a catch.

Religion’s talent for easing our anxiety about death may have had the perverse effect of increasing the likelihood that we’ll be on edge about ghosts, spirits and other supernatural beings. This, however, may depend upon how religious you actually are.

All of the available evidence suggests that those who describe themselves as believers – but who don’t attend church regularly – are twice as likely to believe in ghosts than those at the two extremes of religious belief: nonbelievers and the deeply devout.

With most religions populated by an impressive cadre of prophets, gods, spirits, angels and miracles, the tenets of religious faith might shape what you see. They could determine whether a visitor from the spirit world is a welcome or unwelcome guest, while also influencing whom you think you’re meeting.

For example, in Medieval Catholic Europe, ghosts were assumed to be the tormented souls of people suffering for their sins in purgatory. But during the Protestant Reformation, since most Protestants believed that souls went immediately to heaven or hell, paranormal activity was thought to be the work of angels, demons or other decidedly nonhuman supernatural beings.

An 1892 lithograph of the Salem Witch Trials. Library of Congress

While most Protestant sects today are largely silent about the existence of ghosts, Catholic theology remains amenable to the existence of ghosts. Catholics typically believe that God may permit dead individuals to visit their counterparts on Earth, but the church has traditionally condemned occult activities such as seances and Ouija boards.

In some religions, such as Voodoo, spirits and ghosts play a central role. Religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism support a belief in ghosts, but ghosts play only a minor role in the religion itself. For Hindus, ghosts are the souls of individuals who suffered a violent death or of people who were not accorded the appropriate and required death rituals. Buddhist ghosts are reincarnated individuals who may be sorting out bad karma.

Muslims don’t believe that dead people can return as ghosts, so if a Muslim thinks he’s encountered a ghost, it’s thought to be the work of Jinn – beings that contain a mix of spiritual and physical properties, whose intentions can be malevolent or benevolent depending upon the situation. There are several other religions, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, that also believe ghostly apparitions are demons in disguise rather than the souls of deceased people.

Jews typically discourage occult activities designed to contact the dead, and there seems to be less consensus within Judaism as to the status of ghosts. However, Jewish oral traditions include stories of evil ghosts (Dybbuks) and kindly, helpful ghosts (Ibburs) who try to insert themselves in human affairs.

It appears people across eras, religions and cultures have always been curious about a spiritual world that exists behind the curtain of death.

Together, it speaks to how thoughts, fears and visions of death are integral to human life.
Frank T. McAndrew, Cornelia H. Dudley Professor of Psychology, Knox College
This article was originally published on The Conversation.

One Key To Seeing God Even In Depressing Or Sad Situations

Many people think that God is absent whenever they feel depressed or sad, as if the thick clouds of depression and sadness keep them away from God's hand. Sadly, many of us who feel sad or depressed fail to realise that God is always faithful, and that He'll always be with us no matter what we feel.

"I will never leave you nor forsake you." (see Hebrews 13:5)

God Is There

Friends, God is present in our lives even when we are in the midst of turmoil. Even when we feel like we're drowning in the depths of sadness and depression, the truth remains that God will never leave us nor forsake us.

In fact, God is faithful to stay with us that wherever we go, He is there! Psalm 139:7-12 speaks beautifully of such truth:

"Where shall I go from Your spirit, or where shall I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell at the end of the sea, even there Your hand shall guide me, and Your right hand shall take hold of me. If I say, 'Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light shall be as night about me,' even the darkness is not dark to You, but the night shines as the day, for the darkness is like light to You."

The problem then, my friends, is not that God would abandon us or leave us—that's out of the question. The problem lies within ourselves.

Taking Responsibility

Dear reader, I want you to understand that God remains the same yesterday, today, and forever. He promised to never leave us, and He will be faithful to do that until we go home to Him.

The problem is that we people think He has marooned us when we face a sad and depressing situation. We think He's gone and has left us in need of help. No, He hasn't, but we need to do something so that we can see Him.

We need to lift our eyes up.

Lift Your Eyes

Psalm 121:1-2 beautifully shows us the right thing to do when we're tempted to look down in depression and sadness:

"I will lift up my eyes to the hills, from where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth."

We need to lift our eyes to see Him. We need to realise that when we are facing trials and other tests, God is there to help us. Let's fix our eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ.

"Let us look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and your hearts give up." (Hebrews 12:2-3)

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3 Things To Stop Worrying About

Worry is a common problem among people, including Christians. Many who profess to have faith in the God who created all things from nothing tend to worry over things that He can easily handle. Friends, if we say we have faith that God will come through, we should have no room for worry.

Don't Worry

The Lord Jesus Himself gave a sobering lesson on worrying over our needs and wants and simply choosing to pursue God. In Matthew 6:25-27 we read Him say,

"Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?" (NKJV)

Well, He's right, of course.

Our worrying can never add an inch to our height, improve our living conditions, and change the situation we're worrying about. If anything, worry only makes us put our faith in something else, not in God who we should be thinking about.

Worrying easily stifles our focus on God. When we worry, we ultimately say that God won't come true to His promises. We declare the opposite of Psalm 23:6, which says:

"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." (NKJV)

Think About It

When David wrote that psalm, he was probably in the wilderness tending to his father's sheep. He was there, defenceless against predators that prey on the flock, yet we read him declaring that he has everything that he needs in God. All of it – provision, rest, refreshing, protection, correction and discipline, even celebration – come from God. He doesn't even long for all these; all of them are freely given.

All that delighted him, and I pray we should, too, was to "dwell in the house of the Lord forever." Isn't that amazing?

Worry Not, Fret Not

Friends, instead of worrying, let's all put our faith in God for these three things Matthew 6:31 tells us not to worry about.

1. 'What Shall We Eat?'

Here we talk about provision, our daily sustenance. Instead of worrying about it, let's ask God for our daily bread and then live a life of righteousness, working with our own hands quietly and honestly to the glory of God. (see Matthew 6:11; 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12; Colossians 3:17)

He will make sure to provide all that we need. We simply need to live right in His eyes. (see Philippians 4:19; Psalm 37:25)

2. 'What Shall We Drink?'

While this means water or beverage, this also talks about celebration. As Christians, our delight is God Himself, not the worldly parties, temporal acclaim, and celebrations we could all see around us (see Psalm 37:4). In Christ, we celebrate our freedom from sin and death, our identity as God's beloved sons and daughters in Christ, and our coming reunion with Christ when He returns to take us with Him.

Let's look forward to celebrating God's goodness all the time, on a daily basis. We should celebrate His love for us.

3. 'What Shall We Wear?'

While this simply means clothing, this also talks about warmth and comfort – being protected, safe, and secure. God provides for us the comfort that we need when we go through troubles as His followers (see Psalm 23). God provides His protection for us who hide under the shadow of His wings (see Psalm 91). God makes sure that nothing can snatch us away from His hand, and that His love will never be taken away from us (see Romans 8:31-39).

God will be your comfort. And yes, we should clothe ourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ. (see Romans 13:14)

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The Focus in My Head

Each of us is being shaped by the things going on in our heads. What we permit in our thoughts determines what we eventually become. Sometimes the thoughts in our heads can act as a hand brake. 

If you think you're not good enough, the probability that you might get to the top one day is not good. 

If you believe that you are a winner, chances are good that you will indeed one day win the race.

Even the ancient truths from the Bible confirm this. Read Proverbs 4:23 with attention: Keep vigilant watch over your heart; that's where life starts. We must realise that our thoughts can determine the direction of our faith and can even direct or affect our actions. Our thoughts form the basis of our lives and determine our direction.

Proverbs has some more advice: 24Don't talk out of both sides of your mouth; avoid careless banter, white lies, and gossip. 25Keep your eyes straight ahead; ignore all sideshow distractions. 26Watch your step, and the road will stretch out smooth before you.27Look neither right nor left; leave evil in the dust.

The things we allow to get to our brains through our eyes and ears have an enormous influence on our happiness. From childhood we allow some information to influence us, and some not. We filter every little piece of information. However, it is the information that we allow to remain and that we store in a folder somewhere, which determines our lives.

And that is why it is so important that we focus on the right things: 2Don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you.

Let's just be honest with one another: All of us are guilty of doing this. We're on earth. We have to live. That is why we have to work - eight to ten hours a day. Then there's the family that takes up some of our time. So yes, our whole being is taken up by things here on earth. It's virtually impossible not to be busy with things here on earth.

So what can we do? ... Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ-that's where the action is. See things from his perspective. And no, I don't think all of us should go and sit in a monastery only focusing on the things of God. We should rather involve Jesus more in or day. Jesus wants to walk every step of every day with you. He wants to help you walk through every crossing that you face. He wants to show you what door to open and which ones you should rather keep closed.

That is why we have to adjust the filters of the information that we allow in, so that we can allow more of the things that are important to Him. We must shift our focus to the things of God, because if we have more of that in our heads, it will start spilling from our mouths. It will take over our whole beings and eventually we'll start doing what is important to God.

Unfortunately, this is not a quick fix. No, it is a process. A process that takes a long time, starting with a purification process to get rid of the stuff that is not God-focused in order to make way for things that gladdens Jesus' heart. When that is in place, our actions will follow suit.

I trust that God will help us to make a mind-shift so that what we do can be in line with the things that are important to Him.

Scripture

Colossians 3:1-4

Reflection

What takes up most of your time?

What directs your thoughts?

What do you have to change?

Prayer

Father, I realise that my focus and your focus do not exactly meet in the middle. I want to think more about your things. I want to get my thoughts in line with what is important to You. I struggle with that, so please help me to reflect more on your things and to talk about it, so that I can do more. Amen.

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