Victory over Discouragement and Distress!
We are sometimes facing situations that are so inextricable, so
complicated that the difficulty they represent for us tends to make us lose the
taste of life!
This kind of situation where we feel cornered is so discouraging
that we are ready to give up everything in our life even the simplest actions
in everyday life.
Believers facing such trials, where discouragement becomes
dominant, would even be willing to give up the struggle necessary to accomplish
the work entrusted to us by our Creator.
Discouragement is the consequence of
all the worries of life that assail us altogether at the same time and it tries
to make us abandon all the objectives that we were planning to accomplish. For
believers, such a defeat is a particularly bitter phenomenon because it is a
kind of
A Spiritual Abortion!
This is absolutely true if we
realize that we are allowing our rejection from The Heavenly Jerusalem, our
spiritual mother-feeder.
Here is how Paul introduces us to this
Celestial Mother in Galatians 4, verses 21 to 27:
" 21 Tell me, you
who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? 22 For it
is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a
freewoman. 23 But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to
the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise, 24 which things
are symbolic. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which
gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar— 25 for this Hagar is Mount
Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage
with her children—
26 but
the Jerusalem above is free,
which is
the mother of us all.
27 For it is written: “Rejoice, O barren, You
who do not bear! Break forth and shout, You who are
not in labor! For the desolate has many more children Than
she who has a husband.”
The name of Jerusalem is closely
associated with that of Zion. A prophecy very close to that which Paul makes
concerning Jerusalem is pronounced by Yehoah in Psalm
87:
" 1His foundation is
in the holy mountains. 2 Yehoah loves the
gates of Zion
More than all
the dwellings of Jacob. 3
Glorious things are spoken of you,
O city of Elohim! Selah 4
“I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon to those who know Me;
Behold, O Philistia and Tyre, with Ethiopia: ‘This
one was born there.’ ”
5 And
of Zion it will be said,
“This one and that one were born in her;
And the Most High Himself shall
establish her.” 6 Yehoah will record,
When He registers the peoples: “This
one was born there.” Selah 7 Both the
singers and the players on instruments say,
“All my springs are in you."
We are far from the baseless fables taught
by the Catholic and many other churches that have followed and make believe the
lie that the Church is our mother: nothing is wronger
and I challenge anyone to find a biblical word about it. These fables were made
by these satanic churches for the sole purpose of robbing Zion of her motherhood
just as Satan, their father, tried in the past to sit on the Father's seat!
But Psalm 87 reveals since more than
two thousand five hundred years that Zion is the spiritual mother of everyone
who is born from the Father.
If a creature moves away from Jerusalem
for one or another reason, including that of discouragement, it causes some
sort of spiritual abortion. We are not here to judge him, but we must try to
learn from such events so that we can try to react positively if one day we are
struck by the discouragement of our carnal nature. The positive attitude that
must be ours in this case can be based on many examples that our Creator leaves
us in the Bible.
Elijah is alone in front of his own people
who treat him as
an enemy!
With Elijah, we can note that people
called by Yehoah are not an exception and they are
also facing discouragement. Thus Elijah was the sole spokesman of Yehoah in the kingdom of Israel in the northern part of
Israel. He is a spokesman who does not attract sympathy since his prophecy
announces three years of drought and famine during the reign of King Ahab and
Queen Jezebel. Elijah finds himself completely alone against the 450 popular
priests in the country, priests of Baal. Elijah proceeds to the execution of
these priests after being confirmed in his task by Yehoah.
But let's read how the king and the queen want to treat him after this dramatic
event in I Kings 19, verses 1 to 7:
" 1And Ahab told
Jezebel all that Elijah had done, also how he had executed all the prophets
with the sword. 2 Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying,
“So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life as the
life of one of them by tomorrow about this time.” 3 And when he saw
that, he arose and ran for his life, and went to Beersheba, which belongs to
Judah, and left his servant there.
4 But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came
and sat down under a broom tree. And he prayed that he might die, and said, “It
is enough! Now, Yehoah, take my life, for I am no
better than my fathers!”
5 Then as he lay and slept under a broom tree, suddenly an angel
touched him, and said to him, “Arise and eat.” 6 Then he looked, and
there by his head was a cake baked on coals, and a jar of water. So he ate and
drank, and lay down again. 7 And the angel of Yehoah
came back the second time, and touched him, and said, “Arise and eat, because
the journey is too great for you.”
The behaviour
of Elijah, despite his extreme discouragement, is respectful towards Elohim
since he is asking Him to decide about his fate: he does not commit suicide but
he prays Yehoah asking Him to put an end to his life.
With his faith, Elijah will take the
road again and he will have much more to do; and finally he will disappear surprisingly
to wait for his participation in the first resurrection.
Jonah in the depths of the abyss!
We must never forget that in the
eyes of the Lord, no situation is desperate. There is always a way out from any
problem if at least we do not reject our Father deliberately.
Even death is powerless
against Yehoah
as we will see in Jonah's adventure. Let's first read verse 3 of the first
chapter:
" But Jonah arose to
flee to Tarshish from the presence of Yehoah. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare, and went down into it, to go
with them to Tarshish from the presence of Yehoah. "
Here we have just read that Jonah is
fleeing from Yehoah because he refuses to obey His
order. Now let us jump to verses 1 to 10 of chapter 2:
"1 Then Jonah prayed to Yehoah his Elohim
from the fish’s belly. 2 And he said:
“I cried out to Yehoah
because of my affliction, And He answered me.
“Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and You heard my
voice. 3 For You cast me into the deep, into
the heart of the seas, and the floods surrounded me; all Your billows and Your
waves passed over me.
4 Then I said, ‘I have been cast out of Your
sight; yet I will look again toward Your holy temple.’ 5 The waters
surrounded me, even to my soul; the deep closed around me; weeds were wrapped
around my head. 6 I went down to the moorings of the mountains; the
earth with its bars closed behind me forever; Yet You have
brought up my life from the pit, O Yehoah, my Elohim.
7 “When my soul fainted within me, I remembered Yehoah;
and my prayer went up to You, into Your holy temple.
8 “Those who regard worthless idols forsake their own Mercy. 9 But I will sacrifice to You
with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay what I have vowed.
Salvation is of Yehoah.”
Jonah, now in an extreme distress,
turns to his Elohim as a last resort. Jonah also shows that he reads and knows
the Bible as he is using in his prayer a part of Psalm 18 written by David,
several hundred years before his time. Knowing the content and meaning of the
Bible is a source of help and hope when you are in trouble.
Note also that the prayer of Jonah
starts when he is swallowed by the huge fish and it ends after his physical resurrection
similar to that experienced by Lazarus with Jesus Christ. This shows that death
is in no way a barrier for our Father!
Jesus will also use Jonah as an
example to announce what he would have to suffer from his people and how he
would have to die too and stay dead for three days and three nights. These
three days and three nights will become an important sign that allows believers
to see that Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant churches are teaching a lie by
pretending that our Savior died on a Thursday afternoon and resurrected on a
Sunday morning! This space of time would disprove the Bible because it contains
only 2 full days and 3 full nights!
Daniel sentenced to death and thrown into the lion's den!
Let's read the beginning of this
adventure in chapter 6 of the book of Daniel, verses 7 to 9:
"7 All the governors
of the kingdom, the administrators and satraps, the counselors and advisors,
have consulted together to establish a royal statute and to make a firm decree,
that whoever petitions any god or man for thirty days, except you, O king,
shall be cast into the den of lions. 8 Now, O king, establish the
decree and sign the writing, so that it cannot be changed, according to the law
of the Medes and Persians, which does not alter.” 9 Therefore King
Darius signed the written decree”
Before we turn to Daniel's
reactions, let's see how the king, who has a lot of esteem for Daniel, lets
himself be blinded by these jealous servants. He is blinded and does not
realize their lie when they claim that all the authorities of the empire want
this law: But they are lying as Daniel is also a leader, apparently the best
according to verse 4, and he is not among them!
When Daniel heard that this decree
has passed, he makes no reasoning in himself for deceitful behavior by
disguising his habits of praying to Yehoah. Like
Jonah and Elijah, he does not put his trust in people but in his Lord and he
turns himself, as usual, to Jerusalem to pray to Elohim. But have you ever
wondered why Daniel turns himself to Jerusalem? Is it deliberately that he
turns to Jerusalem? If you are looking for the answer to this question in the
Bible, you will discover that Daniel is an attentive reader of the Bible. He is
turning himself to Jerusalem as he is looking for the accomplishment of Yehoah’s promise made as an answer to Solomon’s prayer that
we will first read in the first book of Kings, chapter 8, verses 46-53:
"46 “When they sin
against You (for there is no one who does not sin), and You become angry with
them and deliver them to the enemy, and they take them captive to the land of
the enemy, far or near; 47 yet when they come to themselves in the land
where they were carried captive, and repent, and make supplication to You in
the land of those who took them captive, saying, ‘We have sinned and done
wrong, we have committed wickedness’; 48 and when they return to You
with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies who
led them away captive, and pray to You toward their land which You gave
to their fathers, the city which You have chosen and the temple which I have
built for Your name: 49 then hear in heaven Your dwelling place
their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause, 50
and forgive Your people who have sinned against You, and all their
transgressions which they have transgressed against You; and grant them
compassion before those who took them captive, that they may have compassion on
them 51 (for they are Your people and Your inheritance, whom
You brought out of Egypt, out of the iron furnace), 52 that Your
eyes may be open to the supplication of Your servant and the supplication of
Your people Israel, to listen to them whenever they call to You. 53
For You separated them from among all the peoples of the earth to be Your
inheritance, as You spoke by Your servant Moses, when You brought our fathers
out of Egypt, O Yehoah Elohim."
This prayer in itself would not be
enough for Daniel to pray turning himself in the direction of Jerusalem, he must
be sure that Yehoah answered yes to Solomon! This is what
we will find a little bit later, in chapter 9, verses 2 and 3:
" 2 … Yehoah appeared to Solomon the second
time, as He had appeared to him at Gibeon. 3 And Yehoah
said to him: “I have heard your prayer and your supplication that you have made
before Me; I have consecrated this house which you have built to put My name
there forever, and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually. "
The Bible to find the path of Hope!
We have just read that the hope of
Daniel and Jonah was rooted in the Bible. The Bible is never a source of
disappointment for its readers.
So put the Bible in trial, even if
you are deep in despair. Believe in the Bible teachings inspired by the Lord and
put into practice the precious advice that Paul gives us in Romans, chapter 15
and verse 4:
" For
whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we
through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. "
Egoism is often the source of discouragement!
This may surprise you, but very
often, the main cause of discouragement is EGOISM, self-love and the setting
aside of love for the Lord and for our neighbor.
Have you ever bothered to carefully
observe a person who starts to be depressed and gives himself up to
discouragement? Very often, such a person turns all his eyes and thoughts to
himself only! A depressed person locks himself into a shell that prevents him
from seeing and listening to the outside world and his surroundings. Such
people are all turned towards themselves and are living in complete
selfishness. This is also one of the critical problems that psychologists and psychiatrists
are facing to build some connection with depressed people in: how to capture a
little bit of their attention?
Moses, one of the greatest of the
Bible, has also shown his egoism when he is arguing with Elohim asking him to
go and deliver the Hebrews. As we will read in Exodus, chapter 3, verses 6 to
12 and chapter 4, verses 1 and 10 to 14, Moses is only looking at himself and
his little worries. He completely forgets Yehoah and
his people who are suffering for so many years. This dialogue will also end
with Elohim’s anger caused by the bad behaviour of
Moses:
" 6 Moreover He
said, “I am the Elohim of your father—the Elohim of Abraham, the Elohim of
Isaac, and the Elohim of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to
look upon Elohim.
7 And Yehoah said: “I have surely seen the
oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have
heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. 8
So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to
bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with
milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the
Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites. 9
Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the
Egyptians oppress them. 10 Come now,
therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the
children of Israel, out of Egypt.”
11 But Moses said to Elohim, “Who am I that I should
go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of
Egypt?” 12 So He said, “I will certainly be with you. And this
shall be a sign to you that I have sent you: When you have brought the people
out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”...
Chapter 4
1Then Moses answered and said, “But suppose they will not believe me
or listen to my voice; suppose they say, ‘Yehoah
has not appeared to you.’ ”...
10 Then Moses said to Yehoah, “O my Yehoah, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; but I am slow of
speech and slow of tongue.”
11 So Yehoah said to him, “Who has made
man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have
not I, the Lord? 12 Now therefore, go, and
I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.”
13 But he said, “O my Yehoah, please
send by the hand of whomever else You may send.”
14 So the anger of Yehoah was kindled
against Moses, and He said: “Is not Aaron the Levite your brother? I know that
he can speak well. And look, he is also coming out to meet you. When he sees
you, he will be glad in his heart.... "
There are so many reasons
To KEEP COURAGE THANKS TO
The path followed by the Son of Man!
The Son of Man, Jesus, our Savior
and Lord, had an exemplary attitude quite different from that of Moses. The
Father also entrusted him with a mission to save the race of men. Jesus better than anyone else knew all the details of his difficult
mission because He read carefully and understood all the Scriptures.
In particular, He read Isaiah's
prophecies, describing in detail what His Father expected from Him, first in
Isaiah 52 in verse 14, and then in chapter 53, verse 1 to 4, and the second
part of verse 12 :
" 14 Just as many
were astonished at you, So His visage was marred more than any man, and His
form more than the sons of men; ...
Chapter 53
1Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of Yehoah been revealed?
2 For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root
out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is
no beauty that we should desire Him.
3 He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief. and we hid, as it were, our
faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
4 Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we
esteemed Him stricken, smitten by Elohim, and afflicted....
12 … because He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered
with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for
the transgressors."
But our Lord did not let selfishness
and his carnal nature dominate him because he put his hope forward to keep
courage through the other passages of Isaiah that follow those we read above:
·
Isaiah 52, verse 15:
"... .. So shall He sprinkle many nations. Kings
shall shut their mouths at Him;
For what had not been told them they
shall see, and what they had not heard they shall consider."
·
Isaiah 53, verses 5-8:
" 5 But He was
wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was
upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to
his own way;
And Yehoah
has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His
mouth;
He was led as a lamb to the
slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
So He opened not His mouth. 8
He was taken from prison and from judgment,
and who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land
of the living; for the transgressions of My people He
was stricken. "
·
And
finally the beginning of verse 12 of Isaiah 53:
" Therefore I will divide
Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong,...
"
Thanks to all these writings, the
Anointed One was warned in detail of the dramatic events that He would have to
face but as He kept His eyes fixed always to the final goal, the rescue of the
human race and the eternal victory over the kingdom of death and its king,
Satan, He kept faith and courage! The words of His Father did not remain vain
for Jesus and that is why He could say what is written in John in chapter 12,
verses 23 to 32:
" 23 But Jesus
answered them, saying, “The hour has come that the Son of Man should be
glorified. 24 Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat
falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces
much grain. 25 He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates
his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone
serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My
servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My
Father will honor.
27 “Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this
hour. 28 Father, glorify Your name.”
Then a voice came from heaven,
saying, “I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.”
29 Therefore the people who stood by and heard it said that it had
thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to Him.”
30 Jesus answered and said, “This voice did not come because of Me, but for your sake. 31 Now is the judgment of
this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. 32 And I,
if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.”
It is also thanks to this faith
nourishing His courage that Jesus can still say at a moment so close to his
murder what we are going to read in John, chapter 14, verses 29 to 31:
" 29 And now I have
told you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe. 30
I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and
he has nothing in Me. 31 But that the world may know that I love the
Father, and as the Father gave Me commandment, so I
do. Arise, let us go from here. "
Be courageous, we are also warned of difficult moments approaching!
But keep in focus the Wonderful World to Come
that will make us quickly forget these difficult trials!
Just as Jesus and His servants are writing
to us in many places in the Bible, we are informed as well as them if not
better about difficult times that will fall on earth and on us. They are going
to fall first on the Children of Israel in the largest meaning of this name.
Israel, unlike the very simplistic view of the world, represents a lot more
than the Jewish people. The Jewish people, by the way, are completely wrong
when they are pretending to be the only descendants of the people of Israel! This
is biblically completely false because the Jewish people essentially gather the
descendants of Judah, Simeon, Benjamin, and Levites who fled the kingdom of
northern Israel at the time of the reign of Jeroboam, the first king of the
northern Israel. There were certainly some Israelites individualities of the
other tribes who also attached themselves to the Jewish people in the course of
history but these are only tiny exceptions.
The prophecies of Jeremiah are
confirming that there will be a time of trouble that will soon strike Jacob, in
chapter 30 and verse 7:
" Alas! For that day is great, so that none is like it; and it is
the time of Jacob’s trouble, but he shall be saved out of it. "
Later, all the other nations will
follow and experience also a trouble unique throughout all history of mankind,
because our Father is behaving the same to anyone. Let's read Jesus' warning in
Matthew 24, verses 14 to 21:
" 14 And this
gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to
all the nations,
and then the end
will come.
15 “Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of
by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place” (whoever reads,
let him understand),
16 “then let those who are in
Judea flee to the mountains. 17 Let him who is on the housetop not
go down to take anything out of his house. 18 And let him who is in
the field not go back to get his clothes. 19 But woe to those who
are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! 20 And
pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath.
21 For then there
will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the
world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. "
Carefully note that this warning is
given by Jesus to every attentive reader of the Bible and this warning is for
the readers who will live at the end! The context also shows that it is
addressed to all nations.
Paul, in Romans 2, verses 1 to 10,
warns every man not to be troubled by this type of stressing period of time and
he gives good advice so that it does not surprise us:
" 1Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge,
for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge
practice the same things. 2 But we know that the judgment of Elohim
is according to truth against those who practice such things. 3 And
do you think this, O man, you who judge those practicing such things, and doing
the same, that you will escape the judgment of Elohim? 4 Or do you
despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing
that the goodness of Elohim leads you to repentance? 5 But in
accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up
for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment
of Elohim, 6 who “will render to each one according to his deeds”: 7
eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory,
honor, and immortality; 8 but to those who are self-seeking and do
not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—indignation and wrath,
9 Tribulation
and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of
the Greek; 10 but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what
is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. "
Don’t
let your heart harden and don’t despise
the huge goodness of our Father! Let us not be deceived by the false welfare
offered by the Devil and created for our loss.
Stress or anxiety are there to bring
down people who lets themselves be conquered by them as we are told in
Proverbs, chapter 12 and verse 25:
" Anxiety in the heart
of man causes depression, but a good word makes it glad. "
And the good words, you will find them
as much as you wish in the Bible and always at the right time!
Here is for
instance few words to keep forever:
"
27 Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and
great glory. 28 Now when these things begin to happen, look up and
lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near.” (Luke 21: 27-28)
Leave the feelings of concern and discouragement
to their owners!
We must train ourselves to live
according to the example of our Jesus, knowing that difficult trials will come.
But as Jesus, we must also see the promising future beyond the trials and above
all, we must know how to leave anxiety, worries and discouragement to their
owners, namely Satan and his devils:
“Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s”
Luke chapter 8, verses 26-31, shows very
well that, unlike the true followers of Jesus, the world of Satan is a world of anxiety because all
the devils are knowing very well that their power will come to an end very soon
but they do not know when ; this is the essential reason of the anxiety in
which they live themselves:
" 26 Then they
sailed to the country of the Gadarenes, which is opposite Galilee.
27 And when He stepped out on the land, there met Him a certain man
from the city who had demons for a long time. And he wore no clothes, nor did
he live in a house but in the tombs. 28 When he saw Jesus, he cried
out, fell down before Him, and with a loud voice said, “What have I to do with
You, Jesus, Son of the Most High Elohim? I beg You,
do not torment me!” 29 For He had commanded the unclean spirit
to come out of the man. For it had often seized him, and he was kept under
guard, bound with chains and shackles; and he broke the bonds and was driven by
the demon into the wilderness.
30 Jesus asked him, saying, “What is your name?” And he said,
“Legion,” because many demons had entered him. 31 And they begged
Him that He would not command them to go out into the abyss. "
The best way to fight anxiety that
causes discouragement is to follow Paul's advice in Philippians, chapter 4,
verse 8:
"
Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things
are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure,
whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report,
if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate
on these things. "