Monthly Archives: February 2023

Turning Point

Turning Point; David Jeremiah – Fighting Giant Despair

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The Lord God of your fathers has spoken to you; do not fear or be discouraged.
Deuteronomy 1:21

 Recommended Reading: 2 Peter 1:1-4

It’s natural to become discouraged, but it’s unhealthy to stay that way. Satan loves to utilize the giant of discouragement to cast down our faith and progress. John Bunyan called it Giant Despair in his timeless classic The Pilgrim’s Progress, and it imprisoned Christian until he found the Key of Promise in his clothing.

If Giant Despair has you in his dungeon today, remember you have the key to escape. It’s inside your Bible, found in one of the hundreds of promises God has given you. For example, you can claim Joshua 1:9, which says, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go” (NIV).

Discouragement is the temptation to evaluate your momentary circumstances apart from the overarching plan of God for your life. God is a God of encouragement. As soon as you become discouraged, cry out to Him in prayer and ask for His help. God wants to hear your prayers, even when discouraged. He will answer and bring encouragement to your heart.

Discouragement can be defeated only when the full truth of everything that is for us confronts and conquers the half-truth of fear and despair.
Jason Meyer

https://www.davidjeremiah.org

Greg Laurie

Harvest Ministries; Greg Laurie – God’s Recipe for Revival

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Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. 

—Psalm 139:23–24

Scripture:

In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln said, “We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. . . . But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.”

One person in the Oval Office, in Congress, or on the Supreme Court cannot get to the deepest part of America’s problems. That is because our deepest problems are spiritual. And the only hope for America is a spiritual awakening.

God gave us His recipe for revival when He said, “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14 NKJV).

There’s an interesting nuance regarding the word “pray.” Of the twelve Hebrew words employed to address this verb, the one in this verse means “to judge self habitually.”

God didn’t say, “If My people who are called by My name will love themselves . . .” We already do that. Rather, God was saying that we need to judge ourselves.

That means we are to come into God’s presence and say, “Lord, if there is anything in my life that is displeasing to You, show it to me.” Like the psalmist, we should pray, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23–24 NKJV).

We are to set aside our own aims, goals, ambitions, and desires in life, giving up our own wills. That is what it is to follow Jesus.

Harvest.org | Greg Laurie