Get A Grip! Keep Believing!

I don’t know about you, but my life is NOT perfect. I have problems, trials, and testing’s daily. It’s only by God’s grace and mercy that I have the strength to overcome life’s adversities. I have moments where my faith and hope is so big that I immediately remember who I am in Christ and I stand on the Truth of God’s Word. Its during these times that I can instantly resist fear, doubt, anxiety and all the other spiritual forces and emotions that will attack my mind. However there are those other times (which are not often, but they do happen) when I feel tired and worn out. I start looking at my circumstances and over evaluating them, instead of remembering what the Lord has already spoken to me about the situation. That is when I begin to feel despair, anger, bitterness, depression, doubt, and sadly even hatred. God forgive me. I’m sharing this with you because I KNOW that I am NOT the only who has gone through this or is going through this now.

Sometimes we have been praying and hoping for years for a breakthrough in a situation or in the life of a loved one. Since we haven’t seen the full manifestation we may begin to feel a little faithless or hopeless. We may even find that we are allowing our hearts to be hardened over the situation which will only lead to unbelief and it will begin to push us away from God.

IT’S TIME TO GET A GRIP!!

We are NEVER EVER going to experience God’s peace and rest over our situations and in our lives if we stay in unbelief. It’s time to take a step back and reflect on all of the breakthroughs that we have already had. It’s time to remember His promises and BELIEVE AGAIN! The enemy wants us to think that our Lord has forgotten us and that His Word will not be fulfilled in our lives and in the lives of those we love. He wants us to give up, to stop believing, stop praying, and stop seeking out God’s Word.

Recently when I was on some straight ‘woe is me’ crap I cried out to God and said please help me. I don’t like to sit very long in that overwhelming feeling of hopelessness because I KNOW IT’S A TRAP! It’s a trap to pull me away from the truth of God’s Word. If we allow ourselves to be overwhelmed with feelings of hopelessness we will find ourselves depressed thinking God won’t come through on His promises and that things will never change. But the truth is if He said it then it is already done, we just need to believe it NO MATTER WHAT!

So that day I sat on my front porch and allowed His Word to minister to my broken heart and spirit. I felt led to sit in Hebrews chapter 3. Verses 3:12-14 spoke to me.

“Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God. 13 You must warn each other every day, while it is still “today,” so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God. 14 For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ. “Hebrews 3:12-14

I felt like our Lord was saying to me, “Lisa, beware of hardening your heart. Keep believing. Trust me. Remember all that I have already done in your life and in the lives of your family. Don’t be like the children of Israel that hardened their hearts against Me, even after all the miracles they saw Me do.”

The children of Israel saw God manifested in their lives through many miracles. They saw Him part the sea. They ate bread that He rained down from heaven to feed them in the wilderness. He gave them water from a rock when there wasn’t water to be found anywhere else. He led them through the wilderness with a cloud of fire by night and cloud by day. They saw awesome miracles and they still hardened their hearts, tested and tried God’s patience. They refused to do what He told them. They complained and refused to believe in Him. The result was that the unbelieving generation died in the wilderness. They died in their own wilderness of unbelief, doubt, bitterness, and complaining. They never entered His rest. (Hebrews 3:7-19)

Twice in chapter 3 of Hebrews and once in chapter 4 it says,

“Today when you hear His voice, don’t harden your hearts...” (Heb. 3:7, 15; 4:7)

Life isn’t going to be peaches and cream all the time. We are going to have hard times. We are going to feel weak and tired some times, but we CAN NOT GIVE UP! We need to choose to believe that our Lord IS working things out in our lives according to His purpose. Let’s remember that He IS FAITHFUL to fulfill His Word. Let’s choose to walk by faith and not by sight or EMOTIONS. For it’s ONLY if we start BELIEVING again that we will begin to have peace over our situation and find rest from our turmoil. (Hebrews 4:3)

I will leave you with this last scripture the Lord showed me when He was encouraging and correcting me about that situation I was going through. It’s Hebrews 10:35-36,

“So do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you! 36 Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that he has promised.” – NLT