Outlasting Discouragement

lives. But when it comes down to this one thing,. And you call out to the Lord and you are experiencing victory and answered prayer in all these other areas of your life, but in this

one area you are discouraged and you stay that way. And you are defeated and you are doubting and you are troubled. And there are certain days where you can’t focus on all the things that are going right. You have to address this one issue and you haven’t prospered or grown a bit in this area. Why? Because the enemy is continually speaking to you in deception about who you are and who God is in the context of that one area in

your life.

. Your enemy still has more to say to you about why you

should be defeated in the area you have been defeated in. He is never going to run out of ammo. Here is my concern. Are you really starting to believe what he says? Do you really believe that the character of your God is so woefully inadequate that there can’t be triumph in that area? Have you just decided to take the new high road which you say,

“Well, that is just part of who I am. It is just a weakness in our life and weakness in my family’s life. It is just a place that we are never going to have victory in. But, praise God, it is my thorn in the flesh. It is my sin in my life and God’s grace is sufficient.”

Well, I would have to say that if you think that way and use that kind of legitimization of that, then you are mishandling the Scripture. The enemy will speak deceit to you becausehe likes you bound. He likes you in error. He likes you hobbled. He likes you wronged. He goes further. Verse 17.

Occasionally there are the direct assaults against your faith. Listen to the openness of these words. “And he wrote letters to cast contempt on the LORD, the God of Israel and to speak against him, saying, ‘Like the gods of the nations of the lands who have not delivered their people from my hands, so the God of Hezekiah will not deliver his people from my

hand.’”

Sennacherib said something that can cause Hezekiah and the others to doubt in ways that we do. Notice what Sennacherib didn’t say in that

one verse. He did not say God is not able to deliver you. He said God won’t do it. He said he will not.

I admit I have lingered in that shadow before where we feign

glorious praise to the God who can and then we rob him of that praise by saying, “You are not the God who will. You are the God who could, but you are not the God who does.” And there is a siege on the castle of our heart, cutting off all inflow of nourishment and hope and health.

We probably need to do this in these days. We probably need to go ahead and hunker down and really find out what we believe about the character of God. You will never live above your concept of God. Never. You can’t. It is the concept that—speaking to believers—your concept of God is the ceiling under which you

I want to tell you something. The devil accuses the goodness and the will of your God to you. You have to wrestle this out. You have to ask yourself who is he. Who is God? Am I believing In the God of the Bible or have I fashioned my own idol and called it my God?