Chapter 1, Don't Panic — Believe
Spiritual First Aid
What is the first thing you should do in a crisis situation?
One day as I was reading John 14, 15, and 16, the Lord began to give me the answer to this question. In John 16:1, Jesus says,
"These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended."
According to Mark 4:17, when a person is offended, Satan takes the Word of God from them.
In other words, when you are offended, the Word of God stops releasing its life-giving power in your life. When you take offense, when you get hurt, the Word stops operating. The Lord said,
"These things [John 14, 15, and 16] have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended."
Jesus said this to His disciples the night before His crucifixion.
In John 13:32-33, Jesus said He knew all things that were going to come upon Him. He knew all things that were going to come upon His disciples too. He was totally aware of the situation. He came to His disciples to give them some last-minute instructions before the most trying time they'd ever experienced in their lives.
It surpasses anything that you or I ever have or ever will encounter.
These disciples were literally the people Jesus was going to use to establish His church and overthrow Satan's kingdom. Therefore, I believe Satan threw every bit of discouragement, doubt, confusion, and torment he had against them. It was a crisis time. They had forsaken families, careers — everything — for Jesus. And they were in a situation that was going to test their faith, that Jesus was the Messiah even.
Jesus said,
"I'm speaking these things to you that you should not be offended."
In other words, if the disciples had taken heed to what Jesus had told them here, they would not have been offended.
They could have rejoiced during that very trying time.
So John 14, 15, and 16, in capsule form, is everything you need to know in a crisis when your faith is being tested. If this doesn't apply to you at this moment, hang on — it will.
Every one of us needs to know this. We need to be schooled in these precautions before the crisis hits. When a crisis hits, your very first reaction — the first thing you do when Satan attacks — usually determines the outcome.
The Fires of Adversity
Not long ago, I was reading a book called
Terror at Tenerife.
It reminded me of what we're talking about here. This man, Norman Williams, was in the accident on the Canary Islands in which two huge 747s crashed on the runway and burned. Only a few people out of 500 or more escaped. The rest were killed.
It was miraculous how Williams got out. He looked at the people on either side of him, and it was so hot, the flesh just melted off of them. They became skeletons instantly. He said that people who were normally nice — little old ladies sixty or seventy years old — yelled things so vile it was unbelievable. He couldn't describe it. The things that were hidden deep in their hearts came out in a crisis situation and bothered him more than anything else.
But
what came out of his mouth was different — he'd been seeking the Lord. He had agreed with his mother before he left on the trip that he'd be safe. The first thing to come out of his mouth was his faith that God would protect him.
He had a huge fireball come right at him, but he wasn't burned. Then a landing gear came flying at him. He just caught the thing and threw it off. There was an explosion right above his head, and the plane, ten feet high at that point, was torn open. He jumped up right through that hole, even though he was fifty years old and overweight.
God supernaturally delivered him.
Norman Williams didn't have time to sit back and ask,
"Now let's see, what should I do in this situation?"
First Things Last
Your first reaction is going to determine the outcome in a crisis situation. Seldom do we have the luxury of sitting back and looking at things.
The attitude you have when Satan comes against you is going to determine the final result. If you can get a hold of this truth, it will revolutionize your life. I've been teaching this everywhere I go, and I've seen more results out of it than anything I've ever taught. It's based on simple truths from the Word, but if you get established in them, they'll keep you from being offended, and the Word of God will produce in your life.
In John 14:1, Jesus says,
"Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me."
Now this is so simple that you could miss it.
It's very profound, however.
*** The first thing you have to do when Satan comes against you is to make the decision that you are not going to let your heart be troubled.
If you were to diagram this sentence, the understood subject is "you."
You let not your heart be troubled. God gave you the choice. God gave you power over your heart.
Again, this is so simple many often miss it. The vast majority of people I deal with who are attacked by Satan don't really understand this.
A lot of them believe that in a given situation, there is no way that they can help but to be depressed and discouraged. They justify emotions that are contrary to God's Word. But this is a command as much as any other command in the Word — as much as
"thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, and thou shalt not kill."
It is a direct command from the Lord!
So the very first thing you have to do is say,
"I am not going to let my heart be troubled."
Depression — Getting Christians Down
As I travel, the biggest problem I encounter in the body of Christ is
discouragement and depression. At least three-fourths of the people I deal with constantly battle these emotions.
There is no excuse for it — there are reasons, but no excuses.
We've gotten to the point that we think these kinds of emotions are normal.
A lot of people try to resist and walk in victory, for a brief period of time.
They have bounds, or limits, to how far they'll go in believing God.
When certain things happen, such as someone dying, they say,
"Well, how could you expect anybody not to be discouraged or not to grieve?"
Well, I guarantee you that the Lord Jesus Christ has borne our sorrows and carried our griefs! That's not to say that you don't miss a person, but there is no justification for getting into grieving which becomes destructive.
Who's in Control Here?
We have an authority as believers that most Christians have missed.
Satan doesn't have any control over your heart and circumstances — he cannot control you unless you let him.
In Deuteronomy 30:19, God speaks through Moses,
"I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live."
If you were to diagram this sentence, "you" is again the implied subject: therefore,
you choose life.
God gave you the choice over your heart. This is powerful, but again, people have missed it and have allowed themselves to justify feelings and emotions that are contrary to God's Word.
For example, we say,
"Sure, I'm supposed to love my brother and sister, and I'm supposed to walk in love." We try to do that at church and sometimes in the world. But everybody has one person who really gets under their skin. So we justify feelings that are contrary to what God commanded us to do. We say,
"Well, God can't expect me to love that person."
A Marriage of Convenience?
In my marriage counseling, people invariably say to me,
"But look what this person did,"
and then they begin to tell me all the terrible things their mate has done. The purpose of this is to justify their feelings. They say,
"I know I'm not supposed to be depressed and discouraged. I know I'm not supposed to be angry, but look what they did."
What they're really saying is,
"Well, this justifies my feelings, this justifies my depression, this justifies my actions."
But there is nothing that justifies our being less than what God called us to be.
It doesn't matter what comes your way — death, physical problems, financial problems, relationship problems — whatever the devil is fighting you with.
God has given you the ability to overcome it. But you have to choose.
If you identify with discouragement, doubt, and depression, you set a precedent that will enslave you the rest of your life.
A Lot of Knowledge Can Be a Dangerous Thing
You can take all I'm ministering in John 14, 15, and 16, you can learn about faith, you can learn about confession, you can learn everything the Bible says.
Yet, in your heart, if you've taken offense, if you've been hurt, if you submit to feelings of depression or discouragement, you'll wipe out everything good. Nothing is going to work.
That's why some people can take all the steps people outline for them, memorize them and carry them out, but if their hearts are discouraged to begin with, it won't work. They never were standing in faith.
Again, the first thing you have to do is grab a hold of your emotions and say,
"In the name of the Lord, this thing is not going to get me."
You have the ability to do that. The Bible says that He set before you a choice. He even tells you which choice to make. So, obviously, we have the ability to choose.
It's a lie to believe that you cannot control your emotions.
Our generation has been saying that you can't pen up feelings and emotions, you need to vent these things and let them out. This psychology has had a greater impact on the church than most of us realize.
I agree that you aren't supposed to bury things and let them fester.
But
you are supposed to get delivered of them, reject them, and resist them.
Giving vent to emotions that are contrary to what God tells you is not a positive thing.
It's a negative thing that allows Satan to have freedom in your life.
As a Man Thinks...
Proverbs 23:7 says that
as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.
Are you depressed?
- You've been thinking about things that depress you.
Are you sick?
- You've thought about things that make you sick.
Are you discouraged?
- You've been thinking about things that are discouraging.
You may not have said,
"Well, I want to be sick." But your thinking is sick, and that's the reason you are sick.
You may not have said
"I want to be poor,"
but your thinking is poor, and that's the reason you're poor.
You may not have said
"I want to be depressed," but you're thinking on depressing things, and that's the reason you're depressed.
We are 100 percent what we have chosen to be.
It is vital that we understand this. You cannot say that a person is 100 percent a product of their environment because I can show you people whose parents were alcoholics or drug addicts or child abusers, and they chose to go the other direction and live victorious lives.
As a matter of fact, some of them say,
"Whatever happens, I'll never be what I've seen." And they do it.
*** Therefore, our experiences are a results of our choices, not our environments.
Environment is a factor, but our choice is the deciding factor.
Unbelief, fear, and panic are choices. Wrong choices.
There may be many reasons we have been taught to respond that way, but ultimately, the decision is ours.
A Fork in the Road — Choose One
You can react two ways when a crisis hits you.
You can choose to be encouraged or discouraged.
You do not have to be defeated in a crisis.
You do not have to live in fear.
You do not have to be depressed.
Even many churches preach that you have mountain tops and valleys in your relationship with the Lord — up and down, up and down.
But you don't have to be that way.
If you're not having a great time with the Lord, if your relationship isn't a constant upward trend, it's not because God makes it that way, it's because you've followed wrong thinking.
You have believed a lie, and you allowed your emotions to go up and down.
You're following your emotions instead of following your faith.
So the first thing you have to do in a crisis situation is grab a hold of your emotions, grab a hold of your heart, and set it in the direction you want it to go.
Don't allow circumstances to dictate how you feel and how you're going to react. That's pivotal. It's important that the moment something comes against you, you make a decision right then.
Thou Hypocrite!
That decision does not have to be based on how you feel.
You may feel hypocritical in saying,
"I'm going to praise God even though I feel depressed."
You may think,
"Well, I'd be a hypocrite if I went ahead and acted like everything's okay."
You're actually a hypocrite when you go on your feelings because the true you, your spirit (the born-again part of you), is rejoicing with joy unspeakable and full of glory all the time (1 Pet. 1:8). There is always love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance in your spirit (Gal. 5:22-23). AMEN!!
So the decision depends on which self you consider to be the real you.
If you consider the emotional part of you to be the real you, you're a hypocrite for acting differently.
But if you see yourself in Christ Jesus, recognize that you are a new creature, and look at yourself through the word of God, the true you, the real spirit, will come out.
Your spirit never gets depressed, it never gets discouraged, it never gets fearful.
If you feel anything contrary to that, you're a hypocrite — from God's standpoint — if you go by those feelings.
For example, somebody says something that hurts your feelings. What are you going to do?
You've got a choice. You can either get down and gripe and complain about it, or you can just grow up and forgive the person.
Train Up a Child...
That's what we're really dealing with here — growing up.
The same principles used for child training apply here.
Most of us never grew out of doing whatever we felt like as children.
But it doesn't have to be that way.
Take children, for example. We give them certain responsibilities and they do them.
We don't care whether they feel like doing them or not.
There are some things you just have to do. You just have responsibilities. I taugh my kids that.
We've adopted that attitude as far as work goes — we have to get up and go to work. There are other things we have to do — pay taxes, obey the law, pay our bills, etc.
But in our relationship with the Lord, we've gone back to being like children in a many ways.
You don't feel happy?
Well, grow up! Who cares how you feel?
Stop caring how you feel — you are blessed (Eph. 1:3). You've got the joy of the Lord inside of you. You can choose to be happy if you want to be happy. You can choose to be blessed.
You can choose to be excited about the Lord if you want to be.
Some people may be thinking,
"Now, wait a minute. You don't know my situation. I agree with what you're saying, but sometimes you just can't overcome."
Well again, you're putting your experience, your natural feelings, above what God's Word says.
God gave us a command to not let our hearts be discouraged, to not let them be troubled.
You can do that.
God would be unjust to command us to do something that we don't have the power to do.
In Deuteronomy 28:45-47, the Lord said He was bringing judgment on the children of Israel
"because thou serve not the LORD thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things."
He held them accountable for their emotions!
In John 16:33, Jesus said,
"In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." In this one verse Jesus made it clear that His command to be of good cheer was not just for the good times. But even in tribulation, be of good cheer!!
You can and must control your emotions!
Can God Handle C-C-C-Cancer?
You've got to recognize that God has given you power over any situation.
A lot of people can walk in faith if they have a cold or a cough, but if it's cancer, that's different. But there is no difference in the sight of God. If they tell you that you are going to die of cancer, you can make a choice not to let your heart be troubled.
I could give testimony after testimony after testimony of people who have done this.
Any situation that you find yourself in, I guarantee I can find somebody who has faced the same situation and has come through it with flying colors. If you don't know somebody, you can go to God's Word and can find people in a situation that was equal to or worse than yours, and yet they came through.
If you're depressed, if you're discouraged, no matter what's happening to you — and I make that statement without any reservations — it's because you've chosen to submit to those feelings. You've made the wrong choices.
No Condemnation
Now some people will think,
"Well, that condemns me." But it shouldn't.
It should convict you and encourage you at the same time because if you're the one who made the wrong choices, you can change everything by making the right choices.
This doesn't condemn me. It blesses me because if some things are just too big for God, I'm in bad shape. All I can do is learn to roll with the punches, have people show pity for me, and feel sorry for myself.
But if God has an answer, and if the only reason I'm experiencing the difficulty is because I made wrong choices, that blesses me — because I can change me.
I can't change God, but I can change me.
When you ask some people how they are, they immediately begin to tell you every bad thing that has happened to them —
"I don't feel so good and the kids are sick and my rent's late" and so on.
What they are doing is justifying their feelings. They actually get some kind of glory out of telling you how bad they feel.
A person like that is never going to break out until they make a choice that they're going to change and be different.
Let the Weak Say...
Instead of being a weakling, you can choose to be strong in the Lord.
Joel 3:10 says,
"Let the weak say, I am strong."
You can choose victory. You can identify with victory.
Isaiah 54:17 says,
"No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD."
If that's the truth, then how can we justify being defeated, or justify the fear we feel?
We cannot justify it.
The answer is to recognize that we've made a wrong choice.
The answer is to repent and to begin saying that it's not the problem, it's not these people, it's not that circumstance, which is causing all of my problems. That's the "Adam syndrome," where Adam said it's that woman that God gave him. He pushed the blame off on Eve, then tried to put it on God
- (Gen. 3:12).
Some people do the same thing. "Well, it's the flu season," they say. "The bug's going around."
In other words, it's that bug's fault instead of your fault for making a wrong choice.
Or, to put it another way, it's God — "God, why have you allowed such a thing?"
God did not allow the problems in your life.
The bug is not your problem. Other people are not your problem.
Your mate isn't your problem. The people at work aren't your problem. The economy is not your problem. You are your problem.
I was teaching on this one Sunday in church.
When I said
"There is no justification for your depression," a woman sitting behind one of the pastors said
"Unless you have a chemical imbalance."
Some people try to push it off on chemical imbalances in the body.
That's not your problem either.
If you have a chemical imbalance, then get healed!
There is no justification for being less than what God told us to be.
It is my opinion that even those who really do have a chemical imbalance have thrown that balance off through wrong thinking.
Again, there is no condemnation in this. God loves you. You can go to be with the Lord depressed, defeated, and discouraged if you want to. God still loves you. He is not condemning you — and neither am I.
I'm saying that if you want victory, it's available. But it starts with you making a choice.
It starts with you recognizing that no weapon formed against you can prosper, unless you choose to let it prosper (Is. 54:17).
God gave you the choice over life and death.
If you are experiencing death instead of life, it's because you made a wrong choice.
God will not make the choice for you.
Satan cannot make the choice for you.
If you aren't healthy, happy, and prospering, it's because you've made wrong choices.
Problems or Choices — Take Your Pick
Like any ministry, we've had financial problems from time to time. But I live by the same thing I'm teaching you. I don't think I brought these problems on specifically by what I did, but as I grow older in the Lord and get wiser, I'm sure I'll make better decisions that will avoid many of these problems.
However, I've made some critical choices, and one thing I've chosen is not to let my heart be troubled. People on my staff have come to me saying,
"You must not have gotten the full picture — you don't understand how bad this is," because it hasn't bothered me.
But I understand exactly how bad it is.
If you begin to walk in these principles and choose not to let your heart be troubled, I guarantee you it's going to upset people. People will think you're a "brick short of a full load." Your elevator doesn't go all the way to the top. You're one doughnut short of a dozen.
They'll think something is wrong with you because you aren't acting normal.
But praise God, we aren't supposed to be normal!
God made us to be a supernatural people.
Seek the Lord — or Get Ready!
When a crisis hits, you need to be prepared.
You need to have your heart ready. I've been meditating on a scripture lately in
2 Chronicles 12.
This is the story of King Rehoboam, Solomon's son. He started out good. He started seeking God, but he turned out bad and actually got into idolatry. It says, "
And he did evil, because he prepared not his heart to seek the LORD" (verse 14).
Rehoboam didn't want to do evil. He started out doing the right thing, but
he gravitated toward evil because he didn't prepare his heart to seek the Lord. He didn't commit himself. He had a desire to do it, but his heart was on other things. It wasn't singled upon the Lord God.
When you come into a crisis situation, if you haven't chosen to seek the Lord, if you haven't already made some decisions, your heart is going to gravitate toward fear. It's going to gravitate toward depression, toward negativism, toward defeat. You've got to commit yourself. You've got to fix your heart so that no matter what the devil does, you're going to walk in victory. You're going to keep your eyes on the Lord.
Your attitude should be,
"Satan, you can't do enough to keep me from thinking on the Lord!"
If you haven't made that commitment, you're a problem waiting to happen — and it's going to come.
The Great Melting Pot — Vietnam
When I went through the service, I only heard one good thing from a chaplain the whole time I was there. Most of the chaplains I had weren't born again.
The day we got our orders to go to Vietnam, grown men began to cry. It was a tragic situation.
This chaplain came in to console everybody. He said that the Army and its experiences, including Vietnam, was a fire. It will melt you. But you'll fit into whatever mold you've picked for yourself. That was a true statement. Amen!
Because I had already set my heart on the Lord, I was determined that I was going to go all the way for God.
All the pressures, all the horror I went through, drove me that much more to the Lord.
When I came out of Vietnam, I was stronger than horseradish! I was walking with the Lord, the joy of the Lord was in my heart, and I was a thousand miles further in my Christian walk.
A lot of other soldiers didn't have that experience. There were many who weren't necessarily evil. They probably had never done anything bad to speak of back in the States.
But put under that kind of pressure, with no restraints upon them, with everybody else doing it, these good, moral people, these churchgoers, these upstanding citizens, went the other route.
One after another, I saw them go in to prostitutes, get drunk, take dope, and do every other terrible thing. It was because their hearts weren't already fixed. They hadn't prepared them.
Swaying Like the Psalms
In
Psalm 42, the writer is talking about all his problems. He says that as the deer pants after the water brook, so his soul pants after God (verse 1). He says that he desires only God, and the reason he desires God is that things aren't going well for him. In verse 5, he says,
"Why art thou cast down, O my soul?
and why art thou disquieted in me?
Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance."
In other words, right in the middle of his complaint, he says,
"Why am I discouraged, why is my soul cast down? I can hope in God. I've got a covenant with God. He's on my side. Why should I be discouraged?"
Then he goes back to complaining and ends the chapter with
"Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me?
Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God."
In chapter 43, he complains again. Finally, in verse 5, he says,
"Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me?
Hope in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God."
Here is the writer of these psalms talking about all the frustrations that are coming his way, but he had to constantly remind himself,
"Why am I discouraged?"
You need to ask yourself that same question.
Why are we discouraged like people who don't have a God?
How could we ever go back to the level of discouragement and despair we had before we were born again, after God has done so many great things for us?
We need to recognize that it's not God who doesn't have power.
It's not God who is not faithful. We are the problem.
We've missed it in the very first thing Jesus commanded His disciples to do — we've let our heart be troubled, and we feel justified in doing it. Then we wonder why we aren't prospering, why we're sick, why we're depressed.
We haven't even chosen life. We've chosen death.
David Humbles Himself
In
1 Samuel 30, David had been anointed to be king thirteen years before the text was written.
For thirteen years, David had prospered. God had used him to kill Goliath. The entire land of Israel was seeking after him — they were crying that David had killed tens of thousands, while Saul had killed only thousands.
David had the support of the entire nation.
He had been anointed by God and called to be king.
Saul had lost the anointing of God. He was tormented by an evil spirit. Saul was doing everything wrong, costing the children of Israel much bondage and hardship because of his disobedience.
During this period, David had been anointed to be king, but instead of doing anything to further his cause, David humbled himself. God supernaturally delivered Saul into his hands. Saul went into a cave where David and his men were hiding, to take a nap during the heat of the day. David's men told him,
"God has delivered him into your hands — kill him!"
But David wouldn't do it. Rather, he submitted himself to Saul, caused himself a lot of hardship, was driven out of his country, and had to live among his enemies. Once, in a foreign land, his enemy said,
"This is the one they say is king over the land."
So to protect himself, David had to act like a crazy man, letting spit run off his beard and scratching on the walls like an animal.
The king said,
"This man is crazy. How can he do me any damage?"
Can you imagine how David felt?
He was probably tempted to say to himself,
"So you're the great man of faith, the one who has the anointing of God. You're the one God has called to be king, and you're having to act crazy just to save your life!"
David Was "Pitiless"
David had been through discouragement after discouragement while running from Saul. He had 600 men who had come with him — all criminals, convicts and murderers who had to flee Israel to save their lives. He had the scum of the earth as his army.
Satan could have discouraged David in a big way.
Once, in the midst of it all, David and his men came back to his town of Ziklag to find that the Amalekites had invaded his city, taken away the women and the children, burned the houses, and carted off everything valuable as spoil.
Think of it. For thirteen years, David had been faithful to God. He hadn't done anything wrong, and yet adversity struck at him over and over again.
When we've done something wrong, most of us think we deserve our problems. We brought it on ourselves. But when we've done well and the devil hits us broadside, most of us feel justified in griping, complaining, and having a "pity party."
But that's just the opposite of what David did.
He could have felt justified in being depressed.
In
1 Samuel 30:3-6, it says
"So David and his men came to the city, and, behold, it was burned with fire; and their wives, and their sons, and their daughters, were taken captives. Then David and the people that were with him lifted up their voice and wept, until they had no more power to weep. And David's two wives were taken captives... And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters."
On top of losing his wives, children, and home, David was getting ready to be stoned — by the very people he had been responsible for, the people he had fed for five years, those he had faithfully taken care of. They were going to stone him for something that wasn't his fault!
Most of us would have said,
"That's the last straw. I quit. I'm going to have a pity party."
We would have felt justified in doing that.
But look at the rest of verse 6,
"But David encouraged himself in the Lord his God."
If David chose to encourage himself in a situation like that, we can choose to encourage ourselves no matter what comes against us.
David chose to do it. And notice, it says he encouraged himself.
He didn't just say,
"Lord, I'm asking you to send somebody to encourage me."
You need to recognize that
God has given you authority over your own heart. You can choose life or death. You can choose to be encouraged or discouraged. You're the one who makes the choice. David chose to encourage himself.
The first step — and nothing else can happen until this —
is to choose life.
Nothing else will work until you do this. Nothing else will work until you say with the psalmist,
"Why am I discouraged?
Why am I cast down? God is on my side. I choose God. I choose life. I'm going to come through this thing somehow or other."
Until you make that choice, no other choices can be made.
Three Men Make a Burning Choice
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego made the choice. In
Daniel 3, Nebuchadnezzar said in effect,
"Okay, I'll give you one last chance — bow or burn."
They said,
"O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter" (verse 16). In other words,
"You haven't intimidated us one bit. We don't care. Our God is able to deliver us, and He will deliver us, but if even He doesn't deliver us, we aren't going to serve your God." Their hearts weren't troubled.
In Daniel 6, Daniel was thrown into the lion's den. There is no account of him screaming or yelling as he was thrown in, clawing to get out.
His heart wasn't troubled. It was already fixed.
People who say
"Well, I know I'm supposed to walk in love, but look at what they did" will always be in a mess because Satan is constantly going to send people across their paths to do something wrong.
If you say certain circumstances justify walking out of love, being discouraged, being depressed, then you're going to be unloving, depressed, and discouraged the rest of your life, because Satan will always have someone or something to send your way.
Hanging on the cross, Jesus turned to the very people crucifying Him and said,
"Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). Stephen, in
Acts 7:60, did the same thing. He said
"Lord, lay not this sin to their charge" when they were stoning him to death.
If they can do that, we can do that. The Lord has given us that ability.
You can choose to love the very people who hate you. It doesn't matter what has been done to you.
It doesn't matter how you were brought up. It doesn't matter how you've been abused.
There is no justification for being discouraged and depressed.
There are reasons for it, but no justification.
That's good news.
That puts the responsibility on you.
It may not feel good, but if you'll think about it a little bit, it will feel better. It will grow on you. After all, you can do something about yourself.
