How To Encourage Yourself In The Lord

The Bible says of King David, "David encouraged himself in the Lord" (1 Samuel 30:6). You get discouraged; encourage yourself in the Lord. How are you to encourage yourself in the Lord? Let me tell you how to encourage yourself in the Lord.

1.  Think of God's Goodness in the Past

If you're discouraged, just think of all that God has done for you. Count your many blessings. See how faithful God has been. Psychologists tell us that gratefulness is one of the healthiest emotions that you can possibly have. It's almost impossible to be grateful and discouraged at the same time. Count your many blessings. Remember God's goodness in the past.

2.  Think of God's Closeness in the Present

And then, remember God's closeness in the present. You're in the midst of a problem—remember the Lord. Is your problem greater than God? Our Lord says, "I will never leave you, nor forsake you" (Hebrews 13:5). And, I want you to know, friend, if you're discouraged right now, God has been good to you in the past, and He is with you, right now. Remember the Lord. 

3.  Think of God's Faithfulness in the Future

And then, think not only of His goodness in the past, and His closeness in the present, but think of His faithfulness in the future. He said, "I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake you" (Hebrews 13:5). And, He says, "You can do all things through Christ who will strengthen you" (Philippians 4:13). Encourage yourself in the Lord. Do you know what fear is? Let me tell you what fear is: Fear is forgetting God. That's all it is. It's just forgetting God. He says, "Don't be afraid. Remember the Lord" (Nehemiah 4:14).

Let me give you some verses. 2 Timothy 1:7: "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind" (2 Timothy 1:7). Psalm 27:1: "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" (Psalm 27:1).

Fatigue—renew your strength. Frustration—refocus your strategy. Fear—remember the Lord. I'm telling you, if you're afraid, it's because you've taken your eyes off of the Lord. Nehemiah said, "We serve a great God." 

Robert Louis Stevenson told a story—I read it many, many years ago—about some passengers who were on a ship. It looked like the ship may be going down. It was a tumultuous storm, and the passengers were below. And, they were whispering one to another, "Will we go down? Are we safe?" One of the passengers said, "I've just got to find out," and he made his way across those heaving decks, and up to the pilot house, where the pilot of that ship was there, with his hand on the wheel. And, he looked at him. The pilot knew he was afraid, and just turned and smiled at him. The man didn't say a word, but he just went back below, and he said, "We're going be all right." He said, "I've seen the face of the pilot, and he smiled at me." What you need to do is to see the face of God. You need to find the smile of God. And, I can tell you, friend, that He has sailed rougher seas than the one that you're in, right now.

Corrie ten Boom said this: "Look at the world—you'll be distressed. Look within—you'll be depressed. Look at Christ—you'll be at rest." Remember the Lord.

Advertising For God

Then this Daniel was preferred above the presidents and princes, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king thought to set him over the whole realm. (Daniel 6:3 KJV)

Businesses often use slogans as a means of advertising or creating a certain reputation with the public. I once came across a list of the following business slogans:

• Bakery: "It's nice to be kneaded."

• Car Dealership: "The best way to get back on your feet...miss a car payment."

• Computer Store: "Out for a quick byte."

• Operating Room Entrance: "May I Cut In?"

• Photographer's Studio: "Out to Lunch: If not back by five, out for Dinner also."

• Proctologist's Door: "To expedite your visit, please back in."

• Propane Filling Station: "Tank heaven for little grills."

• Sanitarium Door: "Nobody leaves here mad."

• Undertaker's Window: "Drive carefully. We can wait."

As Christians, how others view us and the kind of reputation we have is very important. There are some whose testimony is harmful. There are a lot of people who are going to hell because of people who are going to heaven. A non-Christian lawyer attended a church service and listened to the testimonies of some who were known to him for their shady deals and failure to meet their honest obligations. "How did you like the testimonies?" a man asked him at the close of the service. He replied, "To a lawyer there is a vast difference between testimony and evidence."

Unfortunately there are those who profess to be Christians, but there is little evidence they are Christians in the way they live.

On the other hand, there are some Christians whose testimony is helpful.

There was something about Daniel that attracted others. There was something contagious about Him. He caught the eye of others. He impressed others. He did not turn people away by how he lived, but the reverse. People were drawn to him.

As Christians, do we live in such a way that others are attracted to us? Do they look at us and see that there is something different about us? Does the way we live convince the lost that come in contact with us that our faith is real, and most of all, that Christianity is real? 

Are you a good advertisement for Christ? Are you creating a good reputation for Him? 

Going The Second Mile

And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. (Matthew 5:41 KJV)

Toward the end of the 19th century, an elderly man and his wife arrived by train in the city of Chicago. It was a stormy night and their train had been delayed so it was after midnight when they finally arrived at a downtown hotel they hoped would have a vacancy. The young clerk on duty that night was a man named George Boldt and he explained to the tired travelers that there were three different conventions in town and his hotel was full...but that he would be glad to call around and check with some other hotels. However, after several calls, it was clear that there were no empty rooms to be found. The young clerk said, “I can’t send a nice couple like you out into the rain on a night like this. Would you be willing to sleep in my room in the basement? It’s not large, but it’s clean and I don’t need it tonight because I’m on duty.” The couple gladly accepted his offer. The next morning the man tried to pay George personally, but the young clerk refused. Then the man said to George Boldt, “You’re the kind of man who ought to be the boss of the best hotel in America. Maybe one day I’ll build one for you.” The young clerk only smiled and said, “I was just glad to be of service.”

Several years later George Boldt received a letter from the elderly man including a train ticket inviting him to come to New York City. When George arrived in the “Big Apple,” the old gentleman took him to the corner of 5th Avenue and 54th Street in Manhattan and said, “This is the hotel I have built for you to manage.” George Boldt stared in awe and said, “Are you joking?” But—it was no joke. You see, the old man’s name was William Waldorf Astor. And that’s how George Boldt became the first manager of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. This is his portrait and it hangs in the lobby—a tribute to a clerk who showed enough integrity to go the second mile.

"If someone forces you to go one mile…" This expression came out of old Persia and refers to the authority given by the king to those sent to do his bidding. If a courier or soldier needed assistance in fulfilling the king’s mission, he could commandeer any man or horse or wagon with no questions asked. Later the armies of the Greeks and the Romans adopted the practice.

In Jesus’ day any Jew could be forced away from his own concerns to help a legionnaire who may or may not have really needed him. In much the same way Simon of Cyrene was "compelled," (forced) to bear the cross of Jesus (Matthew 27:32).

The Jews of Jesus’ day, of course, deeply resented this humiliating law and saw it as a symbol of foreign domination. You can imagine, then, their surprise when Jesus said, "go with him two miles."

The rewards and blessings don't come until the second mile because the first was required. It is only as we do more than is required that people will notice. 

The God Who Hung On A Cross

In her book The God Who Hung on the Cross, journalist Ellen Vaughn retells a gripping story. The story takes place in the 1970′s when the Khmer Rouge, that brutal, Communist-led regime, took over Cambodia, destroying everything in its path. When the soldiers finally descended on one particular rural, northern village, they immediately rounded up the villagers and forced them to start digging their own graves. After the villagers had finished digging, they prepared themselves to die. Some screamed to Buddha, others screamed to demon spirits or to their ancestors. But, one of the women started to cry out for help based on a childhood memory—a story her mother told her about a God Who had hung on a cross. The woman cried out to—prayed to—that unknown God on a cross. She thought, surely, if this God had known suffering, He would have compassion on their plight.

 

Suddenly, her solitary cry became one great wail as the entire village followed her example and  started praying to the God Who had suffered and hung on a cross. As they continued facing their own graves, the wailing slowly turned to a quiet crying. There was an eerie silence in the muggy jungle air. 

 

Slowly, they dared to turn around and face their captors and when they did they discovered that the soldiers were all gone.

 

Back in September of 1999 Pastor Tuy Seng (not his real name) traveled to Kampong Thom Province in northern Cambodia as a missionary. Throughout that isolated area, Seng discovered that most villagers had cast their lot with Buddhism or spiritism. Christianity was virtually unheard of and most people were not open to him sharing the Gospel message. But much to Seng’s surprise, when he arrived this one small, rural village the people warmly embraced both him and his message. When he asked the villagers to explain their openness to the Gospel, an old woman shuffled forward, bowed, and grasped Seng’s hands as she said, “We have been waiting for you for twenty years.”  And then she told him this story of the mysterious God Who had hung on the cross. Of course Pastor Seng was more than happy to do exactly that.

A Bride For The Son

The great concern of the Father is that Jesus Christ will have a bride.

Matthew 22:2, The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king that made a marriage for his son. Jesus said that's what it's all about. You want to know what the kingdom of heaven is like? It's like a king making marriage for his son. Now, you see, God the father desires his son to have a bride and God the son desires that bride. Do you remember there in John chapter 17 where the Lord Jesus prayed to the father and he said father, I pray for them whom thou hast given me that they may be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory. The great passionate heart of Jesus Christ longs for his bride. 

Now, Jesus Christ is incomplete without His Church. It is not by happen stance that we call our husbands, our wives, the other half or the better half. And the Bible teaches that a wife or a husband is to complete their mate.

 

Ephesians 1:22-23 (KJV) 22 And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, 23 Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.

 

The church is the fullness of Jesus. Now, do you see that? The word fullness 

is pluroma and means, "that which completes". You see, Jesus is not yet complete. There is a yearning, a longing in the heart of the Lord Jesus and He is praying father, "Give them to me that they may be with me."

 

If you want to know what God is up to in this day and this age, he's calling out a bride for his son and if you want to be a part of the greatest activity on earth you ought to pray that God will make you a soul winner. Every time you bring a soul to Jesus Christ the bride gets that much closer to being complete and ready to be presented to the son.

 

The great compassionate heart of God the father longs for a bride for his son and the great heart of the Lord Jesus says I am incomplete without my bride. And so, would we pray to God, that he'd make us a part of this wonderful romance of redemption? If you are not part of His bride yet, will you say, "I do" to Jesus?

Pray a prayer like this. "God, right now, with all of my heart, once and for all, now and forever, with as much as in me is, I trust you to save me.  You said believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. And I believe. Thank You for saving me." 

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. 

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth him, should not perish but have everlasting life. 

The father is seeking a bride for his son. Jesus is incomplete without you. Come to him because you are incomplete without him. 

A Picture Of The Believer Safe In Jesus

There's a well known story about a group of early pioneers who were making their way across the central United States to a distant place that had been opened up for homesteads. They traveled in covered wagons drawn by oxen, and progress was painfully slow. One day they were horrified to see a long line of smoke to the West, stretching for miles across the prairie, and soon it was apparent that the dried grass was burning fiercely and racing toward them. They had crossed a river the day before, but it would be impossible to go back all the way to the river before the flames would be upon him. One man seemed to have understanding as to what could be done. He gave the command to set fire to the grass behind them. Then when that area of grass was burned away, the whole company rolled back upon it. As the flames roared toward them from the West, a little girl cried out in terror," are you sure we shall not be all burned up?" The leader replied," my child, the flames cannot reach us here, for we are standing where the fire has been!”

 

What a picture of the believer who is safe in Christ and faith in him! We are standing where the fire has already been. When Jesus died on the cross, he bore the full brunt of the burning wrath of God against human sin. He became sin for us and paid the price for our full pardon from sin. He took the fire of God's judgment for us so that if we stand in him by faith, we have nothing to fear. The price for our sins has been paid, and we are saved in him, our refuge.

 

As an old poem says,

 

On Him Almighty vengeance fell,

That must have sunk the world to hell;

He bore it for a chosen race,

And thus became their hiding place.

The Great Escape

The story goes that during the 16th century, the Dutch people rose in revolt against the cruel King Philip II of Spain. Philip sent a great army under the Duke of Alva to suppress the rebellion. Rotterdam held out for a time but finally capitulated. From house to house the victors went, searching out citizens and then killing them in their houses. A group of men, women, and children were hiding in a corner house when they heard soldiers approaching. A thousand terrors griped their hearts. Then a young man had an idea. He took a goat in the house, killed it, and with a broom swept the blood under the doorway out to the street. The soldiers reached the house and began to batter down the door. Noticing the blood coming out from under the door, one soldier said: “Come away, the work is already done here. Look at the blood beneath the door.” And the people inside the house escaped.

How did the children of Israel escape the night that Lord smote the land of Egypt? The Lord saw the blood on the doorposts of their houses. How do we escape the wrath of God and an eternal hell? It is when the blood of the Lord Jesus has been applied to the doorposts of our heart.

As the songwriter said:

What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus;

What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

 

For my pardon this I see—Nothing but the blood of Jesus;

For my cleansing this my plea—Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

 

Nothing can for sin atone—Nothing but the blood of Jesus;

Naught of good that I have done—Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

 

This is all my hope and peace—Nothing but the blood of Jesus;

This is all my righteousness—Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

 

O! precious is the flow, that makes me white as snow;

No other fount I know, Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

The writer of Hebrews declared in Hebrews 9:11-12, “But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.”    

He offered not the blood of goats and calves, but instead offered His own blood. He entered not into the Holy Place time and time again on the Day of Atonement, but once! The one and only sacrifice of the Lord Jesus was enough to obtain eternal –I repeat – eternal redemption for each of us.

The Bible says in Hebrews 10:11-12, “And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God.” Every day the priests would offer sacrifices for sin. Each year the High Priest would enter into the Holy of Holies with the blood of the sacrifice and sprinkled the blood upon the mercy seat to make atonement for sin for one more year. Yet all those sacrifices only covered sins.     

The sacrifice of the Lord Jesus did more than cover sin. As John the Baptist said, His sacrifice took away sins. Furthermore, the Bible said that Jesus, once He offered Himself as a sacrifice for sins, sat down at the right hand of God. The implication being, that the work was done. The High Priest under the Jewish system never sat down in the Holy of Holies. He entered with the blood and left as soon as His work was done. The same process was repeated year after year on the Day of Atonement. But in the case of the Lord Jesus, He sat down indicating that the work was done and the last sacrifice had been offered.

What does this say to each of us? It tells us that the work of salvation is finished. It tells us that salvation is not in what we do, but in what the Lord Jesus has done. Salvation is not by our works, but by His work! It is not in how good we live, but by His death. It is not a matter of “do” but “done.”