How to Stay Encouraged
When you know God’s Word, it is easy to stay encouraged.
Encouraging Revelation
Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the Apostle Paul wrote two-thirds of the New Testament. Without Paul’s letters, we would not have:
- The revelation of our salvation
- God’s righteousness revealed
- The gospel of grace
- Knowledge of what happened from the cross to the throne
- The wealth of our spiritual blessings
- Our in-Christ realities
- Disclosure of spiritual warfare in three arenas
- How to live by faith
- The purpose and power of the Church, and
- numerous exhortations to help us press on and stay encouraged.
Paul’s revelation from the Lord Jesus came at a high personal cost. He suffered rejection, betrayal, shipwreck, cruel beatings, stoning and left for dead, and unjust imprisonment. But he knew how to stay encouraged and strengthened in the Lord despite all this. Paul wrote:
We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed ~ 2 Cor 4:8-9 (NKJV)
Stay Encouraged in Spite of Opposition
Yes, Christians may be hard-pressed (hedged in) on every side, yet we are not crushed. We are never pressed, squeezed or pounded to the point of destruction.
Sometimes we may be perplexed (mentally at a loss), but we are never in despair or without hope. Yes, we always have hope, because Christ is our eternal hope!
We may be persecuted (pursued by evil-hearted people and evil forces), but God never forsakes us. For GOODNESS and MERCY shall follow (run after, chase, and pursue) us all the days of our life. (Ps 23:6) And the Lord Himself will never leave us or forsake us. (Heb. 13:5)
Occasionally we may get knocked about, battered and bruised, even knocked down, but we are never knocked out.
We may fall down, but we have the power to get back up. Through God’s Spirit, His Word, and the love, support and encouragement of God’s people, we can rise up stronger than ever.
And, though we may lose an occasional battle, we are never defeated, because Christ has already won the war!
Three spiritual facts to help you stay encouraged
- Christ is our victory. He paid the price in full for us to be victorious. The Lamb of God redeemed us by His blood and set us free from sin. He overcame the world for us. Jesus defeated the devil. He conquered everything that conquered us.
- We are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus. We are super victors, that is, triumphantly victorious, overwhelmingly victorious in and through every circumstance. “Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” (Rom 8:37)
- Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Because we are in Him and He is in us, nothing—no person, devil, angel, other created thing, or circumstance—can separate us from God’s love.
For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. ~ Rom 8:38-39
Friends, stay encouraged in the Lord!
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