This is a DON’T STOP NOW moment. As you read these words you may feel cued up to give up. I get it. I’ve been there plenty and its an unpleasant place to stay.

So choose not to stay there.

Let’s not camp around the idea that something won’t work. Don’t pitch your tent around the fire of discouragement and despondency. Self pity won’t warm your fingers to write, play, or paint again.

These simple words are powerful:

“The LORD is on my side” (Psalm 118:6 KJV)

You are not alone, even if sometimes it feels that way. Your Father is here with you, fighting your battles and championing your cause.

Judges 3:1 speaks of how God deliberately left resistance in the land to test, prove, and train the people who had not yet experienced war.

Each generation, indeed every individual, have their battles to fight.

God did not allow enemies to stand in the way of His promise to slay His people, He left them there to shape them.

You are equipped by God Himself to tackle whatever stands in your path.

He has chosen you for this time, because you have all that’s required to stand on the victory’s podium.

The wonderful thing is victory is different for each of us. Our commission and assignment as given by Papa is unique to our own personality and call.

Stay The Course & Kick Discouragement To The Curb

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Today, what I want to talk about really is just the whole area of discouragement. I know it’s something that is very. I know that it’s something that hinders a lot of people, it’s something that afflicts a lot of people, you know, we really do have oftentimes a real challenge. It’s a real challenge for us to stay motivated when certain things come against us or we feel that there is a you know, just things that are hindering us and things that are standing in our way.

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But I really want to encourage you today to really kick discouragement into the kerb and realise and choose to stay the course. I mean, it’s not a it’s not a nice place to be in. You know, that that place where we feel really queued up to give up, you know, no one wants to do that. No one wants to kind of be in that situation where their their heart and their motivation is kind of just undone. OK, it’s just you’re hurting.

00:01:21.890]
You feel discouraged. You feel as though you want to just throw in the towel. I want to speak into that today. I want to speak to that because I have like you, I’ve been exactly where you may be right now, probably on numerous occasions. I want to remind you of this wonderful scripture. I mean, it’s just it says it like it is. The Lord is on my side. Psalm 118:6. The Lord is on your side.

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He is there with you to help you to to to get you through whatever challenge you may be facing today. He is there to encourage you there to strengthen you there to really kind of deliver whatever is necessary into your soul, into your emotions, to allow you to keep stepping forward despite the challenges. You know, I think we’ve all and if you are seeking to live a creative life, if you’re seeking to put yourself out where others can judge and measure and criticise or whatever else may be may be placing a pressure on your inner man, we are all going to face times where we we just want to curl up in a ball somewhere and just say, like, that is enough.

00:02:59.690]
I’m done with this. But I want to like one of the scriptures that, as always, kind of been of interest to me, is found in the Book of judges. I think it’s in Judges Chapter three and judges Chapter three speaks of how the Lord deliberately left. Certain enemies, certain resistance in the promised land, so the generations that came through, who had not previously fought the battles of Kanan, as those battles are called, the enemies were deliberately left there by God so they could learn the art of war, so they could learn to stand against the challenges that they were facing.

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And I believe that, you know, whatever, you know, God has equipped you. God has shaped you for this generation. God has shaped you for such a time as this. And you are not alone. You are not kind of you. You are not born out of time, OK? The time that you’ve been bought, born into the it, the Lord has placed you here for a reason and he has not placed you here to fail.

00:04:26.270]
He is not placed you here to to kind of be crushed. He’s placed you here to prosper, whatever the circumstance. And so whatever enemies you are facing, you know, whatever challenges you are facing, I just really want to declare to your heart that not only has the Lord allowed those challenges to face you, but he is also equipped you to overcome them, you know, and that that picture of victory, like no one can really take your place.

00:05:04.430]
No one can stand against or take away from you the things that the Lord is prepared for you and for you alone. You know, when we talk about standing as a winner, being a winner, being successful for you, that’s going to look different than it might look for me or for someone else. No one else can take your winner’s podium. You are going to stand there. God knows what he’s shaping you for. God knows why he is shaping you.

00:05:37.700]
And he is going to be there to help you come through it successfully and powerfully. I absolutely 100 percent believe that now, you know, in the midst of all of the noise that we find online, it’s very easy sometimes for us to look at maybe how someone else is succeeding or how someone else is overcoming. And we can feel a little kind of intimidated by that. But the truth is, you know, they are fighting their own battles.

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And sometimes we can really fall into the trap of thinking that success looks a certain way that that, you know. All right, success means I have to earn this much more. Success means I have to have this many followers or an email list like this or a kind of product line like something like whatever. You know, we can we can look at other people and try and imprint their picture of success on what should really be ours. There’s a unique and peaceful avenue that you can walk down.

00:06:55.760]
There is a unique and peaceful way for you to walk in the fullness of who you have been called to be. And it does not look like the picture for someone else, the picture of you overcoming the picture of you walking in victory and fullness. Seriously, it does not look like someone else. And and so I just encourage, you know, like, you know, let’s let’s really shed that lie that, you know, that God is not in control.

00:07:34.190]
Let’s shed that lie, that he has not shaped you for your kingdom purpose. He has shaped you for your kingdom purpose, your kingdom calling your kingdom commission, your kingdom assignment. All of that is ring fenced for you to step into, to embody and to fulfil his number, the hairs on your head. The Bible says he has bottled your tears and most of us say for trying to live big and live real frugally, shed plenty of those.

00:08:09.920]
But he is also he stepped out into your future with his own feet so you can now walk in his footsteps. It says that he has prepared the way for you to walk in and. I believe that you are going to wonderfully walk in that way, that he is preordained and prepared for you. Now, I was reading in the scriptures the other day, I just absolutely love this. It’s in the Book of John in the amplified Bible now, I’m kind of pulling it a little out of context.

00:08:44.760]
The context of this is Jesus really saying how God is giving, given him authority to judge and to forgive sin. But it just really sparked something in me. I don’t know, there was something just came alive in my my heart when I considered this. And it says that God gave him authority and granted him power to execute. And just that word execute really caught my imagination, caught my attention that God has given you God has given me authority and granted us power to execute.

00:09:24.540]
And if we take a look at that word, execute, just consider these these means I’m a bit of a word freak. You know, I love I love words. I love to ride. I love to read. I love to listen. I think words are so wonderfully powerful and hear the word execute means to carry out. Now remember that you have been given authority and power to do all of these. It means to carry out. To perform, to accomplish, to implement, to effect.

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To bring off or bring about. To achieve. To carry off and carry through. To complete. To an act. To enforce. To put into effect. To put into practise. To do. To engineer. To attain. To administer. To realise, to perform and to pull off whatever it is God has placed in your heart. Whatever it is he has called you to do, you have been given the authority and the power to execute that in a very wonderful, very powerful way to pull it off, man.

00:10:39.870]
To pull it off, lady, to pull it off, whatever it may be, execute as well. You know, there’s another side to this interesting coin, and this phrase means to kill. You know, we’ve all heard of people being executed. Well, I think in this respect, the power and the authority to execute means to to chop their head off all of those excuses, destroy all of those nay sayers, to to crush every discouragement and all of that despondency that can so easily come around our hearts if we’re not careful.

00:11:19.890]
Again, just want to just bring one more thing to to you today before I close. It says here that are in the scriptures again, reading again from John, Chapter five. I encourage you to jump in and check that out for yourself, particularly in the amplified Bible. It says, I am able to do nothing of myself independently of my own accord, but only as I am taught by God and as I get his orders like, wow, come on, man, I am tired of God and I get his orders.

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Even as I hear I hear even as you hear you hear his voice. You are one of his children. You can hear his voice even as I hear I judge and then he goes on as the voice comes to me. So, sir, as the voice comes to me, as God speaks to you, it will empower you. It will anjou you with fresh enthusiasm. Literally, enthusiasm means to be breathed in by God to to be filled with him.

00:12:32.130]
I was listening the other day to a friend of mine talking about Gideon and the Scriptures. When he talks about Gideon, it says that God came upon Gideon. What it means is that God put Gideon on like a glove, God put Gideon on like a glove. And God when he inspires us, God when he fills us, God when he empowers us, God when he induce us with authority and power to execute, puts us on like a glove to do his will and pleasure.

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You have been sent by God. You are taught of God. He gives you his orders and directions each day you hear him and his voice comes to you. You are walking in the will and the pleasure of your father who has sent you. He’s commissioned you with a creative call to really bless the world. And today, you know, whatever discouragement you may have faced or whatever discouragement. You may be facing right now, I encourage you to take it to the line, I encourage you to keep pressing through.

00:13:45.390]
I encourage you to really stay the course and through consistency, through faith, through patience, to see the promise fulfilled. You know, I’d really just tread on the devil’s lies. Don’t give him any room to to back you off, keep pressing through, rise with confidence and just take one more step. Take one more swipe. Yeah. And let the authority and the power to execute B just feel your hands and feel your feet today in Jesus name.

00:14:28.470]
Well, thanks for listening, hopefully. It’s been an encouragement to you today, if you want to connect any further, you can do so through my website at Davidleemartin.com. Have a great day.