Overcoming Despair: The Promise of Hope in Difficult Times
Exo 6:9 And Moses spake so unto the children of Israel: but they hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage.
If we’re not careful, we can get so entrenched in our problems that we fail to remember that there is still hope of deliverance! If so allowed, two things can determine whether or not we will listen to and believe the voice of Hope: the condition of our spirit, and the condition of our circumstances. Anguish of spirit and cruel bondage had gotten the best of God’s people! They could not even recognize real hope staring them in the face! Have you ever been around anybody so negative about their circumstances and surroundings that no matter what was said, they always went right back to their old story of gloom? Child of God, depression will eat your lunch IF you let it! However, we who are saved are indwelled by the Holy Spirit of God. Greater is He who is in us, than he who is in the world (1 Jn 4:4)! Our hope is in the fact that Christ is in us (Col 1:27)! I’m certainly not saying that the children of Israel were living on easy street (and neither are we), but I will say that today’s Christian has an advantage that they did not have in Moses’ day! We have the very power of God IN us! That’s why even Jesus said that we shall do greater works than he himself after his ascension to the Father (Joh 14:12), because only then could he through the person of the Holy Spirit indwell us, working in and through us the mighty works of God! Is your spirit in anguish today? Do you feel as if you are in cruel bondage with circumstances beyond your control? Do not let them have the last word! Look at your challenges not as final verdicts, but as temporary setbacks that make you stronger for better days ahead! Care not if your circumstances appear to be in direct contradiction to what God has spoken! One or the other MUST give, and I can promise it won’t be God! Faith in His Word SHALL remove mountains! Today, I choose to believe God’s Word over the words spoken by a defeated spirit shaped by impossible situations.
~ Pastor Gary Caudill
If we’re not careful, we can get so entrenched in our problems that we fail to remember that there is still hope of deliverance! If so allowed, two things can determine whether or not we will listen to and believe the voice of Hope: the condition of our spirit, and the condition of our circumstances. Anguish of spirit and cruel bondage had gotten the best of God’s people! They could not even recognize real hope staring them in the face! Have you ever been around anybody so negative about their circumstances and surroundings that no matter what was said, they always went right back to their old story of gloom? Child of God, depression will eat your lunch IF you let it! However, we who are saved are indwelled by the Holy Spirit of God. Greater is He who is in us, than he who is in the world (1 Jn 4:4)! Our hope is in the fact that Christ is in us (Col 1:27)! I’m certainly not saying that the children of Israel were living on easy street (and neither are we), but I will say that today’s Christian has an advantage that they did not have in Moses’ day! We have the very power of God IN us! That’s why even Jesus said that we shall do greater works than he himself after his ascension to the Father (Joh 14:12), because only then could he through the person of the Holy Spirit indwell us, working in and through us the mighty works of God! Is your spirit in anguish today? Do you feel as if you are in cruel bondage with circumstances beyond your control? Do not let them have the last word! Look at your challenges not as final verdicts, but as temporary setbacks that make you stronger for better days ahead! Care not if your circumstances appear to be in direct contradiction to what God has spoken! One or the other MUST give, and I can promise it won’t be God! Faith in His Word SHALL remove mountains! Today, I choose to believe God’s Word over the words spoken by a defeated spirit shaped by impossible situations.
~ Pastor Gary Caudill