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Don’t Give Up on God
“If God today told us what He’s doing in the world, we wouldn’t believe it. Don’t you think God’s given up and God’s abdicated and God’s left the throne. He hasn’t! He's still on the throne, and those of us that know Him put our trust in Him and Him alone. I don’t put my trust in Washington, I don’t put my trust in the United Nations, I don’t put my trust in myself, I don’t put trust in my money, I put my trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. When all the rest of it fails and crumbles and shatters, He’ll be there.”
—Billy Graham
Don’t give up on God, because He hasn’t given up on you. God loves you. God is for you. God is on your side. God sent His Son, Jesus, to die on the cross just so He could adopt you into His family. It is never God’s will for us to be in pain, sick, or lonely. God’s desire is to see you happy and full of joy. It is God’s desire to see you accomplishing your destiny with a sense of fulfillment and self-worth. It is God’s desire to see you flourishing and at peace. God wants His children to be blessed! Sometimes we are tempted to blame God when things happen that we don’t understand. The Bible makes it clear that we have an enemy that is against us. His plan is to kill, steal, and destroy anything good in your life. Jesus said He came that we might have life and have it more abundantly.
It can be so easy for us to look at our lives and think that because we are in a difficult situation, it must mean God is upset with us or does not care about us. But God doesn’t see us the way most of us see ourselves! God is not mad at you! Regardless of what you have done, God is ready and willing to forgive you, restore you, and help you accomplish your destiny if you would just ask!
In order for Him to help us, we must believe and have faith in what He has said. We have to have more faith in what He said in the Bible than in what our circumstances are saying presently. Oftentimes, we give up our expectation of a better tomorrow because we experience hard times. We overcomplicate our relationship with God, and we begin to believe that the struggles we are experiencing are more “real” to us than God’s love is. God never promised us a struggle-free or a problem-free life. He promised us His help to overcome the struggles and conquer our problems.
No matter how hard you get hit in life, always stay on God’s side. God is the Source of our strength, our hope, our joy, our peace, and our life, and the worst thing we could do is forsake our trust in Him. Instead of blaming Him for your struggles, team up with Him and overcome your struggles!
Prayer
Lord, sometimes You seem far away. Sometimes it feels as if You do not hear my prayers. I know that You exist. I know that You love me. If I am being completely honest, however, I am struggling right now. I feel doubt creeping in about things I had once been so certain about. I know that faith is trusting You even when I do not sense Your presence. I am asking for Your grace and mercy concerning me. Help me to sense Your presence, to notice You and Your workings in my life daily, and to not be filled with so much doubt. I want to be close to You, to be the Christian whom I know I can be. I want to believe! I ask that You would make Your Word become progressively more real to me, so that I may know and understand, experientially, Your immeasurable love for me. There is no use in lying to You. You know that I have doubts, and I know that it takes faith to please You; so I am asking You to help me get to the place where my faith is big and my doubts are small, instead of the other way around. Fill my heart with Your joy and peace. Comfort and encourage me by Your Spirit. Make Yourself real to me. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.
Scriptures
Keep trusting in the Lord and do what is right in his eyes. Fix your heart on the promises of God and you will be secure, feasting on his faithfulness. Make God the utmost delight and pleasure of your life, and he will provide for you what you desire the most. Give God the right to direct your life, and as you trust him along the way you’ll find he pulled it off perfectly! He will appear as your righteousness, as sure as the dawning of a new day. He will manifest as your justice, as sure and strong as the noonday sun. Quiet your heart in his presence and pray; keep hope alive as you long for God to come through for you. And don’t think for a moment that the wicked in their prosperity are better off than you.
—Psalm 37:3-7 (TPT)
Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
—Matthew 28:20
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 creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
—Romans 8:38-39
An encouraging story of a man who didn't give up
There was a young man wrongfully convicted.
He would spend eighteen years in Robben Island prison.
(Which was known for its brutal treatment of the inmates and less than humane living conditions.)
Yet, he did not blame God for his difficulties; he chose to have faith and hope.
He wrote in a letter to his wife, eleven years after being incarcerated, saying:
“Difficulties break some men but make others. No axe is sharp enough to cut the soul of a sinner who keeps on trying, one armed with the hope that he will rise even in the end.”
This man was set free from his wrongful imprisonment after twenty-seven years.
Many who knew him noted that he was a man of deep faith.
With his faith still intact,
Nelson Mandela became the President of South Africa
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