Discouragement to Encouragement
[PERSONAL NOTES FROM BOB SORGE'S BOOK]
“Discouragement to Encouragement”
Notes taken by Michael D. Coday II
Sometimes God delays the answers to our prayers in order to produce a greater maturity and fruitfulness in us.
They don’t understand God’s purposes in the season of delay. They look at unchanged circumstances, decide that God must be saying “no” to their prayers, and as a consequence make some very unfortunate decisions.
Christ calls us to the cross because we’ll never become like Him apart from pain.
God’s first priority in our lives is to make us fruitful- not comfortable.
The chronicles of the Isreali nation testify that in times of comparative comfort and blessing, the hearts of the people of Israel wandered into idolatry. Distress was necessary to turn their hearts back to God.
“Crawling off the altar”
Isaiah 48:10
Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.
God’s fire accomplishes three things among God’s people:
1. It forces the hypocrite to a decision (Isaiah 33:14)
2. It purges the sincere from sin (Isaiah 6:6-7)
3. It enflames the heart with fresh passion for the Son of God (Acts 2:3-4)
Psalm 97:3
A fire goes before Him
When Jesus visits us, His face is always preceded by His fire. He knows we won’t be prepared for His face until we’ve been purified by His fire.
There are two ways to receive from God. Some things are given to us, and some things are bought. Thank God for the things that are just outright given to us.
When the time of testing comes, and the fire is turned up in your life, you have a choice: You can give up (“Forget it, I can’t deal with this”), or you can go for the gold (“I’m going to press into the Lord now more than ever”).
“Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.”
Yes, God delivers us from all affliction, but sometimes He delays His provision in order to try us by fire.
His purpose in the delay is to strengthen our faith, kindle our love to new depths of passion and maturity, and impart the heart and character of Christ to us- all in order to make us a more useful vessel.
The end-times church is represented by the Laodicean church in Revelation 3:14-22. The believers were tempted with materialism, hedonism (pleasure-seeking), and the apathy that comes from relative comfort and security. Interestingly, these are the chief besetting sins of the church today.
In His mercy, He allows other fires to put the heat on our lives: financial distress; physical distress (sickness, infirmity); family distress.
Our lukewarmness has our faith in such a sickly condition that when these fires arise, we don’t have the faith to quench them.
Mark 9:49
For everyone will be seasoned with fire, and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt.
Gehenna was a place outside Jerusalem where King Josiah, in his godly reforms, destroyed the alters of idolatry. The purpose of Gehenna was the purification of the life of the city.
God’s fiery dealings in my life are radically changing my heart motivations.
Now, I find the vision of my heart changing, and it’s becoming more like, “I want to develop a greater love and fervency for Jesus.” “I want to get to know Jesus more intimately.” I’m discovering that God really does want the first commandment (to love God) to be first in my life, and the second commandment (to love others) to be second.
When our passion for God becomes the foremost fire in our lives, then the impacting of others’ lives becomes the inevitable outflow of that dynamic relationship with God.
Instead of loving our labors, we will love the Lord. Instead of gaining fulfillment in our ministries, we will find fulfillment in offering ourselves without gile to God in adoration.
James 5:11
You have heard of the perseverance of Job
Theological Struggles:
1. I believed that God didn’t use physical infirmity to bring his saints to greater maturity.
2. I believed that God intended that we always have joy (Romans 14:17). However, a pruned vine doesn’t feel any joy. I had a happy childhood, but when I was spanked I was not a happy child. Joy follows weeping just as surely as morning follows night.
3. “For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:29). I believed that when God calls he enables you to do the job. Why would God call you to do something and then remove your ability to do it?
4. “And nothing shall by any means hurt you” (Luke 10:19). How do I reconcile that promise with the fact that Satan is given permission to injure me. How can Satan take a shot at a saint when he’s walking in obedience and living in the presence of God?
The purpose of a theological crisis is not to change your theology but to change you.
PRISON THEOLOGY
Psalm 69:33
For the Lord hears the poor, and does not despise His prisoners
Job 12:14
If He imprisons a man, there can be no release
The apostle Paul was imprisoned by God. Never once did he say, “I’m a Roman prisoner.” In his letter to the Ephesians, he used three phrases to describe himself: “I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus” (3:1); “the prisoner of the Lord” (4:1); “I am an ambassador in chains” (6:20).
The common denominator is limitation and restriction, along with an absolute helplessness to change anything, or a divine mandate to do nothing to initiate change.
Job 3:23
Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, and whom God has hedged in?
Psalm 88:8
You have put away my acquaintances far from me; You have made me an abomination to them; I am shut up, and I cannot get out.
Lamentations 3:7-9
He has hedged me in so that I cannot get out; He has made my chain heavy. Even when I cry and shout, He shuts out my prayer. He has blocked my ways with hewn stone; He has made my paths crooked.
God’s affection for His prisoners is clearly seen in Scripture. They are honored with these crowning words: “of whom the world was not worthy” (Hebrews 11:38)
God never leaves a prisoner to rot in jail until his death. Some are martyred, and the rest are eventually released unto God’s purposes. This is comforting for God’s prisoners, to know that God intends one of two options for them: martyrdom or release.
Prison is incredibly lonely, and the Lord uses that season to cause us to find our companionship in Him.
Jeremiah 48:11
“Moab has been at ease from his youth; he has settled on his dregs, and has not been emptied from vessel to vessel, nor has he gone into captivity. Therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent has not changed”
Well, you might feel like a captive on your job. You could feel trapped by your family circumstances. You may be bound by financial debt. Perhaps you would come under the constraints of a physical infirmity. Whatever the nature of the confinemant and restriction, you feel totally out of control and bewildered about why God has you here. If your heart is right, then you are a prisoner in the order of Joseph. God is using your imprisonment to perfect the wine of your love and to prepare you for greater fruitfulness.
To be pitied, rather, are those who never go into captivity, for their “scent has not changed,” and they will not know the joy of being a delightful fragrance to the Father.
Hebrews 13:3
Remember the prisoners as if chained with them
“Hey, I think this guy is a prisoner of the Lord, and he’s not in this condition because of sin in his life. I think God’s doing a holy work in his life, and I’m honored to identify with it.”
I would have thought that Joseph was too valuable a player to have him just sitting on the bench.
God put Joseph in jail. Sure, Satan no doubt played a role in it (he’s always a willing accomplice when it comes to harassing God’s people).
God crucified Jesus; God made Sarah barren; God afflicted Job; God sent Moses to the desert for 40 years; God orchestrated David’s wilderness wanderings; God took Naomi’s husband and two sons. When God does something to you, all you can do is submit and pray and wait for God to fulfill His purposes.
Psalm 68:6
He brings out those who are bound into prosperity; but the rebellious dwell in a dry land
Sometimes God imprisons His servants in a prison of obedience so that they have a platform to speak into the lives of those in a prison of disobedience.
The fact is, you’re not in prison because of something wrong you’ve done but because of something right you’ve done.
But even in Joseph’s case, God did not deal with Joseph according to his righteousness, but according to His righteousness. For it says the Lord “showed him mercy” in prison (Genesis 39:21).
That’s the definition of mercy: God doesn’t deal with us according to our level of perfection but according to His loving grace and redemptive plan for our lives.
Psalm 105:16
He called for a famine in the land; He destroyed all the provisions of bread. He sent a man before them- Joseph- who was sold as a slave. They hurt his feet with fetters, he was laid in irons. Until the time that his word came to pass, the word of the LORD tested him. The king sent and released him, the ruler of the people let him go free. He made him lord of his house, and ruler of all his possessions, to bind his princes at his pleasure, and teach his elders wisdom.
There are seasons today when God will call for a famine and will destroy “all the provisions of bread”.
Nahum 1:12-13
“Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no more; for now I will break off his yoke from you, and burst your bonds apart”
Proverbs 11:6
The righteousness of the upright will deliver them
Zecheriah 9:11-12
I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. Return to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope. Even today I declare that I will restore double to you”
Romans 5:3
And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
The character of Christ is produced in us in only one manner: by persevering through pressure.
Character produces hope. Hope is what happens when we see God changing us.
Hope is something that’s been weathered and hardened by the elements and has proven itself genuine. Hope has persevered; hope has suffered; hope has endured the crucible; hope has come through the fire; hope has trudged through the valley and gained the mountain, purified!
Hope is the natural response when you see the character of Jesus developing in yourself.
Philippians 1:6
Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.
Psalm 119:49-50
Remember the word to Your servant, upon which You have caused me to hope. This is my comfort in my affliction, for Your word has given me life.
Oswald Chambers in his very popular devotional book, MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST, says in the entry for August 17, “Are you discouraged in devotion?” The verse he refers to is Luke 18:22: “‘Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast and come follow Me.’ And when he heard this…”
“Have you ever heard the Master say a hard word? If you have not, I question whether you have heard Him say anything at all. Jesus Christ says a great deal that we listen to but do not hear. When we do hear, His words are amazingly hard.
This man did understand what Jesus said. He heard it and he sized up what it meant and it broke his heart. He didn’t go away defiant. He went away sorrowful, thoroughly discouraged. He had come to Jesus, full of the fire of earnest desire, and the word of Jesus simply froze him. Instead of producing an enthusiastic devotion, it produced a heartbreaking discouragement. Jesus did not go after him. He let him go.
Our Lord knows perfectly that when once His word is heard, it will bear fruit sooner or later. The terrible thing is that some of us prevent it from bearing fruit in actual life. I wonder what we will say when we do make up our minds to be devoted to Him on that particular point? One thing is certain. He will never cast anything up at us.”
Discouragement is from the Devil!
The word “discouraged” in the Old Testament means ==dismayed, afraid, break in pieces, broken, break down, beaten down, to be shattered, be dismayed, scared, terrified.
CONTAGIOUSNESS—-A devastating and grievous quality of discouragement. Nothing is more catching than discouragement.
“The spies that Moses sent to spy out the Promised Land came back so discouraged that they made everyone else discouraged and caused them to NOT obey God and believe Him for the Land which He had promised.
“The “evil” report that so many Christians bring of their failures and their disappointments in the Christian life is one of the most discouraging things in our conversation with one another. The hearts of many young Christians are, I believe, far too often thus discouraged by their older brethren….
Discouraged people, if they must be discouraged, ought at least to keep their discouragements to themselves, hidden away in the privacy of their own bosoms lest they should discourage the hearts of their brethren. We know from experience that courage is contagious and that one really brave soul in the moments of danger can save a crowd from a panic…and that one fainthearted man or woman can infect a whole crowd with fear. ”
–Hannah Whitall Smith “The God Of All Comfort”
Discouragement is a lack of faith.
Proverbs 13:12
Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.
And that is what we do to others when we are discouraged…we defer their hope and make them sick. “Woe is me” is damaging…very damaging.
Romans 8:28
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Proverbs 27:6 (Paraphrased)
Faithful are the wounds of a friend.
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