Do Not Lose Heart

What does depression do?  Where does depression hurt?  It’s your heart.  It makes you lose heart.  I have friends who are struggling with this horrible, deadly disease, and I can say that most times I feel powerless to in any way help them.  It is almost unfathomable to me, how anyone could be so down, especially Christians who are supposed to know the ever-reaching love of God.  It’s frustrating.

But you know, I have the love of Christ in me.  So I know that I won’t ever give up on them.  I can be there to encourage and to pray.  I can come against any and every evil spirit of pride, hate or depression that’s taken a hold of my brother in Christ.  I just wish something would really happen, like drastically.  And I can’t see much progress.  I wish God would work faster, but I must trust in His perfect timing.

There’s only so much encouragement I or anyone else can give.  There is a limit to our human abilities, our medical remedies.  But there is no limit to the glorious power of the Spirit of God.  He places light and hope into our hearts.  He transforms us from the inside out.  He does it for me, and He does it for the suffering people around me.  My role as an intercessor is this: to lift them up into the hands of God and let Him do His perfect work.  It’s hard sometimes, but I’ll keep praying.  Because that’s what love is.  Love doesn’t give up.

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”–2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Do Not Love The World

I wonder sometimes, what kind of anointing the early apostles had?  How could they, mere fishermen-turned-students, end up transforming the world the way they did?  I think it was because, they believed.  They knew personally, intimately, the God whom they served.  The Holy Spirit dwelt within them.  They had a commission and a mission field: to make disciples of the entire world.

Funny thing is, we have all those same things.  So why don’t we have the same anointing?  There must be something more than these.  I think, maybe, it’s our character.  Has anyone ever heard of faithfulness or humility?  How about holiness and consecration?  Can we do the little things, or are our heads too full of extravagant dreams to realize we’ve never left the starting line?  Are we too proud to learn or to accept correction?  Are we in love with the world and the things of the world?  Can we say we belong to God when we are too busy pursuing pleasure to pray?  I’ll let you answer for yourself.

There is a strange extreme nature to the gospel.  His name is Jealous.  He will not share you with any other lover.  Love what He loves: Himself, yourself, other people, and the rest of His creation.  Hate what he hates: rebellion, pride, injustice, and all other forms of sin.  It’s a different way than what I’m seeing now.  And I’m not telling you to never watch TV again.  I’m just making an observation: if we really lived for Him, I don’t believe we’d  be watching much TV.

“And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.”–1 John 2:17