Don't Give Up!

This is the Truth Network. Don't give up. Don't back down. Back out. Let up.

Don't. The pressing that is taking place now is working. It's fruitful, productive, more than anything. Your determination to stay the course, make sure that the vision God gave you is fulfilled, needs to come strongly to your consciousness, to your meditation, to your thoughts. And if the battle for you, and you might say you don't understand, this has gone on so long and there's no end in sight. Worse than that, there's no hope in sight. You might say both of those things, but the Word of the Lord to you, do not give up. Don't give up. Stay the course.

Stay connected. And realize that many times when you are right on the precipice, right on the cusp of a breakthrough, for lack of a better word, or just progress. At that time is when there comes an overdrive in our emotions that disqualifies us from staying in the place that is really hard. We don't feel like we fit. We don't think there's a contribution we can make that could possibly be of any value. But truthfully, truthfully, the opposite is true.

Just the opposite is true. So even if the battle has been long and appears to be continuing that way, don't feel there's no hope. Don't feel there's no end in sight because the Lord is in this. Anything that you have before the Lord that you do in His presence, He will prosper. Anything, let me say that again, anything done in God's presence because of His motivation on the inside of you, working through you as His agent in the project, He will prosper. He will promote.

He will see to the outcome that He desires. One thing that's notable, there's a connection in a time like this, as I'm saying to you, don't give up the foundation or platform for the inclination and our emotions to back off or let up. Many times it's connected to earlier trauma, earlier memories that seem like they're just like this is the same thing.

This is a replay. I mean, you feel that way. You're thinking that way. You're interpreting through that lens of an earlier trauma all that you experienced.

Dread is a natural fruit of that kind of processing over and over again in your mind. Also, just pretend that is a garment. Just unbutton, unzip, whatever that garment, step out of it, kick it to the side. That's not clothing God has for you. That earlier trauma is under the blood of Jesus and is under the jurisdiction of the redemptive power of Almighty God. And I announce that to you now. I proclaim that to you now. The earlier trauma or plural traumas experienced by you feeding now into your negative feelings about the project you're now in, what you're doing now and the feeling you have to give up and abandon ship and just forget that you even ever tried.

There's a connection between the earlier and the present and you can cast that care far, far away. It doesn't belong to you, does not fit you, and again, is not the clothing that God has outfitted for you. So just disqualify the voice that is disqualifying you. It is an illegitimate voice, an alien voice.

It is an enemy voice. So just establish that. Let that be clear and settled. And then you need two things to stay the course, not give up. You need two things. You need wisdom, the divine class of wisdom, and you need allies.

You need friends. You need those who come alongside of you as examples of the Holy Spirit, which I don't know if you knew this, but the Greek word for the Holy Spirit is the Paraclete. His action is like the Paraclete, the one who comes alongside to take hold together with against, comes alongside, takes hold together with you against. So the Spirit of God comes alongside of you as an ally to take hold together with you, to press with you against anything in your path that is an obstacle. So an ally like this, a friendly agent like this, two examples from scripture, 1 Kings chapter 3, this is the story of King Solomon and two prostitute mothers, both with newborn babies.

So talk about not being qualified to receive anything good. The women in this account are prostitutes. Both are new mothers. They have newborn babies. One baby dies and the mother of the dead baby takes the live baby while its true mother is sleeping, pretends it to be her baby, claims the live baby to be her baby and insists the dead baby belongs to the legitimate mother of the still living baby.

So the case came before Solomon, the king of Israel, and his solution for this problem, for this quandary, was to request a sword. And he announced that he would divide the baby in two halves, give each mother a half baby. Of course, the consequence of doing that would be another dead baby. The illegitimate mother said, yes, do that.

Good idea. The true mother, of course, said no. Give her the baby. Don't kill the baby. Solomon said in response and in conclusion of the matter, give the live baby to this mother. She is the legitimate mother because she chose to be separate from her baby, but just allow the child to live. The true heart of a true mother. So Solomon's wisdom there, supernaturally delivered in a time of crisis, settled the question and allowed the true mother, the legitimate mother, to suddenly be rescued when she felt like that it was time to give up. Well, she did give up. She gave up her rights.

And of course, she got everything in return. So first example, you need wisdom like this from this example in First Kings 13. Another excellent example, this one from history, October 1973, the Yom Kippur War, when the tiny nation state, actually the new nation state of Israel, was attacked by 12 larger surrounding nation states. So it was a David and Goliath contest just from the jump, really. Tiny Israel against 12, each larger than tiny Israel, plus they were combined. There were 12 of them and Israel stood alone.

The attack took place in the month of October during Yom Kippur, the holiest of days on the Jewish calendar. Just to give you an idea, Israel had 180 tanks and the opposition forces 1400 tanks. Israel was equipped with 436 men in their infantry. So under 500, whereas the opposition forces in just one of the nation states was 80,000 strong.

So less than 500 against 80,000, less than 200 tanks against 1400 tanks. So to say they were outnumbered is an understatement for sure. The prime minister of Israel knew something had to be done and reached out to the United States president at that time, Richard Nixon, and appealed. Sir, if you do not come to our aid, if you do not come alongside of us, take hold together with us in some fashion, we will be wiped off of the map.

We will not survive. President Nixon responded, American supplies arrived by airlift and by sea, turning the tide, that kind of supply meant that the odds were more even. Add to that the divine wisdom God was giving to Israel and supernatural interventions of other kinds as well, and Israel survived that attack.

And actually the war ended in a peace, a solution, an end of conflict. You need two things at this point. Rather than giving up, don't do that. You need wisdom like Solomon's wisdom. That means you need supernatural divine wisdom. Don't lean on your own understanding. You need to hear divine wisdom from the Lord many times that comes through the mouth of another human being whose presence you may have discounted, may not be considered, you may have disqualified for some reason. And hey, just a slight warning here. Many times the person or group of people we need the most in our own mind, we resist or resent, and therefore we're separate from the very solution God has waiting in the wings.

And secondly, as was the case between Israel and the United States in 1973, you need a strong ally or plural allies. You need an expression of the Holy Spirit that you may have discounted somehow, may not be considering at this point for whatever reason. But the Spirit of God is working right now. And Father, we pray right into this matter and we determined and intentionally choose to stay the course rather than give up, back off, let up, let down. And we invite your presence in the form of wisdom and a strong ally, a business partner, a strong friend, divine infusions of wisdom. Lord, orchestrate this now and by faith we release it into your hand, by faith we release it into your charge and say all that we are attempting to do here is before you, Lord. We put it before you once again to receive from you.

Wisdom and the allies that you have chosen, individuals, groups, a supernatural, unexpected, even sudden source. We pray in Jesus' name and we thank you, Father. Amen and amen. Thanks again and we'll see you next time. Amen.