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Inspirational Article From
Joanne Lowe

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IT’S COMING

“For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.”

Isaiah 25: 4 King James Version

It’s coming so we might as well get ready and prepare for it. Just when everything in our lives seems to be calm and we aren’t in the middle of a crisis, here it comes! Someone says something critical or sarcastic to us and once again we wonder if it’s worth all the criticism we have to endure to keep on writing, preaching, singing, teaching and serving our Saviour. We need to remember that our precious Saviour has endured and is still enduring more criticism, sarcasm and rejection than anybody has ever endured or ever will endure.

Our vicious and sneaky enemy is using others, sometimes even our own families, to try and discourage us from serving Jesus. The sad thing about this is sometimes they aren’t even aware that satan is using them. All day long, the enemy, satan, roams around looking for someone who isn’t reading the Bible and praying as he or she should.

If we neglect to study our Bibles and pray and fellowship with Jesus, we open the door for satan to lie to us and deceive us. When satan finds someone like that, he starts lying to that person about someone and he fills the person’s heart with resentment, jealousy, anger, hatred and criticism toward the other person.

However, there is good news. We don’t have to be concerned about what people say and think about us. If our hearts are right before Jesus, that is all that matters. He will defend us against the ones who would try to bring us down and discourage us. We must stay on the alert because satan wants to defeat us and keep us from serving Jesus. It is vital that we spend time daily not only reading the written word which is the Bible, but that we also spend time with the living Word, who is Jesus.

Just reading the Bible will not help us live a victorious life. It would be like a doctor studying in college how to operate on somebody and never putting it into practice. If the doctor never used that knowledge to operate on someone, all he or she has is the knowledge. He or she has spent all that time in college and med school and has spent all that money for nothing. It takes the power of our risen Saviour to bring us to victory over life’s hurdles of discouragement, criticism and sarcasm.

Jesus is the only one who can calm the storms in our hearts. He gently and tenderly wipes away our tears of frustration and hurt with His kisses of compassion and understanding. He has been criticized and rejected so many times that He knows how it hurts and what it feels like to have people attack us with their sharp cutting remarks of criticism and sarcasm.

We need to remember that none of us are perfect. All of us hurt one another at times. Hopefully, we don’t do it on purpose. We must allow Jesus to keep our hearts in tune with His heart. We need to ask Him to sweep our hearts daily, sometimes hourly, with His broom of understanding and unconditional love. It is only as we allow Him to sweep the resentment, hurt and anger from our hearts that we will be able to serve Him effectively; the way He wants us to serve Him. Have you allowed Him to sweep your heart today?

Joanne Lowe
September 2, 2007

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