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Inspirational Article
From
Joanne Lowe
Index of Writings by Joanne Lowe on Gospel Web
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Inspirational Article
From
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Lately satan has been working over time on me and also on several of my friends by using people to attack us with criticism of the ministries that God has entrusted to us and with sarcastic remarks. He is just waiting for us to let our guard down in any way so that he can attack us with his poisonous arrows of hatred, criticism, jealousy, discouragement and sarcasm which he hurls at us through people.
It hurts a lot when someone attacks us verbally. However, we are not perfect either. We need to be certain that we don’t say something that would hurt someone. It is very easy for us to become discouraged and angry when people constantly criticize us. However we need to remember that Jesus was criticized more than anybody has ever been criticized or ever will be.
A pastor friend of mine once said in his sermon “Some people are so miserable that the only way for them to feel any happiness at all is to make other people feel bad”. How sad, dear friends, that people have to criticize people and put other people down in order to feel good.
I’m sure that it hurts our Heavenly Father and our precious Saviour when they see the way that we treat our families, our loved ones and the world. The way we act at times does not point others to Jesus. It does just the opposite. Instead of drawing people closer to Jesus by our kind and loving words and actions, we turn them away from Jesus. May God forgive us for not being the children that He wants us to be!
When I start to feel discouraged, I put on praise music. However, I have learned that putting on praise music after I have already started feeling discouraged is not effective. It is very important that we put the praise music on before we get discouraged so that satan won’t have the opportunity to attack us with his vicious lies. The only time that I am truly happy is when I am telling others about my precious Saviour and about how much He loves them.
There are many people who are lonely and hurting. They are trying desperately to find happiness and relief from their heartaches, pain and sorrow so they turn to alcohol, sex, and drugs. They may feel a temporary relief from their pain and sorrow but that is all that it is, just a temporary relief from their problems. When they wake up the next morning, their problems and their pain are still there.
Not only are their problems and pain still there, they feel worse than the day before because they usually have some kind of hangover. There is only one solution to our heartaches, to our pain and to our problems and His name is Jesus. There is no real joy and there is no real happiness without Jesus.
Unless the precious atoning blood of our Saviour that He shed for us on the cruel cross of Calvary has been applied to our hearts for the forgiveness of our sins we will never have real joy and happiness. Not only will we not have joy and happiness, we also will never have peace. The world can’t give us the peace that Jesus gives us and it can’t take it away.
When we are safely anchored in Jesus, the storms of criticism, sarcasm and all hell can come against us but we will never sink. We will stand secure on our rock, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank You, Jesus, that You are our rock in the midst of life’s storms of heartaches and discouragement. Amen.