Transcript
Hello everyone. Thanks for joining with me on another Helping You Become podcast. I pray it's a blessing for you. Well friends, thank you for your company today. I do appreciate you joining with me around God's Word. Please turn in your Bibles to James chapter 1 and also Proverbs chapter 1. Find those two places.
I'm going to just pause and pray for a moment while you do that.
Father God, thank you for your word. Jesus, thank you for all that you do for us every day. Holy Spirit, thank you for leading us and guiding us into the truth of God's word, the Father's word to us. Oh Lord, Proverbs is so rich with my Son, hear the words of a Father. And Lord, you embrace us as your own children. And Lord, we respond to that, we embrace that, we thank You for that. Holy Spirit, leaders and guidance please today into the truth of the Word so that we don't stay the same, that we have revelation knowledge, Lord, actionable intelligence, something that we can take and apply to our life and receive the benefit thereof. And Lord, we ask these things in the wonderful Name of Jesus. Amen.
Now, I've been discussing the last four weeks about the spiritual condition, if you like, of spiritual frustration. When something is coming against your plans and purpose, we saw in the book of Ezra that the local inhabitants, the Samaritans of the land, they sent people across specifically to frustrate the building project.
That was their job, to frustrate the plans and purposes of God, or the plans and
purposes of God being worked through the people of the time. As they built the temple, as they rebuilt all of that and did that project, specific enemy forces came against them to frustrate them in their plans and purposes.
Now just recapping a little bit and picking up from last week. A few key points about frustration or genuine spiritual frustration that's coming to frustrate your plans and purposes you're calling. That divine mission that you are on for the Lord so that his desired intention for your area of influence, for your environment, you might be your family, your workplace, your sporting club.
So his desired intention for that particular arena of yours that is being worked
through you into that arena. The devil wants to frustrate those things and stop them from happening effectively and efficiently. So, frustration comes to attack you after other attempts to stop you have failed.
Frustration is a very dangerous opponent but most people don't treat it like that they just think oh this is going wrong you know I'm just frustrated at the moment you know whatever okay but they don't treat frustration as a specific spiritual enemy that has come to you to frustrate your life after other specific spiritual attacks have been unsuccessful against you so if you're being frustrated in a particular project or something that you're doing for the Lord and you're being frustrated in it, that means you've progressed and other things that the devil has tried or the enemy has tried to stop your forward momentum, those other things have failed.
So now they're starting to bring out the big guns and the big guns in this particular instance was the spirit of frustration or the frustration of the enemy specifically released to come against their plans, or frustration as an enemy, specifically released to come against their plans.
We also saw that 2 Samuel chapter 13 verse 2, you know, Amnon was so troubled that he fell sick. I know that's only part of the verse, and there's other things going on in that verse, but Amnon was so troubled that he fell sick. Medical science has got enormous data on the relationships between stress and health, stress and health. And if you can be stressed in such a way or if the devil can stress your plans
and purposes in such a way or stress you to affect your health, that will
ultimately affect your plans and purposes.
Yeah, if you're not healthy, you're not functioning well. Everybody knows that, okay? And medical science has got an enormous amount to say about stress and taking care of yourself, self -care, exercise, correct diet, these sorts of things, all help to combat stress.
So if your health is being challenged, please go see a doctor, that's really important. Please go see a doctor. Don't just try and faith your way through it, okay? You must go to the doctor in faith, but please do go to the doctor, that's really important. Because your health, God provided, I mean Luke was a doctor, God provided medicine to help our physical bodies. All right, that's really important.
So if you're under that much stress and anxiety or pressure or whatever it happens to be, please go and see a doctor. And even if you're not unwell, go and see a doctor because that's a really healthy thing to do. It gives you a bit of time out, can give you another perspective, can give you just another professional to talk to, okay?
These things are really important. So Amnon was so troubled that he fell sick. And if you're going to complete your plans and purposes that God has for you in the world, you really don't need to be sick. You don't need to be taken out, even for periods of time with ill health. So that's a biggie, that one. Now because purpose and plans and plans and purpose that the Lord has for you are virtually lifelong companions.
And activities and requirements there regarding those things need to be worked through in such a way that you can go the distance. Short burst of great, you know, expenditure of energy is okay, but they need to be short burst. We need to be able to pace ourselves so that we can go the distance. So lifelong companions like purpose and plans and God calling for your life, the Lord's calling for your life, always remember that anything or anyone good is permanently hated by anything
and anyone evil.
Now frustration is that assigned enemy for long -term attack on your purpose and plans. I think that's really important. Building the temple was a very very long-term project and when it got to a stage that this project had to be stopped from the enemy's perspective they pulled out the big guns of frustration to frustrate this thing over a long period of time and that's why endurance is a major factor.
The joy of the Lord is our strength. So therefore we need to stay strong, we need to stay joyful, we need to stay in good health, we need to take care of our mental condition. Yeah, if you're really, really distressed and pressured, as I said, take a bit of time out, go see a doctor. Really important to do these sorts of things. The world is changing at an incredible rate. And one of the things I've said previously, my personal view is that the years from 2020 through to 2040 are going to go down in history as some of the most challenging and difficult times on the planet ever, particularly so for what we call the Western world, yes, to whom much is given, much is required, and in many ways the Western world has not delivered.
You know, the more disobedient man becomes the more he wants to legislate
his disobedience and in many ways the body of Christ is just letting that go. It's
very, very important that we manage to stay in control of our own selves. This
train wreck called a society and in some ways there's, you know, hey, please don't
think I'm negative on all of this. I'm not, all right, but I'm just looking around.
I have a very, very positive view on life. I'm excited about life. It's a great joy and opportunity that we have before us at the moment. But we need to be wise inside that. We need to be observant, you know? Gentlest doves, wisest serpents, these sorts of things. So we need to be taking stock and looking around what's going on in the world. How do we deal with some of the things that are happening? And the pace of life is so phenomenal at the moment.
It's just incredible and it's escalating. So, we need to be able to take stock, we need to be able to sit back and work things through systematically with the Spirit of God guiding us and navigating us through these difficult and evil times. Now, there's always been difficult and evil times in the world. There's always been plagues, there's always been pandemics, you know, the black plague, the Spanish flu, all of these things over the last, you know, hundreds and hundreds of years.
But what we've just seen today or in the last few years regarding the COVID thing,
that's not new on the earth. God knows how to deal with all of that sort of stuff. It's just new to us because we haven't lived through that sort of thing before in the Western world. We've had, you know, many, many, many decades, many, many decades of incredible freedoms and prosperity, but it makes me wonder, where
have we delivered? Back to mankind, back to people, adding value to people's lives because to whom much is given, much is required. And that is a spiritual law.
We will not escape that. Understanding frustration, some of these things that can stop our long -term or attack our long -term projects and plans, very, very important to deal with with that. Unless frustration is viewed and approached by us, this way, we can keep inadvertently empowering it with our words. "Oh, I'm just so frustrated !" You know, have you ever said that sort of thing? Has it ever come into your mind?
Have you just been so frustrated that you just want to scream? Well, take heart,
particularly if it's all relative to your plans and purposes, take heart because you've made progress and now the enemy of your life is now needing to bring out the big guns, yeah? Because you're in there for the long term, you're in there for the long haul and you're winning. That's why frustration has had to arrive in your life because you are winning. you're taking ground, you're doing well.
Praise God, pat yourself on the back, you know? So really important that we understand this. Because frustration's task is to cause your purpose to cease,
to bring your purpose to zero, to cause your purpose to fail. It's vital that we
know what to do when frustration occurs.
Hey, thank you, Joe for the information, what do I do about it? And I think that's a very fair question. So because frustration is aimed at our purpose and plans, its spiritual presence is masked by natural events. Our purpose and plans are very, very spiritual, but they're outwardly worked through natural events and things and situations and people and projects and buildings and radio stations and radio programs and churches and all sorts of great things.
They're all in the natural. So often the spiritual enemy of frustration is masked by natural events. All sorts of stuff just goes wrong to frustrate you. So the first thing to do is to become skilled at recognising the signs that preempt the arrival of frustration.
Have you ever had any doubts or fears, perhaps even out of left field? Just suddenly wake up and think, "Wow, man, oh dear man, what's going on? What happens if? What happens if? What happens if?" Because that's what they did.
When they were going about the building of the temple in Ezra chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, they got to a point where they were very afraid, so they built an altar and sacrificed to the Lord and they defeated fear. That spirit of fear was defeated. Remember God has not given us a spirit of fear but a power of love and of a sound mind. One of the first things that we need to do is become skilled at recognising the signs that preempt the arrival of frustration, fear being one of them.
Recognise the primary scenarios that cause you frustration and largely they're relative to your gifting and your purpose. I'm not talking about, look, if you're down in your guys, you know, if you're down in your back shed and you're working on something and you just, you know, put your screwdriver down and you can't easily see where you put it.
And you've got to look for it. There's a bit frustrating there for a moment or two. I'm not talking about something like that. I'm talking about the genuine frustration that is coming against your calling in life. For example, for me, someone singing a wrong note in choir or in church or something like that, I couldn't care less because I'm not a musician. It doesn't really bother me in the slightest. But someone singing a wrong note all the time to a musician, to a choir master or a conductor, I mean, just absolutely, just, "Wah, man, that's a big no-no." Yes?
So there are things that are relative to your calling. Identify where the frustration is so you can actually discern whether it's a natural frustration or whether it's a spiritual one. Just because your child left all their shoes at the front door, didn't put anything away, left their blocks on the floor, whatever. That's just a training thing. It's not a spiritual frustration necessarily, relative to your calling, relative to your ministry, relative to your focus. Identify whether it's just a natural thing or whether it actually is a spiritual attack.
So that's really important to pick that through and to work that through. Frustration wants to work this way because the best way to attack you is to attack your purpose. Frustration hates you full stop, but it hates your purpose more. Anything to do with the divine calling, it hates more than the individual. But the way to upset the divine calling is to attack the individual.
The other thing that we need to be able to do once we thought this through, discerned it, that sort of thing, is to now sit back and step back a moment and let's look at Scripture, let's look at our Bibles on how we can possibly navigate through this enemy of frustration. How to attack frustration, how to beat frustration so it doesn't beat us. And that's really important.
The first thing I'd like to share with you is out of James chapter one, I said
turn over there previously. Now, verses 5 and 6, I'm reading from the Amplified
Bible. We've been doing this study out of the Amplified. If any of you is deficient
in wisdom, let him ask of the giving God who gives to everyone liberally and ungrudgingly, without reproaching or fault finding, and it will be given him.
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. How simple is that? How simple is
that? If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God and God will give that wisdom
liberally without fault finding.
You're not going to turn around and say, "How thick are you?" Okay, we had a phrase in New Zealand and it was something that I grew up with as a kid. You know, "You're as dumb as a post." Well, how hurtful is that? How hurtful is that? So we need to be very, very careful. God doesn't do us that way. That's the way that some people have done us and treated us in the past. God won't treat us that way. And one of the things that I've learned and I learned it out of Scripture, the apostle Paul said, "It is a small thing I am judged of you." It is a small thing that I am judged of you. I don't even judge myself, I let God do it.
And that's what Paul went on to discuss there in Corinthians. So, what do we do? If we lack wisdom, we ask the Lord. Now Proverbs chapter 1, verses 5 through to 7. "The wise will also hear and increase in learning, and the person of understanding will acquire skill and attain to sound counsel, so that he may be able to steer his course rightly. That people may understand a proverb and a figure of speech, or an enigma, with its interpretation and the words of the wise, and their dark sayings or riddles.
The reverent and worshipful fear of the Lord is the beginning and the principle and choice part of knowledge. It's starting point in essence. Is that alive in your life? Do you have a reverent and worshipful fear of the Lord? Because it's the starting point of Prince Orts, the beginning and the principle and the choice part of knowledge. It's knowledge's starting point and its essence. But fools despise wisdom and godly wisdom, instruction and discipline.
So what's the first thing that we need to do? Well, ask for wisdom. Get the instructions and get the wisdom that we need. But just on that, in Psalms and also in Habakkuk, there's a very interesting word, S-E-L-A-H, and it means to pause and think on this, pause and just consider this. So I'd preface the go get wisdom with a pause and think on this, yeah?
Frustrations attacking your life, frustrations attacking your purpose, your plans, these sorts of things, they're being seemingly derailed in the natural. You've made a whole heap of progress, but now frustrations hit. Well pause and just think for a minute. Just pause and consider what's going on.
And then if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. There's also the ability to attain to wise councils to discuss the sorts of things that you need to think through or you are thinking through. Think them through verbally with other wise people, other people that have got significant achievements and runs on the board.
Right, it's very important. So get the instructions and the wisdom we need coming
off the back of just pausing for a moment, praying, thinking, considering. Pause and think on this. Pause and pray. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God.
Now, we're nearly out of time for today, so let's just recap, recaptures for a
moment, the fact that frustration is coming against you. The fact that if you're like the enemy is trotting out the big guns. It means that you've made some progress, means that you are moving forward with your calling. This is really important and I'd just like to spend just a few moments and just encourage you in that. Well done.
Yeah, well done Sometimes you just need to hear somebody tell you well done. They are good and faithful servant. Oh, yes It's not the Lord. I'm not the Lord not by any means, but by the same token too We need encouragement along the way Jesus was very quick to encourage his staff the people that were with him.
Yes, he had varying levels of access to his life but he was very quick to encourage the people around him and to help them train them, educate them, pray with them, be with them, mentor them. Now those are some of the sorts of things we need to happen in our life that we need to be receiving but we also need to be giving. So sometimes some of the things that we need to do is just find somebody to mentor and impart to, because that will help us just pause and pray for a moment. Pause and think on this.
Sometimes we need, because you've made progress, because you're now being attacked, sometimes we need just to go aside and just spend a bit of time with somebody else and just assist them, because that gives you time. It gives you time to pause, to seal up, pause and consider. And pray, seek wisdom, seek the goodness of God, seek the counsel of others. Friends, we're out of time for today.
Remember to go to church somewhere this week and always be thoughtful and mindful of the incredible words of the Apostle Paul. He said, "You be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you."
Please join with me next week on this station and we'll really start to unfold what
to do when frustration attacks, how to navigate through these obstacles so we can
beat it so it doesn't beat us. God bless. Thanks for joining with us on this podcast. We are dedicated to helping you become all you can possibly be in Christ Jesus. Please do check out the resources at livingsuccess.org, God bless.
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