Transcript
Hello everyone, thanks for joining with me on another "Helping You Become" podcast. I pray it's a blessing for you. Well friends, turn in your Bibles please to
Philippians chapter 4 and also while you're there, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5.
I'm going to continue on with our study from last week. This will be "Beating
Frustration before it beats you, Part 6.
Talking about frustrations, task as a spiritual enemy of your life, it's to cause your purpose to cease, to bring your purpose to zero, and to cause your purpose and your plans, that calling that's on your life, that if you like specific project that the Lord has spoken to your heart about. The thing that you're doing to cause your purpose and plans to fail, because that is the role of your enemy frustration,
it's vital we need to know, and it's vital that we do know what we need to do
when frustration occurs.
When frustration is happening, what do I do. So we're going to look at part two if you like or the second of the sessions I'm going to do on the how to do's when frustration attacks your life.
Father God, thank you for your word. Holy Spirit, thank you for revelation, Lord divine instruction, actionable intelligence, Lord that we can receive today and put into our life, put to work in our life, Act upon and receive the benefits and the joy thereof. Lord, steer and guide our study as we honour You today with the seed of time and obedience to Your Word. And we ask it all, Lord God, in Jesus' name.
Amen.
So, what to do when frustration occurs? I said last week, the first thing is to pause and pray. Sealer, stop and think on this, pause and think on this, pause and consider this, yes? I think it's about 74 times in Psalms and Habakkuk that the word Selah, S-E-L-A-H, comes up to pause and pray, pause and consider and then if you lack wisdom, Ask of God who gives liberally, not grudgingly and won't upbraid us because we lack knowledge in a particular area at a particular time.
Remember, life is learned. It's not, you're not just born automatically knowing. No, we learn. That's very important. You're not university ready when you're born. You have to go through a process and learn, learn, learn. Learning is a continual lifelong calling. It's part of that which God calls us to do is to be continual learners.
So what do we do? We pause and pray and we get wisdom and we get the counsel of others. A wise man seeks wisdom and attains to Godly counsel on Proverbs chapter 1 Verses 5 through to 7. The second thing I think we need to do when frustration attacks our life.
Oh dear me, I mean, man, I wish I'd known this study years ago. When frustration attacks our life, what do we do? The second thing we do, I believe, is in Found in Philippians chapter 4 verse 4. Rejoice in the Lord always and again, I say, rejoice. "Always delight and gladden yourselves in Him," as the Amplified Bible reads for us. "Delight and gladden yourselves in Him," and again I say rejoice.
Philippians 4 verse 4. These are some thoughts, as I said, taken from Scripture on how to navigate through the obstacles of frustration. The second one is to rejoice in the Lord. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 16, "Be happy in your faith and rejoice, be happy in your faith and rejoice, and be glad hearted continually and always." Be glad hearted continually and always.
A dear friend of mine. In fact, I worked for him many years ago, a dear friend of mine called Kevin. He always says, and you say to Kev, "How you doing?" He says,
"I've never, ever been better. I've never, ever been better. I'm always well." That's
just Kev's disposition. "Be happy in your faith, and rejoice, and be glad-hearted continually and always, so important to have that rejoicing attitude, rejoicing mindset. There's a really strong reason for that, because as you're rejoicing, if you're of a happy disposition, a good attitude, if you like, a positive attitude, okay, that some people are glasses just always half full, it's never half empty. And that's really important because it's not just positive thinking or anything like that.
You get into the Scriptures and you meditate on what the Scriptures say about Jesus and being reconciled back to Father God in Christ Jesus with your sins forgiven. I tell you man, that'll make you happy. That'll give you a positive approach to life. Yeah?
Jesus hung on a cross and said, "It is finished." That'll give you a positive approach to life. He's done it all, I just have to walk in the victory of that and learn his ways, submitting to his words, submitting to his education, submitting to his instruction from the scriptures.
It's really simple when you start to break things down. My son hear the words of a father in Proverbs, all the way through Proverbs. It's really important that we rejoice and be happy, especially when you don't feel like rejoicing, yeah? But rejoice and be happy and be glad-hearted continually and always because that's so
powerful when it comes to underwriting your attitude of gratitude in your life.
We need to have our lives built upon an attitude of gratitude. Just be grateful.
Be grateful for the air in your lungs. Be grateful that you've factored you've got
a car. Be grateful that you've got food in your fridge. Be grateful that you've got
a job. And remember, I'm talking, you know, a lot of this is around our western
world because there are some people that don't even have a fridge. There's not even electricity in their village. Okay?
We need to be very grateful and live grateful lives before the Lord. It's very important, read Romans chapter 1. They didn't acknowledge God as God, neither did they give Him thanks. The thanks that He was due. And you read what happens, I'll let you find that in Romans chapter 1. But if we have an attitude of gratitude, if we're constantly grateful, I'm so grateful for my children, I'm grateful for my job, I'm grateful for my wife, I'm grateful for the blessings of God in our lives, yes? Just be grateful, really important, because it leads into a joyful life.
And near my chapter 8 verse 10 tells us that the joy of the Lord is our strength, Yeah, the joy of the Lord is our strength. We see examples in Scripture where people are in prison and they sing and praises to the Lord. Yes, they're singing
praises to the Lord. And what happened? All the cell doors popped open. So, if you're, and there's a principle in that, if you're, you know, you feel like you're prisoned up, bound up and contained and captured in court.
They might be able to do that physically to your body, but they can't do that to
your spirit. You can rejoice, and again I say rejoice, and just be free. I heard a testimony of a man who was in prison for murder, and after he became born again receiving Jesus Christ as Lord, he was completely free, even though he was cooped up in prison.
A powerful money from that gentleman. And he said, "I've been freer in here than I ever was in the outside world because he had Jesus as Lord and he was free and he's a free of the weight and the burden of sin and he could renew his mind and he could renew and refresh his spirit to the living Word of God." Yes? So somebody just because they're in prison, they can be freer in prison than they ever were in the outside world. once you know Jesus Christ is Lord.
So the second thing is to rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice. It's very important to rejoice because when things aren't going right when your plans and purposes that you're laying down your life for are becoming frustrated. Oh dear me, it's easy to lose your joy. Spoken from somebody who's had a lot of experience at this. Okay, as I said, I wish I'd known this study years ago. It's so easy to lose your joy and things just become a grind. It just gets harder and harder and harder and harder. So easy to lose joy.
However, in any and every spiritual battle, we need to stay strong. We need to stay focused. We need to be able to go the distance. How do you do that? How do you go the distance? How do you endure? You endure through strength. You go the distance through being strong and the joy of the Lord is our strength in Nehemiah chapter 8 verse 10.
So joy, rejoicing, having a glad heart, being thankful, being positive if you like,
these things are all very, very important because they strengthen us on the inside
and they help solidify our mind, keeping the main thing, the main thing. And the main thing in our life is Jesus. The main thing in our life is the Word of God. The main thing in our life is worshipfulness and honouring and reverence to the Lord as a daily practice in our hearts and minds, okay?
These things are very important and if we get good at this then it's much easier to start to navigate through the other stuff that comes to try and attack us. So pray and pause, consider these things, get some wisdom, work out what's going on here, you know, all of that. And then, rejoice. Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice.
Now the next point that I have for you today is found in Proverbs chapter 27,
verse 23. Be diligent to know the state of your flocks, and look well to your herds. be diligent to know the state of your flocks and look well to your herds. What does that mean?
There's a very interesting word in Genesis chapter 1 and I've just picked up my King James Bible because I did a study on this some time ago and I took it out of Genesis chapter 1 and we see in verse 4 "And God saw the light, that it was good. In verse 10, "And God called the dry land earth and the gathering together of the waters he called sea, and God saw to it that it was good." He saw to it, verse 12, "And God saw that it was good." Verse 18, "And God saw it was good." Verse 21, "And God saw it was good. Verse 25, "And God saw that it was good." Verse 31 of Genesis chapter 1, "And God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good."
The word "saw" there in the Hebrew means to see, to behold, to consider, to gaze, to take heed, to look on, to perceive. I like to say it this way. To see and understand what it is that you just saw. To see and to understand actually what it is that you're looking at.
Proverbs 27. Be diligent to know the state of your flocks and look well to your herds. Be diligent to know the state of your flocks and look well to your herds. What am I saying in all of this? Evaluate what is going on. Evaluate just what is going on. What's happening in your plans and your purposes? What's happening here?
So pause, pray, rejoice and evaluate. Pause, pray, rejoice, evaluate. Take stock. See what's going on. Okay. Now, the next one, the next point that I've got for you is found in First Kings. Now, I'll just turn over there in my amplified Bible and I'll read out of verse 21.
This is a really important point. This is an interesting idea, this here. Elijah came near to all the people and said, 'How long will you halt and limp between two opinions?' If the Lord is God, follow Him, but if Baal, then follow Him, and the people did not answer Him a word.
How long will you halt between two opinions? Now I love it over here in Joel chapter 3 and in verse 14, it's really interesting in the amplified Bible. Verse 14, "Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision." Wow, isn't that a big sentence?
"Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision."
Now, we're not looking at Joel chapter 3 textually here just for a second, but I'd just like to just think on that idea. The Valley of Decision. You know, have you ever been there? Have you ever been in a place where you've got to make some decisions, but you just don't know what to do? There might be two or
three options, there might be several options, and to do nothing is an option. Just
to wait some more time is also an option. But if I wait, what's going to happen?
You know, what's the ripple effect of waiting? What's the ripple effect of acting? What's the ripple effect of acting and getting it wrong? Oh dear me, the valley of
decisions, multitudes and multitudes. There's so many options and so many ramifications, if I get it wrong, man! Have you ever been there? Yes? How did you deal with it at the time.
Making a decision. Making a decision. At some point you have to decide what your next move is going to be. You pause, you pray, you rejoice, you evaluate, and then you're going to need to make some kind of decision.
Now Proverbs Proverbs 15, very important, Proverbs 15 and in verse 22,
where there is no counsel, purposes are frustrated. Does that ring a bell? Is that the topic that we're on? But with many counsellors, they are accomplished. Purposes become frustrated when there is no counsel.
Now obviously you have to get counsel from godly wise people that have also gone
the distance. That's really important. I said to my accountant one time, what is your net worth? I don't think you like the question and I clarified and I said because I don't want somebody who's got less money than me managing my financial affairs. I want somebody who's smarter than me financially. That's why I'm coming to you as an accountant and as a financial planner. I want someone smarter than me.
And that's the principle here is with other counsellors, other counsellors in your world, the people that God has brought into your world. And if you haven't got any people in your world that can help you in this particular area, then go outside of your world. Talk to somebody. They will know someone who knows someone who knows someone.
Okay, you're four people from anyone on the planet. You're four people from anyone on the planet. Years ago in Newcastle when we were living there, there was a young lady in our church who was the neighbour of Miss Universe, and Miss Universe knows Donald Trump, who became president of the United States for a period of time. So a young girl in our church, her neighbour, was associated with Donald Trump through the Miss Universe connections. See that's just an example.
You're literally four people, three or four people from anyone on the planet. God can get answers to you, but you have to stay teachable, because while you and I stay teachable, you and I stay reachable. If we're teachable, then we remain reachable. So how do we know what decision to make?
How do we decide our next move? Well, perhaps it has to do with counsel. Where there is no counsel, purposes are frustrated. Well, we want to try and stop the frustration. So we walk down the path of counsel. Now, we also remember in Proverbs chapter 1, I read this last week in verse 5, the wise will also hear an 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, really important, so frustration can also be hindered and wouldn't it be good to frustrate frustration?
Yes, we can attack frustration back through wise counsel. So we're nearly out of time for today friends. I'll just start to recap a little bit. What do we do navigating through the difficulties of frustration when frustration attacks our life. First thing we need to do is pause and pray. Pause and pray.
If any of you lack wisdom, let Him ask of God. The second thing we need to rejoice and again I say rejoice. How important is that? Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice. Delight and gladden yourself in him. Be happy in your faith and rejoice and be glad hearted continually and always. Be glad hearted continually and always.
Very, very important that that is an attitude of gratitude in our own hearts and minds. So very important because that helps with thankfulness. The next thing was to evaluate. Be diligent to know the state of your flocks and look well to your herds. Remember Genesis 1 verses 4, 10, 12, 18, 21, "God saw, God saw, God saw to it, that it was good. He saw to it, to see and to understand what it is that you just saw.
We need to evaluate what's going on. Very important. And then the next step is to
start to move towards the decision. Decide your next move. There are many, many options out there, multitudes and multitudes in the Valley of Decision. There are many options out there. Get some wise counsel so that we can start to narrow down our options.
Thank you for joining with me today. We're going to look into the study again next week as we continue on with some of the things that we need to do Because we navigate through this enemy of frustration and beat frustration before it beats us. God bless.
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