Panic Attacks By Ray Comfort Continued: GOOD REASON If we haven’t giving place to the devil, what is he doing in our lives? There must be good reason for him to be there. The only reasonable conclusion is that God has given permission. This happened in the book of Job. God allowed Satan to buffet Job so that he would grow in his faith in God. As I have said before, God has given us the Book of Job for our admonition and instruction. Study the following verse from the Amplified Bible: It is God who is all the while effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight (Philippians 2:13). We have established that God is at work in you. You have this demonic “buffeting” from which God will not presently deliver you because He is doing a good work in you. Therefore, what should be your attitude to this good work He is doing? It should be one of joy – because your joy is evidence of how much you trust God. If you trust Him, then you will rejoice for His goodness, and that joy will be strength to you. Take for instance a world champion boxer. His coach loves him to a point where he wants him above all things to be a winner. So what does the coach do –buy him a sofa, a TV, and potato chips? No. Instead, he places weights on his shoulders and resistance against his arms. He will even look around for the toughest sparring partner he can find. If the boxer doesn’t understand what his trainer is doing, if he doesn’t have faith in his methods, he will get depressed and lose heart. But is he knows what’s going on, he will rejoice now in the trials because he sees, through the eyes of faith, the finished product. That’s why God is letting the devil loose on you: to make you strong. Paul says, For our light affliction, which is but for a moment [in the light of eternity], works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory (2 Corinthians 4:17). Afflictions work for us, not against us, if we are in God’s will. How is your joy when the Trainer brings the resistance your way? How much faith do you have in Him? The joy you have will be your measuring rod. For you, Oh God, have proved us: you have tried us, as silver is tried. You have caused men to ride over our heads, we went through fire and through water: but you brought us out into a wealthy place (Psalm 66:10,12). God takes us through the fires of persecution, tribulation, and temptation to purify us, not to burn us. He takes us through water to cleanse us, not to drown us. Look at the reason God chastens His children, given in Hebrews 12:9-15: Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them which are exercised thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed. Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; les any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many defiled. In other words, get it together. Don’t fall into discouragement, which is essentially a lack of faith in God. If you let your arms hang down in depression instead of rejoicing that God is working all things out for your good, you are saying that God isn’t faithful, that His promises aren’t worth believing, that He is actually a liar. There is no greater insult to God than to not believe His promises. The result of unbelief will be depression, discouragement, self-pity, resentment, then bitterness, which you will end up spreading to others. If you have never thanked God for His promises, for His faithfulness, for the fact that He is working with you, in you, and for you—if you have been joyless, or even despised what has been happening to you and moved into bitterness—then repent of the sin of mistrust. How insulted you would be if you were a faithful and loving trainer, and your boxer, for whose good you are laboring, began to despise you for what you were doing. On the other hand, if you are “exercised thereby,” the result will be the “peaceable fruit of righteousness.” In other words, you will end up living a life that is in complete righteousness, and bring a smile to the heart of your heavenly Father. Look at Hebrews 12:11. Notice the word “afterward.” That one word was my light in the dark tunnel. It meant there was an end to my terror, a light at the end of the tunnel that wasn’t a train heading for me. Write down the word “afterward,” and put it somewhere where you will be reminded that you have hope—and “hope never disappoints or deludes or shames us” (Romans 5:5, Amplified). Guard against condemnation. You are no “less spiritual” than those who seem to have complete victory. If you don’t believe it, think of the experience of Oswald Chambers, author of the mega-bestselling devotional My Utmost For His Highest. Now there’s a man whose life and words have been an inspiration to millions. He was “spiritual” in the truest sense of the word. However, the great author had four years in his life of which he said, “God used me during those years for the conversion of souls, but I had no conscious communion with Him. The Bible was the dullest, most uninteresting book in existence” (Oswald Chambers: Abandoned to God). He described those four years as “hell on earth.” However, he found that there was an “afterward,” saying, But those of you who know the experience know very well how God brings one to the point of utter despair, and I got to the place where I did not care whether everyone knew how bad I was, I cared not for another on earth, saving to get out of my present condition (ibid). If you have panic attacks or agoraphobia (fear of open spaces), don’t fall into the deep pit of self-pity, because it has ugly bedfellows—discouragement, joylessness, condemnation, despair, and hopelessness. The sides of the pit of self-pity are very slippery, but there is one firm foothold. It is the uplifting stairs of thanksgiving. Let me explain how you can get your foot into it. NEXT POST: AN ATTITUDE OF THANKSGIVING
Posted on: Fri, 09 Aug 2013 12:35:37 +0000
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