DISCERNING THE VOICE OF DISCOURAGEMENT PT1

MEMORY VERSE: and he spake that saying openly, and Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, Mark 8:32.

BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: 1 Sam 26, 1 Cor 7, Ezek 5, John 6

BIBLE STUDIES: Mark 8:31-33

In Mark 8:31-33, Jesus called His disciples and began to brief them of the plan and purpose of God for His life. He hinted them of the rejection He was going to face while fulfilling the plan and purpose of God. He summarized the challenges and pain ahead of Him. He told them how He needed to be beaten because every stripe was going to cater for every disease known to mankind. He told them how He needed to go through pain because His pains were going to bring us joy. He told them all these were temporary because at the end He was going to get a name that is above every other name (Philippians 2:9-11). After speaking Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him in other words discourage Him from dying on the cross of Calvary. Thank God Jesus rebuked Him and carried on to please His father in heaven.

When the Lord is about to do something great in a life especially moments before the appointed time, the voice of discouragement will come. The voice of discouragement is the voice of the devil. The voice of discouragement can come through our thoughts. When the enemy knows that the Lord is about to reward a brother for his labour of love in the vineyard of God, he will use the voice of discouragement to distract him. When he knows that a particular service is going to mark a turning point in the life of a sister, he will use the voice of discouragement to ensure that the sister does not attend the service. He might tell the sister all these while you have been going to church ,why not rest this Sunday and go the next Sunday.

Friends I want you to know that the voice of discouragement will always come when breakthrough is around the corner. Few days to the submission of my final year project, the system I developed stopped working. I and the project supervisor worked on the system but all to no avail. On my way to work the voice of discouragement came through a thought that I should quit because God was not in the project. If God was in it, the system will not develop fault at the last minute. The voice advised me to inform my project supervisor of my decision to quit and re-submit a new project proposal the next year. Meanwhile my project supervisor was busy with my project trying to get the system to work but I didn’t know. Any way I decided not to give up and try again when I get home. Around ten minutes later my project supervisor called me that the system was now up and running. The enemy knew that breakthrough was close so he put pressure on me to quit. If I had informed my project supervisor of my decision to quit, he would have quit working on the system and that would have been the end but thank God I didn’t.

TO PONDER: You stand a chance of succeeding when you don’t quit.