Seven Areas of Breakthrough This Year:
- Faith – your personal walk with God
- Family – family situations, with children, spouses.
- Finances – managing our money, etc.
- Freedom – areas of our lives that we have strongholds
- Fun – we need to enjoy life
- Field of Endeavor – your job or vocation
- Friendships – social relationships outside of family
- God is the One that invented fun.
- God created fun and Satan perverted it.
- God wants you to have fun.
The only reason that He created everything in creation was for the enjoyment of mankind.
One of the primary ways that Satan tries to steal your fun and your joy is through the power of discouragement.
Dis/courage/ment – courage is the root word for this word. The prefix “dis” means to “take out.” The prefix “en” means to “put in.”
You cannot be discouraged and be happy and have fun.
James 5:17-18 | NKJV (17) Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. (18) And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.
Elijah was a man with a nature just like ours. He did supernatural things because he had a relationship with a supernatural God but he himself was natural.
In other words, Elijah did not have some kind advantage that we don’t have. In fact, it was just the opposite. We have the advantage because we have the Holy Spirit living in us. Jesus said that it was more advantageous that He not stay here so He could send the Holy Spirit to live in us.
Elijah was a natural man just like we are and he got discouraged just like we can.
We want to look at how Elijah got discouraged and how God Himself dealt with that discouragement. This is how God did it.
Elijah has just come off a great victory overcoming the prophets of Baal and Asher.
1 Kings 19:1-4 | NKJV (1) And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, also how he had executed all the prophets with the sword. (2) Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time.” (3) And when he saw that, he arose and ran for his life, and went to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there. (4) But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he prayed that he might die, and said, “It is enough! Now, LORD, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers!”
Elijah goes from having one of the best days of his life to having one of the lowest days of his life the very next day.
God was the only One with Him and therefore God had to step in and minister to Elijah to get him back on the road that He wanted him on. You do not have fun when you are down.
Here is how God deals with discouragement:
God desires to refresh you.
1 Kings 19:5-8 | NKJV (5) Then as he lay and slept under a broom tree, suddenly an angel touched him, and said to him, “Arise and eat.” (6) Then he looked, and there by his head was a cake baked on coals, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank, and lay down again. (7) And the angel of the LORD came back the second time, and touched him, and said, “Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for you.” (8) So he arose, and ate and drank; and he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights as far as Horeb, the mountain of God.
Elijah is physically, emotionally, spiritually drained. For three and half years it has been a very intense time of warfare for Elijah because he became the enemy of the entire nation because he said it was not going to rain.
The enemy attacked him through a person when he was doing the right thing.
The enemy attacked him when he was worn down and worn out.
Some of us cannot hear from God because we are too tired. Have you ever tried to talk to a tired child? What do you say to them? “Go take a nap.”
The Bible is telling me that I need to take a nap and eat some cake!
Examine the word “recreation.”
Re/create/tion – when you recreate, you recreate yourself. God is a God of recreation. Just think about the New Birth.
Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is take a nap.
God did not even speak to him until he was physically refreshed.
Luke 5:15-16 | NKJV (15) However, the report went around concerning Him all the more; and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by Him of their infirmities. (16) So He Himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed.
If Jesus needed to withdraw because of the success of ministry then how much more do we need to withdraw. The more people He ministered to, the more draining it is.
God desires to listen to you.
1 Kings 19:9-10 | NKJV (9) And there he went into a cave, and spent the night in that place; and behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and He said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (10) So he said, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God of hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I alone am left; and they seek to take my life.”
Notice how this conversation started. God asked Elijah a question. God was wanting Elijah to talk to Him.
God asks us questions because He knows that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks and you will talk to Him out of your heart. When you get your heart out in the open, that is when God can begin to minister to you.
It is OK to gripe to God. It is not OK to gripe about Him or gripe at Him but we can gripe to God. He is so secure that it does not bother Him when we do that.
You will never get past being discouraged until you are able to talk to God about what is going on in your life.
God desires to talk to you.
1 Kings 19:11-12 | NKJV (11) Then He said, “Go out, and stand on the mountain before the LORD.” And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; (12) and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.
If you want to hear the still small voice, you are going to have to sit still through the wind, the earthquake and the fire.
In other words, you are going to have to slow down to hear God.
Sometimes, all of these things happen and then you can hear from God.
If you are discouraged, you need a word from the Lord.
God desires to give you some friends.
Do you remember how Elijah said that he was the only one that was left?
1 Kings 19:18 | NKJV (18) Yet I have reserved seven thousand in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.”
The enemy will get you to think that you are the only one. Remember, if the lion can get you separated from the flock, he has you. If you are a sheep, the best think you can do is get right in the middle of the flock.
God then gave him someone that was like him that would walk with him for the rest of his life.
God delights in giving life-long friends. Your spouse is your first life-long friend but God will give you other life-long friends that can help you and support you.
Mark 6:7 NKJV (7) And He called the twelve to Himself, and began to send them out two by two, and gave them power over unclean spirits.
Jesus always sent people out in more than one. You cannot accomplish in life what God has called you to do alone. You need a team.
If you want to go to a new level in fun you must deal with discouragement.
This is how God wants to overcome discouragement:
- God desires to refresh you.
- God desires to listen to you.
- God desires for you to listen to Him.
- God desires to give you life-long friends.