Copyright 2013 Theresa Harvard Johnson
Psalm 46:1 CJB, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”
This morning I awoke in intercession for scribes. I saw, heard and felt the depth of discouragement raging over many of them as they were pummeled into hopelessness. As I prayed, I could see hosts of angels dispatched to war on their behalf. It was such a battle because the discouragement was intense. It was then that I heard the voice of the Lord shout: “Arise! Arise! I am with you! I am with you! I have come to renew your SURE HOPE!”
As I sit here now, I am reminded of the days I have spent in discouragement concerning my own scribal ministry. I wasn’t gazing on the past; rather, I was remembering just how far God has brought me. For several seasons, I was on a rollercoaster. It was as if I would take one step forward and be pushed five steps back within myself. I often wondered if God was truly with me — that’s just how bad those setbacks were. Then, just before I was ready to throw in the towel and give up on this “scribal thing” God would make it known that he was “my refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”
And I was in trouble — at risk of losing my SURE HOPE.
(I strongly encourage you to read this uplifting article, “I Declare That Your Name Is Joseph!”)
Today scribes of the King, the Lord wants to make this known to you: YOU HAVE A SURE HOPE. (I will explain this phrase later.) He wants this reality embedded deeply into your spirit so that the powers of darkness WILL NEVER be able to bring you to the pit of discouragement ever again.
The adversary knows that you have been called and chosen by the Father! He KNOWS how powerful you are, and the threat that you are to his wicked darkness. So he uses doubt and discouragement to chisel away at your hope in Christ. You see, he knows that a spirit that remains in discouragement will ultimately be crushed under the weight of despair and hopelessness; and riding the tail end of this is the SPIRIT OF DEATH. This is literary the spirit of the thief (satan) that is operating in the world today according to the foundations of John 10:10. It literally comes to kill, still and destroy the work of the Lord. Its objectives are very simple.
· It comes to shatter your God-inspired dreams.
· It comes to destroy your confidence in Christ.
· It comes pollute and obscure the identity God has formed or is forming in you.
· It comes to take away your fight and your courage.
· It comes to steal your voice and shatter your assignments.
· It comes to distort and pervert God’s truth in your heart.
· It comes to kill the “YOU” God created you to be.
· Its ultimate goal is to release an anti-Christ spirit on the inside of you.
· It comes to completely demolish your SURE HOPE!
Discouragement for the believer literally means that we have no hope in what God has promised or what he has done! In the way we are using the term here, discouraged also means to be dismayed, afraid, to be broken in pieces, to be broken, to break down, to terrify and to oppress. In other words, all these things are taking place inside your spirit and soul!
Our entire existence, as believers, is based on the kind of HOPE that God ALONE GIVES. It is our hope in Christ sacrifice. Hope in a just and righteous future. Hope in contributing to the ministry of reconciliation entrusted to us. Hope in the PROMISES of God’s word and concerning our future. Hope that DEATH is indeed swallowed up in victory. Hope that we are LOVED fully by a Holy God, and not forgotten.
We are reminded that we have been given a SURE HOPE! Take a look at Hebrews 6:17-20 CJB, “Therefore, when God wanted to demonstrate still more convincingly the unchangeable character of his intentions to those who were to receive what he had promised, he added an oath to the promise; so that through two unchangeable things, in neither of which God could lie, we, who have fled to take a firm hold on the hope set before us, would be strongly encouraged. We have this hope as a SURE and safe anchor for ourselves,a hope that goes right on through to what is inside the parokhet(the veil),where a forerunner has entered on our behalf, namely, Yeshua, who has become a cohen gadol forever, to be compared with Malki-Tzedek.”
WOW! Do you see this? Hope, as he has given it to us is a SURE AND SAFE ANCHOR! This means that HOPE provides us with an unmoveable, unshakeable GUARANTEE — and oath of promise that GOD WILL KEEP HIS WORD! It means that HOPE, yes HOPE offers us PROTECTION under God’s promise!
SCRIBES!!!! Don’t let the enemy take this away from you!
HE WILL DO WHAT HE HAS PROMISED! BELIEVE HIM! TODAY I DECLARE OVER YOU THAT THE ENEMY OF YOUR SOUL IS A LIAR! YOU ARE WHO GOD SAYS YOU ARE! YOU WILL DO WHAT HE HAS DECLARED YOU WILL DO!
I am sure that what I am sharing with you is not revelation. But sometimes, when you are in the midst of a battle – struggling on every side — and your strength has waned or weakened, you need EXHORTERS in your life that will rise alongside you and FIGHT. YOU NEED A REPEAT/REPLAY of the Word of God. Right now, that is what the Lord has me doing in the midst of this blog post. You are being called to LIFE and fought over with a godly force!
Even as I type this, I can see the Lord pouring water over you and washing away all of the negative words spoken and actions done that pulled your spirit away from His truth and violently into discouragement. I seethe battleaxe tearing down your introspective nature, and the constant pull inside you to compare yourself with others. I see the oil pouring over His affirming hand upon you; and I hear the declarations reminding you of the call upon your life! He is dispelling the lies that have entered your ear gates and distorted your eagles-eye view. He is lifting up your defeated spirit and blowing life into your dry bones. He is declaring over you that YOU WILL LIVE and NOT DIE! YOU WILL WALK OUT YOUR SCRIBAL MINISTRY!
Can you hear him? Can you see him in your Holy imagination? Are you able to receive His heart for you by faith right now? He is speaking life into every directive, mission and assignment that HE ALONE has set aside for YOU to fulfill. He has CARRIED you to the finish-line in the midst of your weakness, and has used all of your trials and tribulations for YOUR good. YOU WILL WALK THROUGH THIS IF YOU DO NOT GIVE UP!
He is saying to you in this very moment, “… My grace is enough for you, for my power is brought to perfection in weakness. Therefore, I am very happy to boast about my weaknesses, in order that the Messiah’s power will rest upon me.”(2 Corinthians 12:9)
Yes, you might be in a storm but THERE IS FUEL IN THIS STORM to propel you forward in Him! The cry today from Heaven into the earth-realm for you is simply this: God is with you NOW! He is THERE! Reject the LIES! Your GOD, Your Father in heaven is with you.”
Scribes, if you remember nothing else from this article today I pray that you grasp hold of the phrase SURE HOPE. Cling to it today as you remember that God made a CONSCIOUS CHOICE to bring you into this world. AND what is in your hand IS NEEDED.
Romans 5:2-5 CJB, “Also through him and on the ground of our trust, we have gained access to this grace in which we stand; so let us boast about the HOPE of experiencing God’s glory. But not only that, let us also boast in our troubles; because we know that trouble produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope; and this HOPE does not let us down, because God’s love for us has already been poured out in our hearts through the Ruach HaKodesh who has been given to us.”
