Rochelle Jones shares inspiring words and Bible passages about trusting in the Lord's process, and never giving up on your dreams because of the resources you have access to at the time.
WBCA Podcasts
Never Give Up "Where Giving Up Is Not An Option"
[ Music ] >> You're listening to WBCALP 102.9 FM, Boston, Boston's Community Radio Station. [ Music ] >> Hello, hello. You're listening to Never Give Up. We're giving up. It's not an option. I'm your host, Rochelle Jones. Good evening. Good evening. Pray all is well with you. We were just talking about mandates. What do you feel God has mandated you to do? What is He gifted you to do? And then the question is, are you walking in that? And I consider it an honor, a joy that God allows me to be able to encourage you. And just speak life over you, you know, those who are listening. I know that, you know, challenges occur, afflictions occur, struggles occur, all those things. It's a part of life, you know. And the Bible teaches us that we've got to count it all joy. Well, of course, we're not counting it joy because we're actually going through. You know, but we're counting it joy because that's the posture we take as we await the outcome of what the Lord is going to do. Amen. And what He's going to do through us. I know sometimes it can be conflicting messages, one message could be, you know, you know, wait on the Lord. And I've heard also too, well, if you don't do, you know, God helps those who help themselves. And, you know, there's all types of things, but in the end, I have to rest on the fact that God is in control. He's in control. Now there's things and setbacks, of course, strongholds and sometimes we might need a little deliverance sprinkled with some prayer and some encouragement, some love, some motivation. You can do it. And I thank God because the Word of God really provides all that, you know. You can just remember that, you know, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. You know, well, does that mean if I never went to medical school, I could perform surgery? No, it doesn't mean that. But it simply means though, if you're contemplating going to medical school and you're worried about, well, how I'm going to afford that and I'm going to pay for that. We say sign up, sign up anyway, and it just might be a chance to get in. And if you get in and it's God's will, he's going to provide, whether it's through grants or scholarships or a donor who just, you know, decides to just give and pay your tuition. You just don't know. But why stay stuck and hung up on in the midst of the thinking of it? I say, try and see. I remember one time my daughter said she wanted to attend this school that was going to help her design websites a little better. And you know, the school was pretty costly and of course at the time she brought it to me. I didn't have an idea of how we were going to pay for it. And I'm like, well, if you get in, we'll figure it out. And we figured it out and she ended up graduating. I did have to Uber a little bit, but on the side. But nevertheless, what I'm saying is it's going to come. Like don't allow the goals and the dreams to be hindered because you're worrying about how it's going to be provided, where the money's going to come for. Because I am a stickler. I do believe that if God has given you the vision, then he's going to give you the provision. And I mean that for real, for real, you know? And it's been my experience that God comes through. And we don't always know how. Sometimes we don't want loans and we might can't get a loan. But I remember when I needed, my car was just like junk and I needed a car. And I remember I had gone, you know, maybe a year or two prior and they, you know, turned me down and for whatever reason. And, you know, so when the thought came again, you know, I remember, you know, coming out of prayer and, you know, from asking the Lord, hey, what I'm going to do, you know, about this vehicle. It wasn't safe to drive with the kids. And I remember I heard the Lord say, go to the bank and I'm like, go to the bank. Number one, it was closing like in 40 minutes. But I got all the kids in the bank and I mean in the car and we headed to the bank. We got in before it closed probably about 10 minutes. And which I'm pretty sure they could have been like, you know, it was on a Saturday. Like the nerve of you coming in 10 minutes before the bank is going to close. But there was shutting out the lights and closing the door. And I'm like, well, should I leave? And the lady said, no, once you make it in the bank, they'll serve you whether they're closed or not. They were running behind as well. Fortunate for me as I went back into the loan officer's office and just explained to her what I was trying to do. And she said, well, let's see if you qualify. And, you know, I had my fingers crossed, my toes crossed. I was like on edge, you know, and I'm like, I ought to want to be embarrassed. But I really felt an inkling to go in from the Holy Spirit after pressing into prayer, really. And, you know, she talked to me, asked me a few questions. You know, we had lots of similarities and, you know, it was a great experience. And she ended up saying to me that I qualified for a certain amount. And I could go to the car dealer and tell me you have a loan for that amount. And I was probably working less hours then than I was before when I had gone a year ago. And so, but God provided. What a window of opportunity ended up getting a what, seven passenger van. And, and so God provides. And I think we get often tried to figure it all out, all the details, you know, it's like I heard the Lord say, open this particular business. I don't, I don't have the facts, but you know what you have? You have the sensibility, you have the skills, the desire, and you have the Lord. And if somebody else has done it, guess what? You can too. You might have to ask a lot of questions. You might have to be directed to the location to get information. You got to be willing to do the groundwork. But the first step is getting that mental blockage gone. We're going to figure it out, you know, and, and it'll unfold before your eyes. It's, it's hard to, it's like your GPS. It's hard to get you to a location when you haven't even started the car, right? So you have to allow the GPS just, you know, take you street by street by street as you trust the process, get into your destination. And that's what we have to do with the things of God, with the things that he's put on our heart to do, we have to press through some of the obstacles. And obstacles tend to stop us, right? I mean, obstacles, especially if you experience something similar, it's like your brain starts sounding alarms, you start sweating, and you don't even want to deal, you know? And sometimes we do that with relationships as well. And it's time to, it just, you know, let the Lord expose those rough edges, you know, we'll call them rough edges. Let God expose it so that you can get rid of it, you know? We don't want you walking in ignorance and saying, well, I didn't know. I had an attitude, I thought my attitude was okay. Yeah, but about 10 people are telling you it's not. So at some point, you might have to do the work to investigate. And doing the work is, once you're getting started in it, it always unfolds. And at the end, you're so excited and grateful, amen? So I just wanted to encourage you with that. And then I wanted to lead off with a scripture. And I'm trying to think about where we left off last Sunday when we were kind of talking about, you know, having a praise in the midst of the pain and the storm, you know, it's almost like an oxymoron. How am I going to have a praise in the midst, you know, how I'm going to sing a song and a dry land and I'm familiar place and a painful place, you know? But even I like that song that Jonathan McRinnell sings, well, I'll call them limp. But even with my limp, hallelujah, I'm going to praise and serve the Lord, amen. And so I get it. I may not be, you know, at a level 20, but I'm going to give my level five and you don't want to listen to it. You don't have to. But a lot of people will make you feel bad, like, oh, you're, you're only a level five. You know, you only run a level five, you know, you're not a contender, you know, and maybe not today. But if you keep trying, you keep prevailing, you keep practicing, amen. You will be a contender, says the Lord if that's his will for your life, amen. So the Bible declares in Psalms 149 and three and Psalms has lots of scriptures if you're looking for opportunities to praise the Lord. And it says, let them praise his name with dancing, making melody to him with tambourine and leer and I love the sophisticated singers and there's a platform, but I also love the noise makers who want to make noise for the Lord, amen. I just pray it gets translated, right? I get, you know, from my mouth to God's ears that it becomes a sweet smelling savior, you know, to his nostrils, that he breathes in, wow, somebody's praising me with their heart, all of their heart, hallelujah. And here's the thing I said, I'm going to stop doing. I want to get involved in the praise and the worship. Like I don't have to be on the team, definitely don't want to do that. But I do want to be able to, even in my seat standing, whatever, I want to have a posture that God says, wow, she is all out, all in it, praising me with all of our heart, mind and soul, amen. And if you're not too old and your knees aren't too bad, I want to have a posture that it's on a bended knee, amen, worshiping on Lord, hallelujah. And so we were created to praise the Lord and it wasn't contingent upon, you know, just because, you know, we, we, we graduated from, you know, from grad school. So we'll praise, no, that even in the struggling grad school, even trying to get into grad school, even the duration of grad school, trying to pay for grad school until the completion of grad, grad school, we are praising the Lord, hallelujah. So Psalms one fifty one through six, praise the Lord, praise God in his sanctuary, praise him in his mighty heavens, praise him for his mighty deeds, praise him according to his excellent greatness, praise him with trumpet sound, praise him with loot and harp, praise him with tambourine and dance, praise him with strings and pipe, praise him with sounding symbols, praise him with loud clashing symbols, let everything that has breath praise the Lord, praise the Lord. I love that. I mean, God is giving us permission to praise him with whatever is in our hand, whatever a man that we can use, you know, what from tambourines to harps, amen to loud clashing symbols, even with our breath, even with the dance, we are going to praise him. And you might have to even be more intense about it when you're hurting, when you're going through, when you feel portrayed and rejected and abandoned. It's hard to have a praise and you feel abandoned, not loved or you're lonely. But that's when we have to sing a song, whether you make the song up or use one that someone else sings, amen, whether you go for an old classic or new contemporary, the idea is that you begin to open your mouth and praise him, hallelujah. Oh, you open your mouth and you begin to say, God, you are so amazing and great. Oh, greatly to be praised, amen. Oh, God, I adore you and love you, hallelujah. Thank you for reminding us that we are beautifully and wonderfully made, that we have been brought with a price and we have been created in your image, oh, let everything have breath, praise the Lord. If you don't play an instrument, you have mouth, you have hands, you have a dance, hallelujah. Use what's in your hand. Use what you have, hallelujah. David used the slingshot and five smooth stones, amen, even though he only used one stone, but hallelujah, he used what was in his possession. My question to you then tonight would be, what's in your hand? What can you use? What can you give God, hallelujah? And don't let the enemy silence that. Someone snarls and looks a certain way or says you're out of tune or out of tone or you're not in harmony, amen, hallelujah. I don't want to mess up your harmony, but I get, I just need to go where I can just praise him, where I could just be loud and crazy. I guess that's in my room. I guess that's in the shower and I'll just keep praising him there. I just can't stop praising the Lord. I just can't stop praising the Lord. I just can't stop praising him. Amen. Well, when you're down, you go to what you know, amen, not condemnation, not negative self talk, amen, not just trying to rehash those painful places, but you go to the place, hallelujah. You go to the rock that is higher than I, you go hallelujah to that place where God, you have met God before, sometimes we have to go back, amen, to where we last encountered God. Amen. Sometimes we might have walked and lost our, lose our footing, our steps, amen, but we got to go back to that place, amen, where we, last heard his voice, where we last hallelujah, was fervent and running strong for the Lord. I sought the Lord, hallelujah, amen. And He heard me and delivered me from all my fears, amen, hallelujah. You know, I just, I just can, I can just feel that praise going through the airways with my hands lifted up and my mouth fills with praise, with a heart of thanksgiving. I will bless the O Lord, thank you Lord for anointing us. I will bless the O Lord. I will bless the O Lord with the heart of thanksgiving. I will bless the O Lord, man, with a heart full of thanksgiving. I will bless the Lord, amen. Well, what did Isaiah 43 2 says? When you pass through waters, hopefully you swim, I will be with you and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned and the flames shall not consume you. I look at that as conditions, I mean, whether you're going through the waters, smooth waters, rough waters, rivers, that's fast, amen, flowing. And if you're at a rapid, that's really can be rough and dangerous, you know? Other than that, depending upon where you are in the river, amen, it won't overwhelm you, hallelujah. And when you walk through the fire, amen, man, that enemy's throwing fiery darts at you, when you're going through those struggles, you will not be burned and the flames shall not consume you. Don't let it consume you by you rehashing things over and over and over. At some point, break the cycle, break the rut, break where you might be stuck, and begin to say, "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name." Jeremiah said in 1714, "heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed. Give me, and I shall be saved, for you are my praise, amen." You are my praise, we sing, amen, we sing when we're happy, we sing when we're sad. That's the posture, that's the habit, that's what sometimes we have to do, amen, hallelujah. So that we can be shifted, supernaturally, to a new place, amen. I heard somebody say to me, "Hey, I spend a lot of time in the Word, I spend a lot of time with God, I spend a lot of time." And sometimes I wonder, "Yeah, but our continents should be a little different." That's just my assumption. My assumption would be like a duck complaining because he's wet, he's in the water. You'd be puzzled by that, amen. You would think like a duck is like, "I know that the water is going to run off my back, so don't why get bent out of shape, you spend your life in water, amen, hallelujah." And I know that we'd rather get to the place where God said I could do exceedingly and abundantly above all that you could ask or think according to the power that worked within you. I know we want to get to that place right there. And sometimes we have to sing in the valley, not just on the mountain top, but even in the valley you've got to sing. Even as you're climbing to get to the top, you have to sing, amen. And I know sometimes in that journey, the enemy wants to steal your song. Have you ever gotten to a place where you knew you knew this song, but you've been so bent down and so troubled to where you forgot the words. You forgot to even want to sing it, amen. And so we can't get to that place, we can't get to the place where we're struggling so much that we are not singing and praising and worshiping God just because we're a thankful heart for what he has done, for what he's going to do, hallelujah. And what about the praise? Thank you Lord for healing us and saving us. Thank you, Father God, you know, that's another reason. You know, I know a few people right now who are battling, you know, cancer and some other forms of sickness and wow, can you imagine you hear the doctor say that you have four stage cancer and they're not sure how long you have. I get the fact that what song can you sing? But I was standing next to a woman who had just gotten the news that she had four stage breast cancer and she began to sing, it is well, it is well with my soul. And I was trying to hold back my tears because I didn't want to like upset her. Like how are you going to be all throat off and crying, but I was so moved by the faith of this woman and the song that she's saying that's a little place and to still be able to find a song, to find a praise that I'm going to praise you anyhow, hallelujah. See, I know because John 10, 10 told me that the thief comes only to steal, to kill and destroy and we know that thief to be the devil, Satan. We know that he wants to take and hurt and bring pain. If I wanted to understand in that scripture there, the difference between the, the I came Jesus and the thief, the devil, then it seems to let me know right there their characteristics. The devil wants to steal, wants to kill and wants to destroy anything good in your life, especially if God did it and gave it to you. He wants to rip from you, amen, that praise, that thankfulness, that worship to God, he wants to take it right out of your heart, right out of your mouth, right out of your mind, then you won't hear what Jesus came to do, that you would have life and have it more abundantly. He wants you to forget that. So when you're setting your agenda, your goals, when you're thinking about the plan that God has for you, he doesn't want you to see it from that abundance, the life that he came to give you and the abundance that he came to give you. He wants you to see it from all the things he stole, trampled, that he tried to kill, that he tried to take, that he tried to destroy. You know, and destroy such a strong word, I can take something, but when I, I can take your toy, but when I destroy the toy, then you're not able to use it, it's, it's demolished. So don't let the devil steal your praise, steal your joy. Instead, rest in the peace, rest in his praise. Peace can be just words that begin to flow, that you usher in, it could be a song. Remember it could be symbols, harps, trumpets, but whatever you do, don't let the enemy take the words and the praise right out of your mouth. Amen. Hallelujah. And remember, just like Jeremiah, heal us, oh Lord, and we shall be healed. Save us, oh Lord, and we shall be saved for you are our praise. You are the reason why we praise. We're listening to never give up, we're giving up as not an option. I'm your host, Rochelle Jones. Tune in next week and remember greatness is on the inside of you. Blessings. [BLANK_AUDIO]