Rochelle Jones shares advice for developing a daily habit of prayer and not thinking of giving up as an option. With readings from Philippians 4:8 and 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, and a reminder that "he who has begun a good work in me is faithful to complete it" (Philippians 1:6).
WBCA Podcasts
Never Give Up "Where Giving Up Is Not An Option"
You're listening to WBCALP 102.9 FM Boston, Boston's Community Radio Station. Hello, hello, you're listening to Never Give Up. We're giving up as not an option. I'm your host, Rochelle Jones. Amen, it's so good to be back here, just able to inspire and courage, motivate, amen, and get us to think about some things, amen, and we try to get ahead of giving up, right? It's almost like we don't want to wait to it. We've given up to then try to hear a message like this because then we're probably not receiving it well, but right before the break, right before we throw in the towel, right before we say that said I've had enough, amen, and sometimes we say those words out of frustration but kind of don't mean it, you know what I'm saying? But at that time and at that moment, we mean it, amen. So whatever the case, we don't want to entertain it. We don't want it to be an option. I remember I was talking to a woman who's been married for like 45 years and I was like, "What is your secret?" And she said, "We don't, we don't divorce is not an option." So when they get upset and stuff and they don't allow themselves to say the D word, they say the divorce, you know? And so what their strategies, that sometimes we got to have strategies to help us get through some storms, you know? And so it's almost like I was counseling some parents and, well, you know, anyway, this couple was getting married and she had two sons and he was marrying into the family. And so it's like what is going to be your plan for discipline? And they're like, "What do you mean?" It's like you don't want to wait to have to discipline before you think about how it's going to happen because a lot of breakups is because, you know, no man is going to hit my child, you're not going to talk to my child, you know? And so you're going to have to have a plan that while things are, you know, comfortable while things are, you know, when you're not in a heated situation, let's say, you think about the plan and you have it on the refrigerator and everybody signs and agrees, like, you know, what are some of the offenses and how are you going to correct them? And so you already have that you're not grappling at straws in the midst of anger, right? So, you know, put the plan together. And I think that's the same thing too about not giving up is when you, you know, you have a plan like, "Hey, when, you know, you don't let things get too frustrated, you don't, you don't allow so many negative thoughts to come amen," because that's the thing, thoughts and feelings, they pile up and when we don't deal with them immediately, guess what? And all of a sudden, they take, take over and they take control of our thoughts, you know? So these are just practical things and tools we try to give. We also, we try to give the word of God because that's the ultimate voice that we want to follow, right? You know, friends, it's great because they're going to sometimes cosign your stuff, cosign, you know, because they care, they love you, you know? Or maybe you, are you the kind of person who doesn't really like to hear stuff? You know, you don't want to hear truth, especially when it's not an agreement with what you're feeling thinking and the decision you want. Like I'm not going to cosign for certain things. It's like you, you're going to examine yourself, but you're going to examine yourself based upon truth and not a lie, you know? And another thing to think about is, you know, what are your thoughts like, you know, sometimes just repeated thoughts and repeated negativity and, you know, those types of things, you know, self-sabotage and abuse, we're the biggest abuses of ourselves, really, by the things we say and how we treat ourselves, you know, we don't give ourselves a chance. We definitely don't allow ourselves to rest. We don't allow ourselves to feel the storm sometimes and a lot of times, you know, I was thinking, I was kind of reading about emotional eating, like people who eat their emotions. And so, you know, they get their hugs and love from the refrigerator per se. And a lot of the strategy behind that is simply slow down and think about what you're feeling. You know, if you're feeling bored or you're feeling, you know, down or, you know, stressed, you know, you don't have to get a donut to kind of to walk that through. But if that's been a habit of yours, then you normally gravitate towards that very thing that you're kind of using. It brings that comfort. Of course, it's fake. It's false comfort, but nevertheless, in your mind, you feel comforted by that. And so you just keep it up, the same with alcohol, cigarettes, when my nerves, the people say, when my nerves are up, I go get a cigarette, you know. And so whatever the device that you grab, you know, it's not healthy. The healthy thing to do is to kind of address it and, you know, and kind of deal with it and get to the root of it. Like, where did that come from? Number one, is it true or is it false, amen? And so we have this armor, but a lot of times we won't tighten up our bell to truth. You know, sometimes we argue based on lines and based on emotions and feelings of what somebody said or heard or what the cultural belief is at that time, you know. And one thing about trends, they come and go, but God's word is forever. God's word, you know, is there. It's everlasting. And so, you know, you just don't want to settle on false doctrine or trends and things like that to set up your opinion, but ask yourself what did the Bible said? Now you can Google it, you know. Give me scriptures about gambling, you know, and it'll straight up give you a few scriptures in the Old and New Testament about, you know, not trusting the Lord, you know, getting, trying to get quick fixes, you know, trying to try to win a million dollars overnight. Come on, we probably all have had millions of two millions of dollars when you think about all of our income that we've worked over a period of time, the different monies that have come through our hands, probably all equal to a thousand, a million or more. But how did we use it? How did we spend it? But back to this thinking, amen, sometimes I get sidetracked. But remember in Philippians 4, 8 says finally brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report. Listen, if there be any virtue in it, and if there be any praise, think on these things. And so that's the posture of thinking that we have to have, you know. He tells us, look, if thoughts are outside of those things, then guess what, he wants us to pull down strongholds and cast down imaginations, those thoughts that come against the knowledge of God. And so when thoughts are contrary to what God has declared, even in Philippians 4, amen, then we've got to pull them down, we've got to cast them, you know, cast them down. We've got to step on them, get them under our feet, don't give them any play. And that's the thing, we cannot play with the enemy. He's a military genius, an invisible warrior. And he comes against our heart, which is despitefully wicked, the Bible tells us, he comes against our thoughts, our minds, which is truly a battlefield within itself, you know. He makes us fight against a flesh in the spirit. And the Bible tells us the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they are mighty through God, they're pulling down of the strongholds. And so we're trying to fight spiritual things with carnal methods, you know. And I get, we, we, we since we sometimes gravitate back to what we know, and we have put more years and time on the flesh and knowing the flesh than we do the spirit, you know. No matter fact, you, you really can't find, I can find a TV show every night, but can you find, you know, now they have, you know, technology, you can watch preaching and things like that. But a lot of our services where we can participate in them, there is nowhere in the city where you can go to church every night, you know. And when I was coming up in the things of God every night, there was some church, somebody who had a church service or prayer service or testimony service or worship service. You could find somewhere, somebody's house, somebody's church, and I find it harder and harder to really connect with some type of spiritual activity nightly. So we're going to have to learn how to generate that, how to begin to, you know, create for us. I remember when, when they, the bottom was preaching one time and, and she was, it was called whaling women win. I believe that was one of the, the, the titles one year, whaling women win. And, and it referenced the fact that you might can't get to Jerusalem to the whaling wall or the Western wall, as they call it now, but you might have to get down on your knees in front of your washing machine and wail there. And so it's, it's about, you know, creating an atmosphere of praise and worship. You know, where do you and your family go when you want to begin to have an atmosphere, you know, come together as a family to pray. So are we are, I'm sorry, is our young people, um, watching us have a daily habit of prayer together as a family. And when we think about the spiritual heads, which are the fathers, the husbands, the men, those are the spirit spiritual heads of the houses. And when our houses are out of order, right, or we may have husbands and men in the homes, but are they adhering to all the big, local, uh, hierarchy? You know, everybody always says they want the woman to submit. I get it, but husbands, men, you know, where's that spiritual leadership in the home? You know, and, uh, and I'm not talking about for show coming to church, you know, wearing your suit and having your family that I'm talking about, you know, uh, I mean a, a Bible study prayer session, if not every night, at least a couple of times throughout the week, you know, um, our young men and young daughters need to see that spiritual life being manifested in the home church is just one Sunday, maybe a Wednesday, you know, but is that Sunday and Wednesday, uh, preparing and gearing you up to motivate you in your homes to pray. You know, and so, um, you know, those are things sometimes to think about, you know, we're talking about, we want God to come in and restore our homes and restore, you know, what the Kanker worm and the Palmer worm and the locus have stolen, uh, well, guess what, he's, he's stolen our prayers from out of our homes, you know, um, he's stolen hallelujah, us hearing the words together as a family within our homes. And, uh, so, you know, I'm motivated by, by this myself and it's like, you know, I want my granddaughter to, to see that if we, people who say we serve God, then you, when you worship somebody, when you worship something, like I, I, I'll just say this, and I hate to throw this name out there, but I can't think of another one. Um, I know people who really love certain artists, you know, singers and they let you know they got the t-shirts, uh, you know, whether it's a football game, we can, we can see a devotion to the team or to the, to the song, you got the t-shirts, you buy the concert tickets, you constantly sing in the songs or your quoteants, uh, different quotes from, from these people. And yet, um, well, what does devotion to God in the home look like as a family? I don't mean individually, but I mean as a family, you know, I try to throw a few ideas down, you know, Bible studies like, Hey, let's do this Bible study and we can come together once a week and have a discussion or let's pick a book and do a book club or something or a verse in the Bible and we come and discuss it, you know, try to get, you know, and sometimes that goes off very well, but then it's hard to be consistent. And so these are just different strategies that we want to try to bring about, uh, in our, in our home because guess what, pressure is coming. And I, I think about those vice grips, you know, the tighter, the more pressure you put, it can snap, it can snap wood if you grip that vice grip so, so tight and look, you know, when we look at pressure, pressure is really that force that's coming again a certain area. So it's normally pressure in the mathematical world, um, was, is basically the amount of force that is exerted per area, you know, so if you got a lot of pressure, um, you know, then it's a lot of force coming at you. And if you have little pressure, it's, you know, probably little force coming at you. But um, the fact is, is that, you know, uh, situations are, are, are effective at starting to affect, affect us and affect our homes and affect our society. And so Lord teach us how to, you know, overcome the pressure, you know, and, um, you know, pressure sometimes, you know, I'm thinking about it, uh, in a sense of like a boxer, you know, or, or wrestler, when they put a certain move on you and they have your hand in a certain way and they apply that pressure makes you tap out, right? And the enemy wants to use pressure to kind of tap us out, but God desires to use pressure to help us to learn some things and to grow in some things, you know. And so we kind of want to look at what the Bible says about pressure and, um, because pressure can lead to growth and maturity as well, you know, and, um, listen, but when we eat, listen, when that pressure comes, he's like counted joy, right? When you go through, uh, trials and, uh, of many kinds, because there's one thing that, that when pressure comes and then it meets faith, right? Because the testing of our faith produces perseverance and it let perseverance finish its work so that we may be mature and complete and not lacking nothing. So when that pressure comes, it can bring about maturity. If we don't snap, if we don't tap out, right? So pressure and trials can help us grow and, and build our faith and our character. But, you know, so that's what God wants, you know, our built up faith. He wants us, our maturity, amen. And so, I mean, we felt squeezed before in life. We feel the strain of life, you know, and the tension, the heaviness, I know you're feeling it now, you know, some of you have more bills than money and it's pressure. You know, some of you have teenagers who aren't listening, you know, walking out. You want to put hands on them, you know, but right now in this society, you can't really put hands on, on, on young people, you know, I mean, so many people used to say, oh, my mama used to, you know, you, you, you can't do it so much anymore. You know, and so there's a lot of pressure, you know, I, I, I, I, I know those mothers who have those young babies, one and two and three, they don't always want to listen. They don't listen immediately and that can make pressure, you know, make tired, you know, exhaustion, sometimes not getting proper rest can, can get you tired, apply pressure, you know, but got their, their all solutions. But God said, I want you to look at that pressure as, you know, that weakness, we're going to call pressure in this scripture, weakness, 2 Corinthians 12, 9 and 10. He said, but my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in pressure in your weakness, you know, so when we face overwhelming pressure, God's grace is enough to sustain us, allowing his strength to shine through a man, our challenges. And so the enemy wants us to tap out, but God saying, listen, allow this pressure, this weakness, I'm going to hell, I'm going to make it, you're going to become strong in it. Whoo. That's like super, I need supernatural awareness, Lord, because before I tap out, I mean, I need a strategy, you know, and it's funny because, you know, you practice long enough with your coach, he, he, he, he shows you moves that can help you when you're in certain pressure is locked up positions that, uh, if you play, if you, if you move quickly and you move strategically as you have been taught, it'll help you, uh, get out of these situations, many of these situations, you know, and so guess what? We've read the book, uh, amen, and never forget, I, I felt like I was drowning. You always refer back to scuba diving because that was my most recent challenge that I put myself into because I was trying to, um, see, see life different. And, um, and I remember, you know, things weren't going really well for me at, at that particular second moment and, uh, and all of a sudden the, uh, the instructor tapped me on my shoulder and he said, he said, but you've read the book, you don't panic, you know what to do. And it just reminds me, you know, listen, don't give up, you know what to do. When that pressure comes, you know, you know that it's going to build character maturity and strength. You know that that pressure is going to become strength that God's going to turn it around for my good. He also told us, listen, and you know, the enemy wants you to tap out and to give up, but God's wanting you to use it as an opportunity to cast that pressure on him, give that pressure to the Lord, amen, that when we have our worries and when we have our pressures, that God, that we can trust God because he cares for us, right? God is in control, that's a great strategy to have, knowing that God is in control, that we don't have to give way, we don't have to tap out, whoa, don't tap out. God is in control, but if I'm thinking that I'm the one in control, right, then I'm going to tap out because I think it all, and, and the enemy has a way of being able to trick us into thinking that it's all depending on me, you know, you know, I hear people use the term ride or die. Well, Jesus, you know, amen, the Holy Spirit, he's out, he's the real ride or die. He's the one who really is in your corner. He's the one who really will show up. He won't leave if he's saying he don't run off. He's right there, but I'm thinking are we so under pressure to where we're not even listening. Our solution is right there. The door is there, the answer is there, amen. The way of escape is there, but where's our focus, our mind is so on this problem, on this situation, you know, to where we don't look for the answer. The answer's there, you know, God gives us peace under pressure. Can you imagine that? He told us, he said, look it, look it. Don't be anxious about anything, don't allow that pressure to make you anxious. He said, listen, but with prayer and petition and Thanksgiving, prayer and petition and Thanksgiving, amen, present your request to God. And guess what? All of a sudden, the peace of God. So when we pray, we make our petitions with Thanksgiving, supernaturally, it transcends all understanding. The peace of God transcends all understanding. It's just like supernaturally and will God your hearts and your minds and Christ Jesus. When we feel pressured or anxious, we need the word of God, amen, hallelujah, to encourage us to pray and seek God's peace. God's peace in the midst of the storm, in the midst of the situation, don't get yourself so riled up like the disciples did when in the boat, they started questioning God, murmuring the God, you don't care, you over there sleep, Jesus, you don't care that we're about to perish. This boat is about to tip over, you don't hear the storm and it's like, why are you focused on the storm and not me in the boat with you? But anyway, Jesus didn't say all that. I probably would have said that, look what's up, you see me resting and I'm not worried about it. Why are you worried about it? And so a lot of times we send our own psyche into this state of fear, you know, and worry and pressure and that's all we see. But what do we see Jesus do? He spoke to the winds and the waves, right? He spoke to the, he spoke to the situation that was happening. What did he pray? Did he make petition, hallelujah? And he said, peace be still and everything became still, amen. And so we, we have to, these are tools that he's given us, you know, because during the precious times were being refined, during these seasons and of testing and trials were being refined, amen? Our character is being built, our hope is being built and hope will not put us to shame because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, right? Hallelujah, pressure can refine us. And so we have to allow ourselves to go through that, with that refining process. We have to know when Jesus was under pressure, amen, he was under pressure. When he was tempted on the mountain for 40 days, when he was in the God in the Gethymthae, you don't think it was pressure having to pray for all seeing all those needs and all those demands, amen, those people, amen, who needed his touch, that's got to be precious. But he turned to prayer, he, he sought solitude with God, amen, he stayed on his, on focus, on his mission. He was able to show compassion, you know, and forgiveness. He trusted God's will for his life. That can remove pressure right there. Trusting that God, he who begun the work in you is faithful to complete it. I want you to say that. He who begun the work in me is faithful to complete it. And it's his timing, his timing is perfect. Amen. I try to do good Lord, but evil is always present. Trust God's timing. Trust a man that he's aware of everything you're going through. He knows every hair on your head. He knows the number of hairs on your head, even those that came out in the comb or brush this morning. So if he's not worried about it and not upset about it, don't you be? Allow Jesus to teach you through the storms and the pressures of life so that the enemy doesn't have you tapping out. Hallelujah. You've been listening to never give up or giving up as not an option. I'm your host, Rachelle Jones, and I just need you to remember, hallelujah, the greatness is on the inside of you. And sometimes pressure comes to reveal it. Sometimes pressure comes so that you will realize really who you are. Amen. Hallelujah. Have a blessed week. [BLANK_AUDIO]