Hope, Healing & Freedom Podcast: Episode 140
TRANSCRIPT
The word discourage means to deprive of courage, hope, or confidence. Have you ever been discouraged or are you maybe there right now? We all have been discouraged to one degree or another. In this podcast I am going to attempt to give you hope for those times when you feel discouraged. I can’t wait to see what God has to say about overcoming discouragement.
I’m Lee Whitman from Restoring the Foundations. I welcome you into this Hope Healing and Freedom podcast. If you listen to these podcasts on a regular basis, you know that Cindi and I are pretty real and vulnerable in these podcasts. Today is no different. I admit right up front that I have struggled with discouragement off and on over much of my life. So, if you are looking for someone who is walking perfectly above this thing called discouragement, I am not your guy. But if you are willing to let me encourage you with some of the lessons that I have learned over the years and am still learning even today, then come along and let’s see what God has for all of us.
As you know I am a huge RTF fan. Not because Cindi and I are the Executive Directors, and I get paid to be a fan. No. I love RTF because of the impact it has in the lives of so many people, me included. I don’t know where I would be today without the freedom and healing that I have personally gained from practicing the principles found in RTF ministry. Discouragement is just another of the issues that RTF can help with. You don’t have to put up with discouragement in your life. Many of us will look around and say, “You know I am not as discouraged as other people, so I am good.” Even a little discouragement is way too much. Pardon me while I jump off on a pet peeve of mine. Many of us who are children of Father God have been either taught directly or indirectly through the example of those around us that we have to settle for or accept some of these issues as being normal in our lives. It is just the way we are as humans, right? On this side of Heaven, we are going to have struggles. Yes, that is true, but Jesus said that He has overcome the world. In John 16:33 Jesus said, “I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” It also says in Colossians 3:2 “Set your minds on the things above, not on things that are on the earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”
Right there, those two verses are the beginning of overcoming discouragement. The battle to overcome discouragement is much deeper however than just the way you think. This is where the principles of RTF become so valuable in helping you get free from discouragement.
One of the factors that makes RTF ministry so powerful is that it deals with all four of the problem areas that we all have. In order to remove the roots of discouragement from your life, you must start by looking at the generational curses that you have inherited from your ancestors. RTF calls these generational curses, The Sins of the Father and Resulting Curses. We use the acronym of SOFC’s because it is easier to say. There are many SOFC’s that can put pressure on you to enter into discouragement. Let me list just a few. The first SOFC that might be a root of discouragement is abandonment. Every one of us has experienced abandonment either directly or indirectly through relationships in life or definitely through our ancestors. We have to back all the way up to the garden of Eden to see the beginning of this curse of abandonment. When Adam and Eve sinned by eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they abandoned God. God said don’t eat from this tree because on the day you eat of it you will die. We know the story. The serpent deceived them into believing that God was holding out on them, and they decided to eat this fruit. By that act of disobedience, they abandoned God and God’s offer to provide everything they needed. The immediate result was that they tried to hide themselves. They were the first ones to believe that we can hide from God. Do you ever wonder why people today try to hide their sin from God, like He does not already know about it. It’s because we inherit the idea that we can hide from God from Adam and Eve. I am sure we inherited some really good things from Adam and Eve but when I look at what they did pass on to us in the garden, all I see are bad decisions. They walked face to face with God in the cool of the evening. They messed that up. They were naked and unashamed. They messed that up and brought shame into our lives and caused us to have all of these fashion headaches with clothes that get old and wear out. They lived in a world where God provided everything for them. They messed that up and now we feel like we have to earn everything we receive.
Not only did Adam and Eve abandon God, but due to their sin God had to abandon them. He had to kick them out of His garden which caused them to fend for themselves. This abandonment has been passed down from generation to generation. We naturally look to our parents and family to meet our needs for love, value, and acceptance. The problem is that they cannot totally meet all of our needs, so we end up feeling abandoned by them. The best parents in the world cannot give us everything we need; thus we experience this curse of abandonment. Then as we look to others to meet our needs in life, we are going to experience discouragement because no human can meet all of our needs. This curse of abandonment pushes us toward discouragement, in other words we are predisposed toward discouragement because we are looking to the wrong source to meet our needs.
Other SOFC’s can contribute to discouragement. If you have depression in your bloodline it leads to discouragement. The curse of depression often has its roots in the family line. Cindi tells about knowing that her mother and her grandmother struggled with depression, yet she did not experience depression herself for most of her life. Then a series of very difficult events happened back-to-back and she found herself depressed and having a hard time even getting out of bed. She recognized what was happening and received RTF ministry to remove the root of depression. Depression brings with it discouragement.
Discouragement can also come from the SOFC’s of unworthiness, victimization, rejection, and many others. The key is to recognize that there might be some deeper roots to discouragement than just the current situation.
The next way RTF is effective in fighting discouragement is by dealing with the lies we believe. RTF calls these lies Ungodly Beliefs. We can easily pick up lies from our family, from our friends, from our own imagination, even from church. For example, we did ministry with Trent who believed that no matter how hard he tried, he would never measure up. That is discouraging. He learned this lie from his family, from his coaches, and from his church. His mom and dad would try to motivate Trent by comparing him to his two older siblings. Why can’t you get grades like your sister, they would say. Or why are you not as outgoing as your brother. He even learned this lie from his coaches who were only trying to motivate Trent. Trent told us about one game that he played really well, and he thought that maybe, just maybe he would get a “good job” from the coach. But no. What the coach said was something to the effect that Trent was getting closer to where he should be as a player, but he is not there yet. In other words, you are still not measuring up. In RTF ministry we start by breaking agreement with the lies and then ask Father God for His truth. When Trent did this, he heard Father God say, “I have one standard for measuring up. Do you accept my Son as your Savior? The moment you did that Trent you totally met my standard. You completely measure up and I have great plans for your life.”
There are many other lies that usually have the words always or never in them that will lead to discouragement. I will always be rejected. I will always have financial problems. I will never be successful. I can never lose weight. Lies like this lead to great discouragement. As the definition says, we lose courage, hope, or confidence. The key to getting free from any lie that is holding us in bondage is to come out of agreement with the lie. When you are believing a lie, you are making a contract with the devil which says devil I believe you, God I don’t believe you. Wow. We would never do that on purpose but anytime we are agreeing with a lie we are doing just that. In RTF ministry we pray this prayer to break agreement with the lie: “I renounce and break my agreement with this ungodly belief. I cancel my agreement with the kingdom of darkness. I break all agreements I have made with demons.” That is a powerful prayer to break our agreement, our contract, with the lie and with the kingdom of darkness. Then we are free to ask God for His truth. Once we hear God’s truth we must receive it. To receive means to aggressively lay hold of something. It is not just saying oh yes, that is true. It is aggressively taking that truth into us.
The next way RTF can help free you from discouragement is by allowing Jesus to heal your broken heart. Luke 4:18 says “He (Jesus) came to heal the broken hearted.” And he is really good at it. Wounds to our heart can cause us to be discouraged. Mistakes or failures in life can lead to discouragement. And in those memories of the wounds or mistakes or failures they allow the enemy to cause discouragement to grow. A few years ago, I was in one of the seasons where I was struggling with deep discouragement. I felt like a failure and a disappointment to Father God. As I poured out my hurt and frustration and disappointment to Jesus, I looked up and saw Father God drive up to me in a golf cart. He told me to get in with Him in His golf cart. I don’t know how to describe what happened in that moment other than to say I felt more love and acceptance than I have ever felt in my life. The fact that Father God wanted me to ride in His golf cart took every ounce of discouragement away. And as I look back on that memory, I don’t think we ever played golf. Just His desire to have me ride with Him broke off something. Jesus knew me so well that He knew what riding in Fathers golf cart would mean to me. He knows you just as intimately. He probably won’t drive up to you in a golf cart because that would not mean anything to you. But He will meet you in your hurt in such a way that all of the hurt, pain, and frustration will go away.
The last way RTF can help is by removing the demonic interference energizing discouragement. We have people tell us after ministry that they did not realize how much pressure they were under from the demonic until it was gone. The demonic is going to try and use whatever access it has to cause you struggle. RTF ministry takes away those access points so that when we tell the demonic to go, it has to do what it is told to do because of our authority as a believer and because of the finished work of Christ on the cross. Bam! Game over!
Don’t tolerate just a little discouragement. If you have any discouragement, it is too much. Jesus came to set us free from anything that is holding us back or hindering our lives. Go to our website at restoringthefoundations.org and click on the Get Ministry tab at the top of the page to locate a highly trained ministry team in your area.
PRAYER
Father God thank you for the freedom that is available in our relationship with Jesus. Would you encourage anyone listening today who is discouraged to reach out to an RTF minister to get the help they need. Give them the courage to stop tolerating discouragement!
