Today is Wednesday, May 28th, 2008; Karen's Korner #1323

Anne Graham Lotz, who came to Des Moines for a two-day revival in April, followed up the sessions with a DVD Bible study series on the book of "Revelation". There are about one hundred seven-week studies being conducted around the state of Iowa as a follow up.
 
Week number four's lesson was held in Clarion night before last; the title was "Hope When You Are Discouraged". The study is on Revelation, a book of the Bible I  find to be confusing and hard to understand.
 
Anne is breaking it down in such a way that it helps me to make sense out of it and learn some important life lessons. Chapter four was this week's study materials. It talked about God being on the throne and Jesus sitting at His right hand, with elders and other creatures sitting around the throne worshipping God.
 
So what does that have to do with us today, if we are discouraged?
 
We can take from the study that Jesus is Supreme as Lord and He is Sufficient as Lamb. No matter our circumstances, Jesus is seated on the throne at the center of the universe--seated in beauty and love. And that there are those who encircle this throne as a court in heaven.
 
Jesus provides security, authority, activity, intensity, purity, and comformity to life.
 
I came to the study discouraged. I didn't like Jamie being sick and in the hospital. I don't want to deal with more illness in the lives of anyone in our family. I want them well and probably not sick in the first place!
 
So what do we do, what do I do, when we get something different than we want?
 
We need to remember who we are; remember Whose we are and defeat those discouraging thoughts which drag us down. We need to do what those surrounding the throne in heaven do and say (from Revelation 4:8, 11 in part):  "Day and night they never stop saying, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.....You are worthy to receive glory and honor and power.......'"
 
Words like that coming out of our mouths, our minds, and  our hearts; words of praise and thanksgiving, whether we feel like it, act like it, or think like it......will begin to defeat any discouragement!
 
Praise be to God!!

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