Learning How To Encourage Ourselves

There is just something about the human nature which can be touched by the encouragement of others.  It makes our day, it can also lift our spirits and comfort us.  But truth will have us understand that the encouragement we need and enjoy may not come at all times from those we know can encourage us.

At times when we may need encouragement the most, may never come when we need it the most.  This is not a reflection on those who care and love us, but it just shows we as people, we have not the power to be everything for everybody.  But we do have someone who can be there for us, someone who has the power to encourage us and comfort us when and whenever we need to be.

With Christ within us, we have all that we need to encourage ourselves in times when the encouragement we need has not come from anywhere else.  Learning how to encourage ourselves through Christ is very much encouraging. 

Transcript

Pastor Rickey D. Dixon 0:00

Praise God. Praise God. We give honor to God this morning for allowing us to come together one more time to hear the word of the Lord. We are so grateful and so thankful to all of you that has joined us and will be joining us for this conference line podcast service on this fourth Sunday of May 24th, 2026. Welcome, welcome to the Holy City Spirit of Truth Ministries and to the Bearing Witness to the Truth podcast. I'm your host, Pastor Dixon, and I'm here to bring you the word of God this morning, and I hope you're ready to receive it because the Lord has given truly a word to give unto you this morning, and we're going to dive right into it. And we're going to hear what thus says the Lord. Prepare your hearts, prepare your minds for the truth of God. Though we are truly thankful, we truly, we know we truly, I hope we are truly thankful and grateful for each and every day that the Lord has blessed us. We should make it our business to live each and every day without complaining and without ungodly murmuring about this ain't going right, about that ain't going right. We should always see the precious blessing of life as a gift from God. And no matter how hard it may get sometimes, yet should we thank Him for everything in the day that He has allowed us to see. Life is an amazing thing. It's precious. And life is meant to be lived. There will be good times, and there most certainly on this earth we live in, we will have also some bad times. It is this area I want to talk to you this morning. Knowing how we must handle these bad times, depressing times, those times of discouragement, those times of great trouble, those times of worry, wondering what is what in the world is going on in my life. What is what in the world is going on in the world? Those woe is me moments, why me, Lord? And things we we just don't understand why they are happening. Let us be clear of something which may not have been taught unto many of us. There are evil spirits, and they come to be a hindrance and a curse to the blessed life God wants us to have. We need to understand that. Do y'all remember what Jesus Himself said when he walked this earth? He says, remember, he said that the thief cometh not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy. But he says, I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. Jesus wants us to have life, but he also wants us to have something that's even better and greater than life, and that's through him that abundant life. That can only come through him. See, much of our discouragements and our unhappiness is due to the fact that we have allowed the thief to rob us of the life which is more abundant that the Lord has come to give us. We just simply let the devil just rob our lives. These foul spirits of despair and unhappiness and these foul spirits of misery. See where the enemy would have us hate, God has love. Where the enemy would have discouragement, God has encouragement. Where the enemy would have despair, God has joy. Where the enemy would have us walking around in darkness, our God has the light. We must cleave to and hold on to what God has for us. And we must resist everything else. People of God, in order that we may do this, we must learn some things which our Lord will have us know. One of these things means we must learn how to keep ourselves encouraged in the Lord. And this is something we're gonna have to learn this morning. How to keep ourselves encouraged in the Lord. We must learn this by us learning his word. This morning's message entitled Learning How to Encourage Ourselves. We're gonna learn that this morning. How to encourage ourselves because the enemy wants to keep us discouraged. The enemy wants to keep us in despair. The enemy wants to keep us in misery. But the devil is alive. We're gonna learn how to encourage ourselves. Now, know this. I'm not going to sugarcoat nothing when it comes to the word of God. We ain't got time for that. We're on high alert, and it's high time that we'll be about preparing ourselves the right way. We ain't got time to sugarcoat and the lag and prolong things. We got to get in a hurry because Jesus is on his way back. See, as we will learn how to encourage ourselves through Christ Jesus, just know that the enemy will be poking around to see if he can rob us of what we have in God. But we can't let him rob us. We got to refuse to let him rob us any longer. Also know that the Lord will at all times, and sometimes, when we're going through stuff, let me explain it like this. There are gonna be some times when the Lord would allow, hit me on this and understand where I'm coming from. There are gonna be times the Lord will allow the enemy to try us, to test our faith, to test our strength in Him. See, when we reach certain levels and stages in our spiritual growth and development, it will be on the level which you can endure if you are not spiritually lazy. And that's been a lot of the problem for a lot of us. Too many of us are spiritually lazy. We don't realize we got to fight this fight to stop this devil from just wreaking havoc on our lives and bringing all this discouragement and bringing all this unhappiness. We got to put up a spiritual fight and cease to be spiritually lazy, spiritual procrastinator. See, for us to continuously grow in the Lord, some areas in our lives will have to be tested from time to time. But it is not for us to flip or slip into a state of more discouragement, but for us to rise up to a higher place of spiritual strength in the Lord. It's gonna make you stronger. If we are going to learn how to encourage ourselves, we must come to know this and accept this. I remember some, I remember something, Brother Job in the book of Job. I remember some brother Job said to Sister Job in the book of Job, chapter two, when she said to him, he was going through all that he was going through, we know the story. He was going through all that he was going through, and his own wife came to him and asked him, Do you still retain thy integrity? In other words, do you still, after all this you're going through, still want to maintain your integrity by holding on to the Lord? Yeah, that's what he's gonna do, and that's what we should do. No matter what you go through, you continue to hold on to the Lord, you continue to believe, you hold on to your spiritual integrity, no matter how much you hurt it, no matter how much you have to endure, no matter how much you suffer it. Listen to what he told her. He says this. He said, What? He said, Well, he's gonna say his wife, Well, shall we receive good at the hand of God? And shall we not receive evil? In other words, you think because we and God we all gonna have good times? You don't think we're gonna have to go through some bad times sometimes? In all this, the Bible says this. In all this, did not Job sin with his lips. That means no matter what he was going through, no matter how he was hurting, no matter how much he was searching, he did not say a word against God and what God was doing in his life. And some of us need to learn, sometimes what we're going through, that's just God working in your life to get you stronger, because some of us is still too spiritually soft and we can't take nothing. We can't handle nothing because we're still too spiritually soft and we have not learned how to endure hardness as a good soldier. And God's gonna have to let some things happen to harden us up now. Because if we don't harden up against a lot of things that come on this world now, how do you think we're gonna stand when the bottom falls out later? When the body of Christ really is gonna have to go through some things when the antichrist gets in. And so he tells his wife, should we not receive of God's hand just good things and not gonna have to go through nothing? If Jesus suffered up the body, the Bible said, arm ourselves likewise with the same mind, that we're gonna have to suffer too? But we need to recognize what's happening and not always start gravitating to a pity point and a woe-is me moment. Just straighten yourself up and let the Lord work in you what he needs to work in you. What many religious leaders have failed to teach us is that the realities of this life hold both blessed times and going through suffering times. That's a balance. There has to be a balance. There's a time for our classes and school year to start, in a sense. And then if we pass, you may get a short spring break after you have made your grade. Every day is not going to be sunshine. But it does have to rain sometimes. But here is some spiritual truth for you. Just as the sunshine is necessary, so is the rain and thunderstorms also necessary when it comes to us learning how to encourage ourselves. We're going to have to have some up days, gonna be some down days. Good days, bad days. My intent this morning is not so much for us to focus on the stressfulness of these life events. I ain't saying you're gonna not be aware of what's going on in your life. I'm saying we're not gonna pretty much put our heart focus on what the event of what's going on here. But what I want us to focus on is how you and I can get through them, how we can take godly control of our mindsets and thoughts, possessing the know-how of governing ourselves in godliness when encouraging ourselves while we're in the learning process. Learning how to encourage ourselves, keeping our focus on him who is the overcomer. Hallelujah! Hallelujah. That we through him may also become overcomers of the spirits of this world. Never locking, listen to what I'm saying now, never allowing ourselves to lock our focus on what is trying to bring us to a state of depression. Don't lock, don't so much lock your mind on that. Don't lock your mind on uh yourself having a mental breakdown or a mental sickness to our minds. What I want us to focus on Jesus, who is the overcomer, because through his spirit, the overcoming, we can be overcomer. Let me just I'll read it to you. I'll read it to you. In the book of John, chapter 16, verse 33. This Jesus said this, and I need you to hold on to this and remember this. He says this in John 16, 33, these things I have spoken unto you that in me, listen at that, in me, you might have peace. That's all. Let me tell you, let me break, let me pause for a minute. Let's pause right there. The only true peace that we ever gonna have is the peace in the Lord. We might think the world got a certain kind of peace, but I'm gonna tell you, don't trust it, don't put your trust in him. The only true, true peace is in Jesus. This is what he said now. He said, These things I have spoken unto you that in me you might have peace. In the world, this is what he said now. In the world you shall have tribulation. Trouble gonna come, tribulation is gonna come, persecution is gonna come, bad days gonna come. He said, but listen what he said. But be of good cheer. Come on, Jesus, listen. Oh, lift your heads up. Why, Jesus? He said, Because I have overcome the world. That means if I've already overcome the world, and if you get in me and believe what I tell you, you can be of good cheer. And none of the stuff that's gonna attack you in the world, it may attack you, but it won't overcome you. In fact, you will flip it and overcome it through me. That's what he's saying. These things I have spoken unto you, that in me you might have peace. In the world you shall have tribulations, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. Let me tell you something before I move on. When these things in this world come to attack us, and while we're learning how to encourage ourselves, when we tap into what Jesus, the truth of what Jesus is telling us, and that peace that is him, him being the prince of peace, and when we lock on to that, I'm here to tell you, you might not know this now, but I'm gonna tell you what I know. When you and your life lock into that peace which he's talking about in him, nothing in this world will be able to affect you the same ever again. Because every time something comes to attack you, that peace that is Jesus will kick in and take over. And nothing can disturb that peace that Jesus got. See, knowing where to go to get the spiritual medicinal herbs needed and the spiritual healing bombs to apply on yourself in times of discouragement and despair is very imperative. You got to know where to go get what you need spiritually when your spirit is under attack. You got other words, you can find everything you need, it's gonna be in Jesus. I want to teach us this morning on just how we must in these last days learn how we should put into the practice how to encourage ourselves in the midst of a world full of many dark days. Because just as Jesus just stated, we can be of good cheer. You can be happy, you can have joy, even in the midst of a bad day, a bad moment, a bad situation, a bad circumstance, you can yet be of good cheer because he has overcome the world. That means whatever in the world needs to overcome, he overcame it. And if you and him, he's gonna reveal to you through him how you can overcome it as well, which is gonna make you have good cheer and gonna make happiness to your life. Because you're gonna realize them things, you don't have to let stuff burning you down now, no more in your mind. Burden you down in your spirit, be heavy on your heart. That's why, see, this got to be learned. That's why we just want to talk about the morning today's message. Learning how to encourage yourself. This includes all that. We got to learn this. This is a learned spiritual behavior. But we got to put it, we have to put it in practice. And through him, we can overcome this world just as he has. Through him. Can't do it by ourselves, but through him, you can. I suspect that a lot of what I'm about to say is going to taste somewhat bitter. I'm finna tell you some strong stuff now. It's gonna taste a little bitter. And many of you may not want to hear it or even receive it, and that's fine, but you're gonna hear it. The truth can have that effect on people. When you give people the raw truth, it'll have a certain effect on if they ain't used to it. When all we have ever been given is lies and words which have not been truth. When you really hear the real truth, it can have a certain effect on you because you ain't used to hearing it. But I'm gonna give you the truth this morning. But I pray that you will hear me this morning. And as the just give me, I'm gonna I'm gonna take you somewhere. Let me take you to a place. And as the angel told John in the book of Revelation, it was an angel saying something to John, when the Lord was using him to write the book of Revelation. An angel came and told John this. What he's gonna do, because he was finna reveal something to John. He says, He said, Take it and eat it up. Take this what I'm gonna tell you and eat it up. This is what he told. He said, and it shall, this is this amazing thing the angel told John. He said, it shall make thy bedley, your bed bitter. He said, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey. See, that's the effect the word of God had on. It might be bitter because the flesh don't want to receive it. This flesh don't like words of truth. And when you ain't used to hearing truth, it's it can be bitter to your your spirit. But this angel told John, he said, take it and eat it. Not just eat on it, eat it up. And it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey. And that's what the word's gonna do this morning. So get yourself ready for the bitter this morning, but also ready yourself for the sweet honey of the truth of God's word. If I tell you that this world is abundant in misery and discouragement and sadness, believe me when I tell you that now, but that's all but the enemy is behind all of that. But God gonna deliver us. See, this seemingly treacherous, evil parasite which attacks the mind and the hearts of God's people is manufactured in the kingdom of the enemy. And these evil factories of his and their production production lines, they run all day and all night trying to produce something to continue to hinder and burden the lives of God's people. But the devil is alive. See, this campaign of discouraging the minds and lives of God's people is associated with the sinister slogan of the thief. What he's called, what we call self-coming to kill, to steal, and destroy our hearts, our lives, and our minds by attempting to lace our lives with a type of soul-killing discouragement. See, he just trying to bring discouragement. He's trying to bring a strong discouragement that will kill our soul. Learning how to encourage ourselves will spiritually equip us from ever being robbed of our happiness, our encouragement, our joy ever again. If we get in Christ and learn how to keep ourselves encouraged according to the word of God, we must also come to a place in our lives where we must grow to a level in God, where we stop. This is gonna hurt somebody. I don't mean to hurt, but I just I just know human nature. When I tell you this, we must get ourselves to a level of growth in God where we stop expecting, hear me, where we stop expecting that other people should come into our lives and be our encouragement. Oh Lord, I'm gonna let that soak in a little bit. That's the reason why I gotta tell you this. See, this mental error of which many of us have is a deceiving of our own selves. Because even if it were possible for someone to cause us to feel happy or give you a sensation of being swept off your feet, it would only be a false, temporary feeling. It ain't gonna last. Not coming from people, it ain't. Nothing of what we have to give to others is eternal. It is only temporary. I know that's hard for somebody to take, but I'm gonna back it up with the word. Let me give you the word. 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 18. Let me give you some word to back that up because I know it was a hard pill to swallow. Because too many of us we expect other, we think that somebody's gonna come into our lives and gonna make us happy. And it's gonna give us this, it's gonna lift us off our feet, and we're gonna we're gonna be what we need to be. See, what we're wrong, first place we're wrong in is expecting that type of level of happiness to come from another human being. Because, see, here's the thing about it. If it were possible for somebody to bring you happiness, when they leave you, they'll have to take it with them because they the one brought it. But if they didn't bring it, they ain't gonna be able to take what they didn't bring. Because you already had it before they got them. Let me read, let me get some word though, bagged up so you know for sure. 2 Corinthians 4, chapter 4, verse 13. See, Paul had to tell the Corinthians this in the church of Corinthians. He said, while we look not at the things which are seen, come on now, but at the things which are not seen. Talk to me, Paul. For things which are seen are temporal, that means temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. You want that you can't see with your natural eyes, but you can see with your faith eyes. And those things are in God, not in man, not in people. Come on now. I told you it's gonna be some hard truth, but you we got to know this. We must stop expecting that it's gonna be somebody that's supposed to bring us happiness. Well, if you're gonna expect somebody to bring you happiness, I'm gonna say this: make sure that that person is Jesus then. Don't think that's gonna be another man or woman or somebody gonna come and deliver it. That ain't how this thing works, y'all. Come on now. All of us are little enough live to know that that just ain't true. We have that sensation for a time, but eventually it changes. But I'm gonna tell you somebody who don't change. See, what we need is not in the something that people can give us temporarily, but what God can give us eternally. See, this is and has been a major area of where a lot of our discouragements have weighed us down. If we, hallelujah, if we truly want to learn how to encourage ourselves, we must accept this and let the understanding of God's word revamp our thinking and our assumptions. Thinking that someone will come along and make us happy and that they will elevate us to a plateau of fantasize utopia, which does not exist, in the limited power of another person. We expecting something from somebody that they don't even have to even give. Because we don't have that kind of power, not as human beings. See, now I'll tell you what we do, guys. Now we can help in the enhancement of another person's happiness. We can help you, we can help you enjoy your happiness together. We can rejoice with you that you are happy. We can come and enhance that happiness and that encouragement you have, but we cannot make a person be that. We don't possess that kind of power. Simply because the real power to do this does not come from any man or any woman, it comes from living for the Lord and you and I knowing him. So no matter where you are in life, or if there is someone in your life or not, you can yet be happy. You can yet be encouraged, you can yet have joy. A person cannot bring or take what they cannot give. Now, it's on you if you let them destroy. If you let somebody come in your life and you already got happiness when they got there, if you come and let them destroy and see them that they're destroying it, that's on you. We got to know who we let into our lives that come to enhance what we already got. And we need to let, we also need to know when we let people come in our lives when they have been sent by the enemy to come and help him destroy us, we need to get them gone quick. We need to get them gone quick now. I don't care how good they look, I don't care how much you like them. If they're not coming, if they're coming to destroy what you already got or attempt to do that, you need to move them on. This is why we must gain the upper hand now in our lives of encouraging ourselves while we have some of our minds still left. See, some of us don't let so many people come in over the years of our lives, and little by little, everyone that came in and left, they took a piece. Somebody else come, they take a piece. And some of us ain't got much mind left. Not sound mind, not like we used to have, because we don't let so many people who we thought was gonna make us happy, instead of making us happy, they damaged us mentally. And somebody who comes and brings damage mentally cannot heal you mentally from what they have done, the damage they have done. While we still have some of our mind left and learn how to encourage ourselves with spiritual know-how and the holy method left to us by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we'll be better off. Allowing Jesus to restore, allowing Jesus to bring healing, allowing Jesus to bring deliverance, to allow Jesus to bring back our sanity and smile and yield. Because, one, we allow the enemy to come in and bring discouragement, despair, unhappiness. And number two, we have not known how we must learn how to encourage ourselves through Christ and his word. We have been a people prone to the waiting and the hoping that someone will notice us when we are down and pity us enough to encourage us when we feel we need encouraging and hope that somebody will say some kind words of encouragement when we are going through the worst period in our lives that we have ever gone through. And don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with the hope that someone will encourage us because we all we all got a human side and we need that. Nothing wrong with this hope at all, but this is what I want us to focus on. But if it never comes from those of whom we hope it would come from, where will we get it if it don't never come? See, I thank God that some of us have spiritual brothers and sisters who help to keep us encouraged. That's a good thing to have, to keep us encouraged with encouragement, which strengthen us to continue, to tell us to continue to hold on. But I also know that many of us don't have access to true brothers and sisters in the Lord. Many of us have gone through long drought periods without the encouragement of anybody. And yet we still mope around, dragging in self-pity, down in the dumps, left with ourselves, because we have not learned how to encourage ourselves. Not knowing where our true encouragement comes from, not knowing Jesus like we all know, Jesus. God does not want this to be so. He doesn't want us to live like this. Come on. This is not what God wants for us. He does not want this to be so, and he has made available to us the means by which we can learn to encourage ourselves. If we can but just look to him and seek out the ways of his encouragement and defeat this foul spirit, which tends to attack us in our minds, leaving us deranged, confused, and beginning to show signs of mental illness. My brothers, my sisters, people of God, these spirits of discouragement and despair are some of the worst of evil spirits sent to attack us by the enemy. They're some of the worst ones because they tend to destroy people's lives. We have got to defeat them through Christ, or they will definitely hear me. If we don't defeat them through Christ, they will definitely defeat us. Let me point you to a knowledge. Let me point you to a knowledge of knowing that first, let me tell you this something first. You must let your mind be in Christ Jesus. First thing, let's get this out first. We must let this mind, which was also in Christ Jesus, be in us. We will not be able to learn how to encourage ourselves using an already damaged mindset. A mindset which has been overly bruised and continuously hurt and no longer is a sound mind. Some of us don't have the mindset to understand how we can how we can get out of this fix that we're in mentally. This is why Jesus is on the scene. This is why we I'm pointing you to Jesus this morning. Because too many of us have walked around with our mental states still bruised and tarnished. But I remember what Jesus said when he was in the synagogue. He said, I am come to heal, hallelujah. I've come to heal the broken heart. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I got to point you to Jesus because that's why that's that's the only place our hope is. Our true hope is only in Jesus. For us to get back that sound mind that we once had. He says, did Paul tell to the church and Philippi, let this mind be in you. You got to let it be in you. Okay, now let me break it down. If we're gonna let, if we understand we have to let this mind of Christ be there, that word let, before we can let Jesus' mind be there, we got to get rid of our own thinking, our way of thinking. Because you can't have no two different minds. You got to give, we got, let me speak for myself. I had to give up my will of thinking. If I'm gonna let Jesus' mind take over me through his word, I have to give up my mind and how I think. What we think don't mind to a healer being. The way we think has only got us in trouble. We've only made bad decisions, we've only made bad choices, and we walked and believed, leading ourselves the wrong direction in the wrong way. Let this mind be in you. Get rid of your mind, and let another mind, a holy mind, a righteous mind of Christ, let it take over. Philippians 2 and 5. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. That's the hint right there. Jesus telling you where to go. You ain't got the guest, you ain't got the wonder. He tell you what mind to have. My mind, he said, in essence, he said, You need to have my mind. Because the devil can't attack my mind. See, letting the mind of Christ be in us will teach us how to think in times of discouragement. When you got the mind of Christ, it'll tell you to lead you just how to think when discouragement is trying to attack you. When you, when despair is trying to come in, when confusion is trying to come in, that mind of Christ is gonna kick in. When unhappiness and other things, such as life trying to take over your mind, that's that mind of Christ is gonna take in, come in, kick in, and it's gonna rebuke all them other spirits. A lot of our problem has been us giving the enemy a mind he can work with. See, as long as we got them kind of mind, that's what the devil likes. He loves a crazy mind, because that's what he can work in. He loves a community mind. He can work in a community mind. But ask him to try to come and work in a Christ mind, he can't do it. It's too much, it's too powerful for him. That's too much power. But our minds, our worldly minds, our sinful minds, oh, he can take control all day long. As much as he wants, how he won't. Well, see, we're learning today, we're gonna get him out of our minds, and we're gonna learn how to encourage ourselves in times like this. He cannot, talking about the enemy, he cannot work on a mind which is in Christ Jesus. Because he cannot work his mind tricks on the Jesus we keep on our mind. His tricks don't work on Jesus, and his trick can't work on you if you got Jesus in your mind. See, even though some of us may have people in our lives on whom we can look to for encouragement at times, trust me, there will be days when we need somebody and none of them will be around. And then what shall we do? See, everybody ain't around when you need to be around. Yeah, they're around sometimes. But some of those times when you're gonna need them the most, you don't be able to find nobody. What are you gonna do then? If Jesus is your mind, I said, if Jesus is your mind, you will always have him 24, 7 hours a day. Hear what I said? I know what I said. I said 24, 7 hours a day. Jesus will be with you. I don't mean in the home. I don't. Nor am I speaking negatively. I am speaking truth, which is what too many of us have gone lacking in our lives for far too long. Not hearing the truth. Life is real, and the enemy is not out to play. Some of us are still going through life wearing our play clothes. Got our play clothes on. If you live in the country, you know what I'm talking about. You'll what I do isn't play, mom and say, put your play clothes on. See, while the enemy is sincere in his attempts to destroy your life through misery, think like Jesus. Think like the word of God. We have not been thinking encouraging thoughts because we have not been thinking according to the word of God. When we train ourselves to think according to the word of God, a lot of attacks that come to attack our minds by the enemy will be unsuccessful by him because he has no weapon that can come against the word of God. Let me read something to you in Philippi. Paul, this same, this same Paul that spoke uh about having let his mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. This same Paul also spoke in Philippians. That that fourth chapter, verse seven and eight. I just read to you two and five, Philippi. Go to the fourth chapter, verse seven and eight, verse four, verse seven, chapter four, verse seven. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep, listen what the word, this is what the peace of God will keep in you. It shall keep your hearts and mind through Christ Jesus. See, that's a peace about God that passes the understanding of the world. And it's that understanding that comes from the peace of God that will keep your hearts and minds from being overtaken by the stuff, the people, and the devil in this world. Hear me and now. Now he also tells this. Now I'm going to tell you how to think. In verse 8, Philip 4 and 8. This is what he said you think. He said, Finally, brethren, finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true. Listen to this. Whatsoever things are just, that means right. Whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report. If there be any virtue, and if there be any praise. This is what he said. He said, think on these things. Too many of us, our thought process has been on ungodly things, or un or unfulfilling things to our spirit. He's telling us to think on these things. Think this way in Christ. Think this way in the Lord. Whatever just, whatsoever true, whatsoever lovely. And so many of us don't know what thinking lovely is because all we have ever thought is things that are unlovely. Whatsoever things have a good report, if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, you need to think on these things. Brothers and sisters, people of God, I tell you the truth. That in times of discouragement, the key to overcoming this spirit is knowing how we should think and believe. When you know how to think and how to believe, when you see that enemy come with those tacks, you already put up that shield of faith. You already have the sword of the word. And that shield is gonna quench them fiery darts that the enemy is trying to shoot at you of discouragement. Those darts and arrows of despair, those darts and arrows of misery and confusion. See, in this godly mindset, you will come to know a peace, hallelujah, which will pass all what you thought was understanding and knowledge. It's gonna surpass all of that. And you're gonna, God's gonna take you to a level of knowing a peace you you thought you knew but you didn't know. But now you're gonna know the real peace, that real peace that comes from God. See, I know what I'm talking about. See, in the midst of misery, in the midst of foolishness and discouragement, we all must learn how to think a whole nother other way. This is where you begin to learn how to encourage yourself. Know ye not that if Jesus is in you and if his mind is in you, you have him who is the prince of peace, and he who is the prince of all encouragement within you. If you can just believe this. If you can just believe this. One of the reasons that I am teaching and pushing us to a knowledge of encouraging ourselves instead of looking for others to always come to our encouragement rescue is because people can change on you. Hear me? And a lot of them will, and a lot of them already have. It will not matter how long you have known them, or it won't matter how much you have gone through with them. It will not matter how far back your families have known each other. Some of the people in our lives, though we may have trusted them, though we yet love them, are just destined to change as our time with them go by. They're just destined to change. It's going. Let me say this what David said in the book of Psalms before I let you go. Let me say this in the book of Psalms, Psalms 146. I'm gonna just take two verses, verse 3 and verse 5. This is what David said, Psalms 146, verse 3. He said, put not your trust in princes, nor in the Son of Man, in whom there is no help. See, that's the things that it's like people can't help you with. No matter how much you think and want them to, the help you need, especially when it comes to our spiritual help, can't no man, no person help you with that. They don't have, we don't have that kind of power. And we're fooling ourselves when we think people got that kind of power to give us what they can't give us. And we try to make them try and we get upset with them because they ain't doing it. And we we we think there's something wrong with them. I'm being with you all this time, and you ain't never happy with you, but you keep looking for something that they can't give. Verse 5. Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his health. So you will you'll be happy if you realize that God is your help. See what David said? Happy is he that has God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God. See, when we start directing our hope and our strength and what we need from the Lord, we will be fulfilled because God cannot fail us, and he will not forsake us, and he will not disappoint us, as we have allowed some to do. See, David understood this because he had to learn how to encourage himself the hard way. And some of us, I'm not afraid to tell you, but I will tell you, some of us are gonna have to learn this the hard way. That it's gonna have to be learned by us how to encourage ourselves according to the word. He learned it the hard way when dealing, when he had to deal with some people he knew, people he lived with, people he trusted to have his back. But he also knew the God he served even better than the people he knew. Say ain't nothing wrong with normal people. See, I trust people as far as I know they're able to, as I'm able to trust them, as far as I know. People, I don't try to expect people to be something that I know they can't be for me. I trust them as far as I can trust them, the limits of mankind. But my deepest trust, my wholehearted trust in the God I serve, because I know he's able. This is what he said in the book of Samuel before I let you go. 1 Samuel chapter 30. I'm gonna read four verses to you. Let me set it up for you. See, David, at this time before he became king, he was a fighting man. And he went throughout the land fighting and battling with different people, and he had a lot of fighting men's of valor with him. But here's the time they was at this plate day that was taking a place, and they used the place for their headquarters. They were fighting this certain territory. Okay, one day they decided to go out fighting, they had to go fight these folks, the Malachites. So they left wives, children, grandchildren, senior sister, left them all back at camp. So while David and all the men of valor went to go fight, the devil and the Malachi doubled back and come back around and come up to their city and overtook it while all it was gone. They took their wives, they took their children, grandchildren, they took everything and then set it aside. But the good thing, I'm glad they did, they didn't kill nobody. They didn't kill them, they just took them captive. But they set the city that they lived the camp on fire. Okay, David and all this stuff happened while they were gone. Here they finally come back to the house. They come up on the camp and everything bunny up. I'm gonna read you what it what I'm gonna read you what it takes over. He said, verse 3. So David and his men came to the city. That's where they had camped there. And behold, they looking, it was burnt with fire. This is what the devil tried to do to alive. And their wives and their sons and their daughters were taken care of. Oh Lord, they done took my wife, they done took my children. Verse 4. Then David, this is David, listen at this now. This is what the devil tried to come bring discouragement, despair, confusion, grief. Then David and the people that were with him. This is what happened when they saw time burnt up, everybody gone. They lift up their voice and wept. Listen at this now. This is what the devil had was like us have was doing until they had no more power to weep. Come on now. Y'all hear what it's saying? That means these David and Eve men, grown-tailed men, they cried so hard and they cried so long at the grief of this discouragement that the Bible said they had no more power to weep. Have you ever cried and you and you cried so much and so long that you run out of water, out of your eyes, you run out of tears. See, some of us ain't never been there. We ain't never been there. You cry and you're gonna cry so long, and ain't no more water left in your eyes to even make a tear. Because this is what the Bible said, he said, until they had no more power to weep. That's that's bad. That's some grief for you, that's some discouragement for you. But come on now, hold on. Even through all that, but God, come on, through all that, God is still there. Listen with verse 5. And David's two wives were taken. They don't took both his wives, Ahineam and Abigail. They don't took both of Hineam was a Jezreelite, Abigail was the wife of Nabal, the Carmelite. That Nabel was a mean man. I ain't got time to tell you about him. That was a mean man. But here's what I want to conclude the message in verse 6. In that 1 Samuel chapter 30, verse 6. Hallelujah. Because this is how I want you to see yourself. And David was greatly distressed. Yeah, it bothered him. He's human. Yeah. Listen, problems gonna bother. I ain't saying problems ain't gonna never bother. Yes, we're gonna be distressed. We're gonna be, we're gonna uh feel a certain kind of way, but you can't let that take on and lock on to you. And David was greatly distressed. For listen to this, for the people spake of stoning him. These men, these grown-tailed men, rough men, fighting men, was so stricken with grief, they thought about stoning the very one that they ran with, lived with, had David's back. David had their back, but they is considering stoning him, because their wives done and took, the children done and took. They don't burnt all my stuff up. Every man was grieved, every man for his son, for his daughter. But here it is. Through all of that, though David was distressed, though he was threatened to be stoned, though his two wives was gone, his children were gone. This is what the Bible said now. That last part of what you grab. But David, isn't it, encouraged himself in the Lord his God. See, David ain't just now learning how to encourage himself. He'd been knowing this, though the people he running with didn't know it. How to encourage themselves. David learned this way back when he was running from King Saul, having to hide in caves, fighting lions and babs, fighting Goliath. He'd been learning how to encourage himself in the Lord. And he kept that and held on to that. So when other times come, when those spirits, wicked spirits of discouragement, won't attack him, he had what it took to keep himself encouraged. And the Bible said David encouraged himself in the Lord. He put it in the hands of the Lord. See, in this life, people of God, we must learn how to encourage ourselves. Because the truth is, we have already had days and times like these. And as show as we live, we will have more days and times like that. And more days coming. Our victory will be in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, where we will have learned the spiritual skill of how to encourage ourselves through Him. Learning how to encourage ourselves. God bless you. God bless you.