Have you felt abandoned?
As you read this, you will see that David felt the same way. I have felt the same way. Yes, Jesus felt the same way.
Psalms Chapter 13
David cried out four times, “How Long?”
Then he said vs. 1 “Will You forget me forever? “How long will You hide Your face from me?
The pain in your heart, just like in David’s heart, came from a sense that God had forgotten him and that God was distancing Himself from him.
Read this! Make it personal.
From International Children’s Bible
Isaiah 49:14-15
But Jerusalem (put your name where Jerusalem is )…said, “The Lord has left me. The Lord has forgotten me.” The Lord answers, “Can a woman forget the baby she nurses? Can she feel no kindness for the child she gave birth to? Even if she could forget her children, I will not forget you.
God did not forget David when he was alone in even the fields that God had placed him in. God said that He will not forget you. God did not hide His face from David. He is not hiding His face from you. But maybe you feel like it. I’ve felt like it. David felt like it, too. Our feelings are strong, and then our feelings create their reality. David felt God had forgotten him and felt God was hiding. So, in a sense, it was valid for David — but not all feelings lead us to fact.
Does anyone understand how you are feeling?
So many individuals today do not feel anything but fear and depression. When hope gets lost, your body reacts differently for everyone. Stress can destroy you. Words can destroy. Even family members’ words are not always edifying. They may even have used words that degrade. That still does not make them accurate. I call it the Devil’s arsenal bag of lies. I named it the D-word bag. His purpose is to De-Grade you. Why? Because he wants you to receive all his D-word lies, then try to give you an F for failing to get you to flunk your life. Don’t give into the lies but choose to remember who you are in the eyes of Jesus.
D’s that the enemy uses
Devil bag of lies
De-grade right before you get an F (fall, fail)
The D words.
Negative adjectives that start with “D” are named because they describe undesirable traits, behaviors, or events. They draw attention to elements that are harmful, uncomfortable, or negative for people or their surroundings.
Doubts
Despair
Danger
Damage
Debt
Deceitful
Defile
Degrade
Deject
Delay
Demeaning
Demonic
Denied
Depress
Desert
Despair
Destroy
Distract
Disagree
Disappointment
Death
Devil
Take those words, bag them up, and give them to Jesus.
When the truth exposes hidden lies, then deception cannot stand. Choose the Truth.
Deception loses all Control; Truth overrides all lies!!!
When the Lord opens your eyes, then you will not accept the lies of the D words any longer.
Delivered is the greatest of D words. Jesus came to deliver and set you free.
Pastoring so many individuals who consistently would desire to testify, testimony means overcoming.
They would insist that they had a testimony to share than every other word, emphasizing the D word, Devil, so I would challenge them to use the J word, Jesus, more often than the D word. And it worked.
Expanded Bible
John 10:10
10 A thief comes [only] to steal and kill and destroy, but I came ·to give life [that they might have life]—life in all its ·fullness [abundance]. But I’ve come to give you life. Jesus said, “Abundant life.”
Jesus went through feeling forsaken.
Psalm 22:1
My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Why are You so far from helping Me and from the words of My groaning?
Matthew 27:46
Expanded Bible
46 About ·three o’clock [the ninth hour], Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” means, “My God, my God, why have you ·abandoned [forsaken] me?
Christ’s suffering —His passion, He knew His purpose. He suffered and died and rose from the dead for you and me. When Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup (means wrath) be taken from me,” His following words, “Not my will, But your will be done.”
He was in complete anguish over what He was about to suffer, an overwhelming truth because Jesus knew the Romans’ way of crucifixion.
He was being beaten and mocked when the crown of thorns (2 inches thick) was pressed into His head, when He was nailed to a cross when He hung there, struggling to breathe. He was feeling alone and abandoned. He was going through this for all our sins, not his. His suffering was excruciating when he paid the penalty for our sins. He felt the pain of being innocent and victimized.
He loves us that much. With His life, the perfect Lamb of God made us his choice, so choose Him and have eternal life. And live an overcoming life here and now.
I’ve heard people say, How low can a person go?
When you are drowning, well, you tell me.
Wave your hand! Shout out, help me, Lord!
Please cry out to Jesus! Send out an SOS.
What does ‘SOS’ mean? “Save Our Souls”
or “save our ship,” SOS is a Morse Code distress signal.
You may be saying I have done that.
Just one more time, hold your hand up and tell him you’re about to go down, but you don’t want to. I believe that you’re going to feel him pull you out. Feel His hand grabbing yours. I know the truth. He did this for me. He wants to deliver you! When you need help, do not keep silent. He came to Save!
I have met people who ignore feelings and think that feelings should have nothing to do with our relationship with God. Sometimes, you don’t see any emotion other than cold and indifferent with a lack of emotion. When your foundation is on the Rock, you are not a rock. These individuals have an extreme viewpoint because God has given us feelings with great emotion to express His image in us. We can feel anger, love, compassion, sorrow, and many other feelings because God feels those feelings. We were given five senses for a purpose. Feelings are a gift from God, and when we feel emotion, that is a sign we are in His image. I have also witnessed individuals who may show feelings or emotion when the opportunity is there (an emotional display show) for their own agenda. Others have emotion-delayed responses. Then you wonder if it is a natural emotion because it looks fake.
Real feelings. Real like Jesus.
Matthew 14:14-21 New American Standard Bible
14 When He came ashore, He saw a large crowd and felt compassion for them and healed their sick.
He felt an accurate feeling of compassion.
Salvation gives you a clean new heart❤️ filled with the right emotions and comes only through repentance and not in rejecting the truth. When confronted with your sin, repent, don’t make excuses.
True repentance is owning up to your sins and what you did and then turning from it, giving it all to the only one who can deliver and cleanse. I call this God pulling the plug and letting all the shame, hurt, disappointment, lies out, and so much more.
Please don’t keep all the bad things stuffed inside your heart. You can fool some, but you’re not fooling yourself or the Lord.
A life of just going through the motions without feeling the right emotion led me to the words to this song many times to these words in a song by the Eagles.
“…And you’re feeling cold and small (oh), Any kind of love without passion. That ain’t no kind of lovin’ at all, well”
I want to be passionate about my life and love for my Savior. That’s why the Lord Jesus is the Passion. Just like the Movie title, The Passion
John 3:16 Expanded Bible
16 “[For] God loved the world so much that he gave his ·one and only [only; unique; only-begotten; Son so that whoever believes in him may not ·be lost [perish], but have eternal life.
Our Heavenly Father loves us more than our human ability can or will ever be able to comprehend.
I have also met individuals whose lives are ruled by their feelings, up and down roller coaster of emotions. The problem is if that person lives only on how they feel at that moment. Very unstable.
When your foundation is on the rock, you are stable.
You will have times when your feelings bring doubt, and that’s when you must take them to God the Father. We should never accept negative feelings as “real” reality.
Have you ever done this? Playing a negative feeling back in your mind over and over.
We all tend to rehearse our problems repeatedly, and David did the same.
Psalm 13:2 David’s despair
How long shall I take counsel in my soul, Having sorrow in my heart daily? How long will my enemy be exalted over me?
How long shall I take counsel in my soul: No wonder David was discouraged! Taking counsel within his soul had led him to sorrow in his heart daily. He was going over and over the situation within his heart and mind.
When we feel discouraged and depressed, the answer is not in looking inside ourselves but in looking to the LORD.
Spurgeon proposed a sermon on the Psalm 13:2
Titled: “Self-torture”
Vs. 2 David continued
How long will my enemy be exalted over me?
Like David, we have had others gossip about your situation, but currently, it’s not to your face. It’s Facebook. And sadly, they enjoy it. I say they have their demons waiting for a gossip morsel.
Unfortunately, we also compare ourselves to others; too often, we do this.
I had an individual who came to service one morning, and she insisted no. She was livid. She yelled and even pushed at me, shouting that I should have a Facebook account, and my response to her “You want to see me, then keep coming here and face the book with me. (Bible) get your face in the book, and maybe you’ll exhibit kindness.
I opened my very first personal Facebook account for declaring God’s Word when I moved here Sept.2023
I wonder if she’s facing the book with me now.
Let’s read Psalm 13 all the way through.
Psalm 13 The Message
1-2 Long enough, God— you’ve ignored me long enough. I’ve looked at the back of your head long enough. Long enough I’ve carried this ton of trouble, lived with a stomach full of pain. Long enough my arrogant enemies have looked down their noses at me.
3-4 Take a good look at me, God, my God; I want to look life in the eye, So no enemy can get the best of me or laugh when I fall on my face.
5-6 I’ve thrown myself headlong into your arms— I’m celebrating your rescue. I’m singing at the top of my lungs, I’m so full of answered prayers.
David Starts in discouragement and despair, and David finishes with a total transformation. God heard Him, and God rescued Him. He’s singing now! The Psalms are songs.
Don’t give in to the lies. We must do as Jesus did. When Satan twists God’s Word, respond with the Word.
“And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written.”
Just because something sounds Biblical doesn’t mean it is. Have you heard this one?
“Judge not lest you be judged” sounds biblical. They say Jesus said it after all. Jesus’ words have been twisted to try to approve of their sin. Homosexual encounters? “Judge not lest thee be judged.” Racist slurs in conversations.
“Judge not lest thee be judged.”
When Scripture was twisted, Jesus responded with Scripture
He didn’t respond by trying to reason with Satan. He didn’t respond by telling Satan his own experience. He responded with, “It is written.”
The very Scripture
Both Calvin and Luther quotes from the 1500s
John Calvin was right, “Whenever Satan covers his deception with Scripture, and ungodly men labor to subvert our faith by the same means, let us borrow our armor exclusively from Scripture for the protection of our faith.” To stand fast before Satan, you need to hear from God. Your thoughts will not do. You need Scripture.
Martin Luther was right, “the devil fears the word of God. He can’t bite it; it breaks his teeth.”
When deception is exposed to the truth, deception cannot stand, deception loses all control truth overrides all lies!!!
The best way to choose is on your knees. An alter call can be at your home, car, or outside, where you cry out to Jesus. Say I choose life; I choose Jesus; I choose truth over all lies. Then, with a flood of gratitude and praise, you’ll see how Holy and Worthy the Lord truly is.
In a Southern Baptist Church, at nine years old, my knees trembled as tears streamed down my face. I made my way to the altar to say the sinner’s prayer and receive Jesus into my heart.
I always knew that there was a choice. I could feel conviction from that day on, but sadly, I never totally surrendered as a teenager, not until I was 28 years old. I remember in my teens, driving home from a friend’s house Sunday morning at a stop light, a sweet older couple getting ready to turn into a church looked right into my face. I saw the love of Jesus. They never spoke a word. The Holy Spirit did the talking. I knew what I had been doing Saturday night, and I felt the shame of it all. Oh, how I should have cried out for Jesus to forgive me and rededicate my life to a new one.
He Set Me Free!
No more lies from the past and no more shame.
Galatians 5
Walk by the Spirit
5 It was for this freedom that Christ set us free [completely liberating us]; therefore, keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery [which you once removed].
So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:36 NASB
It means “to set free.”
When He set me free, it was freedom in my mind.
No more lies from the past.
No more shame from my old choices.
2 Corinthians 5:17
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
Psalm 51:10-12: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and sustain in me a willing spirit.