If we’re going to suffer, how do we suffer well? How can we bring glory to God and experience as much peace, hope, love, and life as possible in our trials?
Transcription (automatically-generated):
We're taking a break from our study through the Book of Acts to look at a couple of issues that are just big in the life of our church right now. And the issue that I'm teaching on is suffering. And the key question, "What should suffering look like in the life of the Christian?" In our first study, we looked at why suffering exists. In our second study last week, we looked at the different causes of our individual sufferings.
And today we're going to look at some practical pointers that will help us navigate seasons of suffering well. And that might sound like an odd sentence to you. What do you mean, suffer well? That seems like an oxymoron, but what I mean when I say suffer well is I mean to suffer in a way that brings as much glory to Jesus as possible and as a natural byproduct produces in us the most peace, joy, and hope possible during the most challenging times of our lives. These messages are intended to be studied and processed in the order that I teach them in.
And it's important because last week we talked about diagnosing the cause of your suffering. And I want to be very clear once again that if the cause of your suffering is sin, if you're disobeying God, you need to repent and turn away from that sin. End of discussion. Not any other practical pointers, though. Jeff.
Yes. Repent. Repent. Repent. Repent.
Repent. Repent. That's it. If the cause of your suffering is foolishness and bad decisions that are not necessarily sinful, you need to gain wisdom and get foolishness out of your life. And we talked about how to do that last week.
So, if your suffering is being caused by sin or foolishness, these pointers are not for you. We must not view ourselves as victims. If the cause of our suffering is sin or foolishness, we're not victims. If you are suffering because you live in a fallen world, you're still experiencing the natural consequences of sins that you have repented of and turned away from. If you're suffering because you're being sanctified by the Lord or because you're serving Jesus, then it's my goal to help you today by pointing you to Christ in some practical ways.
Let me remind you of the compassion of our Lord by sharing with you a couple of my favorite verses in all of Scripture. If you've been around a while, you've heard me share it many times. It's on your outlines. In Hebrews 4, it says, "We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are yet without sin. Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need."
I don't truly know what you're going through or what you will go through in the future. Nobody does. Except Jesus. And if there's one thing I pray we take away from this series, it's this invitation, which is also a command. Approach the throne of grace with boldness so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.
Our first overarching practical pointer is this - write this down on your outlines - Invite your church family into your suffering. Invite your church family into your suffering. God created us to live in community, and one of the reasons he created the church is so that we could experience community as the family of God. The New Testament is full of commands to this effect, such as Galatians 6:2, which commands us, "carry one another's burdens. In this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ."
But many people don't share their sufferings for various reasons, so let's talk about them. Some people don't share their sufferings with their church family because they don't want the attention. I don't like being the center of attention. I don't like people fussing over me. The problem with this type of thinking is that it prioritizes our pride and our preferences over our faithfulness to Christ.
Let me explain how, when we're suffering, we need encouragement. I don't care if you think you do or not. You need encouragement. We need to be reminded of God's faithfulness and the promises in his word. We need the prayers of others.
And God intends that we would receive these good things in part through his people, the church. And when we do receive them, we are strengthened. And we are empowered to endure our trials in a way that brings greater glory to God. So, when we refuse to share our sufferings with our church family, we're saying, I don't need any of those good things that God has deposited in my church family to bless me. Other people might need them.
Not me. I don't need them. I'm fine, thank you very much. And we're also saying that we'd rather go through our trial in a weakened state, bringing less glory to God than share it with others. Be strengthened, encourage them, and bring more glory to God.
Some people don't want to inconvenience people, and I know this is hard for some people to grasp. I don't mean this facetiously. But people who genuinely love Jesus genuinely love his people for real. And they desire to grow in their love for the people of God. Remember how central this whole love thing is to the Christian faith?
In John 13, Jesus told his disciples, I give you a new command love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. And by this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. The radical way in which Christians are called to love their brethren is to be the defining characteristic of the church. So let the people of God love you.
When you're suffering, you're not an inconvenience.
Some people don't want to share their suffering with their church family because they don't think anybody's qualified to help. They're too young. Oh, they're too old. Well, they can't relate to what I'm going through. They're not educated in the area of my suffering.
I just don't jive with their personality. And there are many other excuses some people come up with. But at the end of the day, they keep their suffering to themselves by convincing themselves that nobody is qualified to help them in their suffering. And if this is you, here's what you need to understand Christians point other Christians to Christ, and Christians bring other Christians to Christ. Here's where I'm going with this.
I hope none of you are under the impression that I have mastered everything I preach. I hope that none of you are like, "Well, I guess Jeff mastered everything in Acts 22 personally in his life, and that's why he's teaching it this Sunday." I haven't, not even close. One of the most humbling aspects of my calling is that I must stand up and exposit parts of the Scriptures that I'm personally struggling with and sometimes failing at spectacularly. I do not teach from the place of mastery.
My goal is to point us and myself to Christ. That's the goal. And that's why 90% of the time I teach expositionally. I teach verse by verse through the Bible because I don't put a lot of weight in my own opinions. God doesn't want you to share your sufferings with your church family because they're experts on whatever you're going through.
God wants you to share your sufferings with your church family because they can point you to His Word. They can counsel you from His Word, and they can pray with you. The Lord may be gracious and cause you to cross Paphos with someone who can relate to what you're going through or has some knowledge in that area, but it's not necessary for them to have that expertise in order to bless, encourage, and strengthen you in your suffering. Write this down - Christians point other Christians to Christ, and Christians bring other Christians to Christ.
And can I tell you, it is such a load off your shoulders as a Christian when you realize that you can bless your brothers and sisters in Christ by simply reminding them of God's Word and praying with them. Do not fall into the trap of thinking that when a brother or sister shares those struggles they're having with you, like you're supposed to counsel them from a place of expertise and just invent stuff up. Don't do that. If the Lord brings any scripture to mind, share it. If there's nothing, then you say, hey, let's go to the Lord together with this.
Let's pray. Let's ask the Lord for his help. That's what they need more than anything. But stop lying to yourself because that's what you're doing. Stop lying to yourself by saying, I'm not going to share because nobody has the expertise to help me in the area of my suffering.
It's just an excuse. It's not a good one. You're lying to yourself. Some people won't share their suffering with their church family because they're embarrassed. Some people are embarrassed because they feel like they're supposed to have it together all the time, and they're not supposed to be troubled by suffering like other people.
They're too mature, too experienced, too together. And what would people think if they knew what a rough time they were actually going through? Here's what I've learned about people myself, very, very much included. You cannot simply put your pain in a box and hide it. Whether you realize it or not, it is profoundly affecting your life and your relationships, and you are delusional.
If you think you're hiding it, you're delusional. People may not know the specifics, but it's affecting your thoughts. It's affecting your interactions with others. It's affecting your perceptions of others. It's affecting your relationship with Christ your whole life.
I heard a great quote recently. It says, "All pain that is not processed is transferred." If you do not process your pain by bringing it to Christ and allowing your church family to help you work through it, you will transfer that pain to others in the way that you treat them, think about them, speak to them, et cetera. All pain that is not processed is transferred. The only person we're truly fooling is ourselves.
When we refuse to share our sufferings due to embarrassment, we misrepresent ourselves and the gospel. We misrepresent ourselves by trying to act as though we are somehow not affected by earthly trials that's disingenuous. And we misrepresent the gospel by acting as though we don't desperately need the grace and strength of the Holy Spirit. We pretend to be better than we are, and we pretend to need Christ less than we do. I'm going to say it again.
We pretend to be better than we are, and we pretend to need Christ less than we do. I hope you know that we need him desperately, desperately. And I hope you know that this knowledge is shared by every mature follower of Christ. And so it's ironic, tragically ironic, that a believer would not open up to their church family because they want to appear mature, when in reality, such behavior is immature. Because all mature followers of Christ understand how desperately we need him.
If you're not sharing your sufferings because you're embarrassed for people to know that you don't have it all together, you're failing to grasp the reality of our desperate need for Christ, a reality that is understood by all mature believers.
Some people are embarrassed because they think people won't understand why they're having such a hard time with this thing. They think people are going to look at that and be like, oh my gosh, I can't believe you're all torn up over that. And Charlene and I have experienced this with parents who are having a hard time with one or two children, and they won't tell us because they're thinking, "They've got six kids. They're just going to roll their eyes at me when I tell them I'm having a hard time with one kid or two kids." But can I tell you something else mature believers understand?
Suffering is relative. Suffering is relative. It's relative to whatever you've experienced in life up to that point. When we got married, it was the hardest thing we had ever done. When we had one kid, it was the hardest thing we had ever done.
When we had two kids, it was the hardest thing we had ever done. When we had four kids, it didn't help us or make anything easier to know that some people have twelve kids, it doesn't help. It was still the hardest thing we had ever done. Suffering is relative, and mature believers understand that. What you're going through might not seem like a lot to me, but I can appreciate it might be one of the hardest things you've ever been through.
What I'm going through might not seem like a lot to you, but you can appreciate that it might be one of the hardest things I've ever gone through. It's not a contest. It's not a contest. You don't come up here for prayer at the end and BJ and I say, well, tell us about your suffering, and we'll tell you whether it's valid or not. Or let's just hear everybody's different prayer requests, and then we'll judge who has the most impressive suffering, and the rest of you guys can wait till another week, and maybe you can climb the boards.
That's not how it works. It's not a contest. We don't compare people to one another. We point one another to Christ. So don't be embarrassed if your suffering isn't as significant as someone else's.
Your church family loves you and wants to love you through our trial. Others are embarrassed by the nature of their suffering, and there are all kinds of sensitive issues that we might not want to share with others. Might surprise you, but in 21 years of vocational ministry, I've never once received a prayer request for hemorrhoids. And yet, statistically, please don't ask me for prayer for that after the service. Okay, I'm joking, of course, but there are some sensitive issues that are significant in that they cause us significant suffering, but we're just too embarrassed to share them.
And so we suffer in silence, and we suffer alone, but we don't have to. When I talk about sharing and inviting people in, I'm always talking, by the way, about mature saints inviting mature saints in. And when I say mature, I don't mean close to your age or older. I don't mean that they've necessarily been through similar experiences as you're going through. I mean, they have a track record years-long of walking faithfully with Jesus.
I mean that they know His Word and they are led by His Spirit. And when you share an issue, even an embarrassing one, with a mature saint, you won't find judgment, you'll find compassion. And they will do what mature saints do they'll point you to Christ and they'll lead you to Christ. And I'm proud to say I know multiple people in this church who have opened up on very difficult issues that are causing them suffering. And I think they'd all tell you that they're so glad they did because they didn't find themselves ostracized.
They find themselves drawn closer in relationship to their brothers and sisters and they feel more accepted than ever because they shared something difficult that they thought might make people draw away and withdraw. But instead, people drew closer. And that's a different depth of confidence and love in relationship. When you say no, now somebody knows something about me that I thought would be repulsive to them, but they actually just love me even more. That's profound when that happens.
Some people don't share their suffering with their church family because they've been given bad counsel in the past. And this is very, very unlikely to happen if you do what we just talked about and share only with mature believers with a track record years-long of walking faithfully with Jesus, those who know His Word and are led by His Spirit, but additionally understand that God's Word reveals things clearly. And so, if we think we're hearing from the Holy Spirit, we can test it against the Word of God. And if someone shares counsel with us, we can test it against the Word of God, because anything that's truly from the Lord is not going to contradict His Word. I've heard people say, "Well, I was given bad counsel." But the reality is they weren't in the Word.
They wanted somebody else to be in the Word for them and they weren't checking out what the Word says for themselves. If you want to know if what you're being told lines up with the Word, you have to be in the Word. You have to be a man or woman of the Scriptures. You can't outsource that. "Well, why don't you read it and you tell me?" You can't outsource it.
I've said it many times before. The best protection a church can have against false teaching is a congregation that knows the Word for themselves. The best protection you can have against bad counsel is to know the Word for yourself. Remember what David wrote in Psalm 119? He said, "Your Word is a lamp for my feet and a light on my path."
And praise God. Be in a church like Gospel City where people know the Word and unbiblical counsel is not able to thrive or survive. Some people don't share their suffering with their church family because they don't think there'll be any benefit. This is simply a faith issue. What's that going to do but to believe that it's not going to accomplish anything.
You must believe that prayer accomplishes nothing, and that God's Word has no power, and neither of those things is true. There is unspeakable power in both. Do not ever forget who God is. He's the Lord of heaven and earth, the beginning and the end. The Almighty God, the creator of all things.
Do you not think he is powerful enough to help you in your suffering? He is. Do you not think he cares about you? He does. He does.
He's the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. If you don't think there'll be any benefit to having your brothers and sisters bring you to that God, then you don't know Him. He's mighty, he's good, and he's rich in mercy.
Those are some of the reasons people don't open up and share, but also some things that we need to understand if we're in that place right now, we're not opening up to our church family about a suffering that we're in the middle of right now. Sometimes we want to share our struggles with people who are at arm's length from our daily lives, people we don't see a few times a week. Sometimes we intentionally peter a counselor, a friend from another church, a friend or family member who lives further away, and there's nothing wrong with that. But let me say this - there's nothing wrong with it if it's in addition to someone or multiple people in your local church. Now, why do I say that?
Because sometimes we very intentionally choose people who are at arm's length from our daily lives, who don't see us multiple times a week like our church family does, and because we know that they're not as involved in our lives on a regular basis. So, it's easier for us to hide from them when we're not doing well. And so, we intentionally choose to share and confide in someone who's not going to see us regularly enough for it to become really difficult for us to hide how we're really doing. Don't do that. You want to see a counselor or share with a friend in another church?
Praise God. That's great. But do it in addition to someone in your local church who sees you regularly and can pray for you and check up on you and care for you.
Because being your own counselor can be very, very dangerous. 'Anybody want to be honest enough to say Amen? Yes, the Lord desires to speak to each of us directly, but sometimes we're unwilling to hear. Sometimes we're unable to hear. And for those reasons, it is wise to walk through challenging seasons of life with mature brothers and sisters.
It's especially wise. Remember Jeremiah 79. It says, "The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable. Who can understand it?"
If you are a mature saint, then you have realized it's never good. When you say, I'll just deal with this myself. I'll just figure this out myself. I don't care what kind of personality type you have. I don't care how brilliant you think you are.
Let me tell you a universal truth, and you can write this down. Our thinking becomes distorted far more easily when we are isolated. Our thinking becomes distorted far more easily when we are isolated. Don't deceive yourself. Don't lie to other people.
Don't coat it as like, "Oh, just me and Jesus are going to work through this."
Your thinking becomes distorted when you become isolated because you don't think about Jesus all the time. You don't think about Him twenty-four-seven. And, unbelievably, sometimes we even latch on to ideas that aren't from God and convince ourselves they are because we really like how they sound. "Oh, I love how that word from God is exactly what I wanted to be true in this moment." It's just amazing how that happens.
Have you realized this about yourself yet? I pray you have. And if you haven't, I urge you to recognize this about yourself. Have you recognized how easy it is to convince yourself of ridiculous things for which there is no evidence? When you isolate yourself, how many arguments have you won in the shower?
Right, should have said this. Then I'll tell them, I'll do this. You know, if anyone heard you, they'd be like, you're out of your mind. And yet, no matter how many times we preach it, we see believers do this over and over and over again, over and over again. And I say this in love, it drives BJ and I crazy.
It drives us crazy. And I'll tell you why. We hear this from Christians all the time. "Yeah, I'm dealing with a lot, so I won't be at church on Sunday." "Oh, where's so and so? I haven't seen them around." "Oh, they're just going through some stuff right now, so they're not coming to home group or church for a while." "I've had a lot going on, and so I'm going to rest instead of being part of the life of the church." Here's why it's frustrating, out of love...
Please hear me. It's frustrating because this is ground-level, Kindergarten-level Christianity that we're talking about. Kindergarten-level. Do not isolate yourself. God - are you hearing me? God says you need fellowship. God says you need your church family. God says that if you seek Him, he will give you what you need rest, energy, peace, hope. How do you seek him? By doing what he's called you to. But no, no. I'm going to ignore what Jesus says I need to do. I'm going to ignore people in whom he's put gifts for the specific purpose of building me up in this time because I know better, and I'm just going to get by myself, and that's going to bring me healing. 'Delusional, delusional.
Don't be your own counselor. Why? Because we give ourselves terrible advice. Terrible advice. We convince ourselves that everything's going to get better if we somehow isolate ourselves.
But all that happens is that Satan comes after us like a lion chasing down a zebra who's been separated from the herd. Oh, a straggler one on their own, ripe for the picking because now they've got no protection. And then when we're isolated, satan attacks us with baseless thoughts like, hey, nobody cares about you. Nobody can understand what you're going through. Nobody's missing you.
It's never going to get better. And in our weakened, suffering state, our thinking becomes distorted far more easily when we're isolated. So please hear me on this - stop doing that. Stop doing that.
Grow up and become mature in Christ. Lean into fellowship. This is what mature Christians do. Lean into fellowship when you don't feel like it because you're actually mature enough to understand that you need it. Don't be someone who skips church and Paul's back from fellowship at the time when you need it the most.
Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived other than Jesus, said, a fool's way is right in his own eyes. But whoever listens to counsel, to wise counsel, is wise. Seeking counsel and sharing your sufferings in a vulnerable way, it requires humility - a lot of it - which is probably why it doesn't come easy for most of us. But there's a promise in God's word that has haunted me in a good way over the past few years and that has profoundly impacted my life. In James four six, we read, o"Gd resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble."
God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. I have a choice. You have a choice. We can be proud, and we can hold on to our false image of having it all together, and God will resist us. Now, what does that mean?
I don't know exactly, but I know it's not good! I know I don't want God resisting me. And I know it means things aren't going to get better. Or we can humble ourselves, admit we need the help and support and ministry of our church family, and God will give us grace. And my goodness is the grace of God amazing when he pours it out on you.
It does miracles for the state of your spirit and the condition of your mind. Can I tell you from experience that God always does something good? When I humble myself and choose to share a struggle I'm having with a brother in the faith? Always. I don't have one time where I'm like, oh, man, I regret doing that.
It's always good. And it's not because they have the perfect response, it's not because they have the perfect advice, or they have an answer available right away for me. It's because they point me to Christ. They lead me to Christ in prayer, and Christ our out his grace on me, and I find myself able to hear Him with greater clarity. God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. When we humble ourselves and go to God's Word, seek Him in prayer and seek counsel from mature believers and prayer from them.
The Lord speaks. He does. He moves. He ministers.
We spoke earlier about not isolating yourself when you go through a trial, and that issue is deeply connected to a bigger issue. Write this down. It's this issue when going through a trial. This is true for any time, but especially in a trial. Do not let your emotions rule your decision-making.
Do not let your emotions rule your decision-making.
General George S. Patton, Jr. Paraphrased Shakespeare when he famously wrote, "Fatigue makes cowards of us all." When we're going through a trial, we're tired, we're beaten down. And in that state, it is so easy for us to lose discipline.
And yes, discipline is the right word. It is the root of the Word disciple. The Christian life is disciplined in that Christian living is, at its core, constantly saying no to the momentary desires of the flesh and instead saying yes to the leading of the spirit. It is that discipline over and over and over and over and over again. But when we're fatigued, we just want to give in to our fleshly emotions and desires, don't we?
The mature Christian understands that discipline is refusing to allow our actions to be dictated by your emotions. Refusing to let your actions be dictated by your momentary desires. "I don't feel like going to church. I don't feel like sharing this difficult thing with my brothers or sisters, but I know it's what I need to do. I know it's good for me, so I will do what I know is good rather than what would feel good in this moment."
That's discipline. That's mature Christian conduct. And here's a lie that Satan loves to tell you in those moments: "You don't want to go to church or home group. You'll just have to put on a happy face and pretend to be excited. And we both know you don't have the energy for that right now."
And it's a lie because you don't have to put on a happy face. You should spend some time with me. I'll model this for you, OK? You can be honest. You can be real.
God already knows you're not fooling Him in your life. There will be some Sundays when all you can do is get yourself to church. You're such a mess, you can't even sing. That's okay. We'll sing for you.
All you have to do is just agree in your spirit. With what we're singing, you won't be able to focus for the whole message. That's okay. God's word is supernatural. He will build your faith and minister to you just because you're in the room while His Word is being declared.
And the Holy Spirit will speak to your soul regardless of the subject of the message. You can ask for prayer and just say, "I'm a mess right now. I'm just going through it. That's all I can bring myself to share right now." Do that. Humble yourself and remember God's promise. He'll pour out His grace on you. He'll pour out His grace upon you.
And by the way, that's yet another reason why we sing the praises of God together, why we declare his goodness and celebrate his faithfulness with song out loud. It's because there are always brothers and sisters among us who desperately need those reminders. Sometimes it'll be you. So when you have the strength to sing, sing because you're not just singing for yourself. You're singing for those who are too weak to sing in that moment, you're singing over them.
It's not just about you. What we do when we get together is about the Church family.
When we're fatigued and we're going through it, isn't it so easy to justify sin? It's so easy, man, I deserve to indulge in this sin. How else am I supposed to cope with this? Nobody can judge me. They don't know what I'm going through.
They're not going through what I'm going through. Watch out. Peter says, "Be sober-minded, be alert. Your adversary, the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for anyone he can devour." Our coping mechanisms are never more tempting than when we're struggling to cope.
That's why they call coping mechanisms. And as we talked about last week, we're like a tube of toothpaste when the squeeze is on, when we're under pressure, what comes out of us, what comes out of our lives, is whatever was truly in us. Do we actually believe that there's more peace to be found in Christ than anything the world offers? A trial will reveal what you believe. Do we actually believe Christ is better than anything else?
All we have to do is look at where we run for relief when we're struggling to cope. Parenthetically this is why I counsel anybody who has wrestled with any type of coping mechanism that isn't Christ to build defenses in times of peace. You can't build your defenses when you're under attack, it's too late. You must build your defenses in times of peace. And when it comes to coping mechanisms, that means doing everything you can to strip them of their power in advance.
Paul counseled the Romans to make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires. In other words, what Paul is saying is, "Don't prepare things for when you know you're going to want to sin in the future. Don't set aside provisions so that you can sin using them later in the future." If you have a history of alcoholism, don't keep alcohol in your house anywhere, for any reason. Don't make any provision for the flesh if you've wrestled with porn addiction in the past, don't have any device in your home that doesn't have accountability software on it.
Don't keep that old software in a drawer for a rainy day just in case you want to sin and indulge the flesh later. Build your defenses in times of peace. Ask yourself this question. This is a brutal question that I will ask people sometimes, and it's brutal. The question is, "So, if you were loving to try and indulge your sinful coping mechanism today, later today, tomorrow, how would you do it?"
"How would you do it?" And then figure out what you can do to make that impossible or as difficult as humanly possible. That's building your defenses in times of peace. Why? Because you know and understand that sooner or later an assault is coming and when it comes, it'll be too late to build your defenses.
Then watch out for sin when you're struggling to cope and you're going through a trial. Build your defenses in advance. Get around. Fellowship with your church family as much as possible. Get prayer as much as possible.
Confess when you're struggling with temptation and be disciplined. We will not be exempt from the natural consequences of sin just because we're going through a trial. Please hear me on this. I'll say it again: We will not be exempt from the natural consequences of sin just because we're going through a trial.
Neither God nor Satan is going to be like, you're going through a lot right now. So, I'm not going to cause you to deal with anything from that sin. We'll just let it go. It's not going to happen. Christ will forgive you if you repent.
But repentance does not include the alleviation of the natural consequences of your sin.
I'm going to close. I know it's semi abruptly, but we're going to continue next week. Just talking through some practical issues about suffering, but I'm going to close by just reminding us of some key points from today's study. Number one, more than anything, invite your church family into your suffering. Invite them in.
If that doesn't come naturally to you, you're like, oh, I'm not that kind of person. You're not special. It doesn't come naturally to anybody. Let me share something potentially sensitive and embarrassing about myself and put myself in a highly vulnerable position. That's not a personality type.
Nobody does that, okay? Anytime you do this, you are acting against our fundamental human nature. That's why humility is so hard. It doesn't come naturally to any of us. That's why vulnerability is so hard.
It doesn't come naturally. We're not wired to do that. But do it anyway because you know God wants you to do it. And so, it must be good for you. Don't isolate yourself ever.
It's never the right decision. It's never good for you. Humble yourself and the Lord will pour out his grace upon you. Take advantage of that promise. Take advantage of it.
It's available to you. Don't be led by your emotions. You cannot trust them. Watch out for sinful coping mechanisms in your fatigued state. And if you're indulging them now repent build up your defenses make no provision for the flesh take action and lastly, remember the verses I shared at the beginning of today's study.
"We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin. Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need." The Lord loves you. Man, does he love you. He loves you so much. And he does not desire for you to suffer alone.
So, he's given you a church family to help with that.