BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

********** ADVERTISEMENT ********** Hear the uncompromised Word 24/7 from ministers you can trust! bvovn BELIEVER’S VOICE OF VICTORY NETWORK REAL. LIFE. FAITH. ----photos of ministers---- watch on dish® CHANNEL 265 apple tv® 4th Generation Roku® bvovn.com YouTube® amazon fire TV Facebook Apple® iOS] android ****************************************** ****** article continues below ****** It's true. Don't you tend to get bitter or resentful toward someone when you've been disappointed deeply in how that person treated you? If you hang on to that disappointment and refuse to let it go, it becomes unforgiveness. And what about envy? Isn't it disappointment that you don't have something someone else has? The devil uses the insidious force of disappointment to poison our relationships and choke our supply line from God. You see, relationships are the channels God most often uses to bring provision and refreshment to us. Instead of appearing to us on a little, puffy cloud and saying, “Be thou encouraged, My child," God will more often than not send that encouragement through one of our relationships. He'll prompt someone to pat us on the shoulder and give us a word of praise. But when a relationship gets polluted, that particular channel of God's refreshing is shut down. In 2 Kings 5, you can see just how costly that can be. There, the Word of God tells about a high-ranking Syrian officer named Naaman who came to the prophet Elisha to be healed of leprosy: Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha. And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean. But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper (verses 9-11). Instead of being happy to know he could be healed by simply dipping in the Jordan River, Naaman was wroth. He was angry. He had expected Elisha to come out and lay hands on him. His expectations were frustrated. Naaman's disappointment almost cost him his healing. If his servants hadn't talked him into following Elisha's instructions, Naaman would have gone home to Syria that day not only with his disappointment and anger, but also with his leprosy. In the moments before God's greatest victories, disappointment often comes to rob you of what He's about to do. In the moments after those victories, it comes to rob you of your triumph. That's what happened to the prophet Elijah. He experienced one of the most magnificent victories recorded in the Old Testament. You can read about it in 1 Kings 18. There, the Bible tells how God, in response to Elijah's prayer, sent fire from heaven, proved Himself to be God before the Israelite people, and put to the sword 400 prophets of Baal in a single day. Glory, what a miracle! Yet the following day, when the queen sent Elijah a letter that said she was going to kill him, what did he do? He ran away, laid down under a juniper tree in depression and said, “God, I want to die." Only one day after God had supernaturally and spectacularly intervened in his life, disappointment convinced Elijah that his ministry was failing. You see from Elijah's experience just how dangerous the force of disappointment can be. It will paralyze a person in ministry. It will bring about oppression. It will cause you to want to quit. How should we deal with a force that subtle and that devastating? We can start by looking at what Jesus did. He dealt with a group of the most disappointed people of all time—His disciples. They had watched the hope of their lives hang bleeding and dying on a cross. Certainly, Jesus had told them He would rise again from the dead, but they hadn't understood Him. They had expected Him to establish His earthly reign during their lifetime. They had staked their whole lives on it. Then suddenly, He was dead...and their dreams were shattered. In John 20, you can see the effect the poison of disappointment had on them. It chased them into a room where they locked themselves away in fear—fear of man and fear of the future. It completely immobilized their lives. Their ministries were over. What did Jesus do? Verse 19 tells us. “Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.” 24 : BVOV

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