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And so I suppose, all of us, at some time or another have, been frustrated that we've been discouraged and, that we've been tempted to quit we tried hard, but we didn't immediately get the results. We expected. Therefore, we declare you know what I tried it didn't work. I quit now, who am I talking to out there? I tried didn't work, so I quit

The struggles of life have pilfered the life out of your life and you don't know where to turn and quite honestly, you don't know, if faith is worth the risk. You've been disappointed so many times and you're, so very, very tired. If that is you I'm sorry, I'm sorry I truly am, but I urge you with every ounce of energy that I can muster. I urge you don't give in to despair.  The anaconda of hopelessness will squeeze the life out of you, don't give in you can't giveup you just can't folks, you just can't there's too much at stake. You'Ve got children,  you've got grandchildren, you've got a legacy, you've got friends. You got neighbors and they're needing somebody to rise up. Inthe midst of these difficult days and say I ain't quitting. Others are throwing in the towel, but I'm not.

Living daily as a disciple of Jesus Christ, is not easy in this world. And some days we need God's help just to just to help us to put one foot in front of the other some days. We need God's help to keep praying. We need God's help to keep standing. To keep working some days. We feel like the only success was that we didn't quit today and some of you may be tempted to escape a trial by quitting. People are hurt, people are frustrated they tired, they lost their job, they've lost loved ones, man. I got to trust God.  And some of you know you would have lost your mind a long time ago had it not been for God. Don't quit. Make a statement to make a stance, That I am not going to be moved. I am not going to give up, I'm not going to quit. As a father, I'm not going to quit. As a provider, I'm not going to quit. As a Christian, I'm not going to quit as a believer, I'm not going to quit the call of God. That's on my life, I'm not going to quit what God's called me to do where my community is concerned. I'm, not going to quit in all of my well-doing. I'm, not going to quit on the on the gift that God has given me, I am not a quitter. I am more than a conqueror and, with Jesus Christ, overcome every temptation to quit, so you get yourself up you stop feeling sorry for yourself. If you're, the only one, that's ever gone, through trouble get up dust all that stuff off of you hold your head up! Put your shoulders back to get dressed up. If you have to, but let the devil know I have an announcement to make. There's more quit in me. 

You may be going through something and you maybe facing things and the enemies whispering, nobody else has made it. Nobody else can live, nobody else can stand, nobody else can live, like they ought to live. So why are you even trying. You ought to make up your mind,  I'm going to make it I'm not going to quit, I'm not going to lay down and, I'm not going to be a statistic. I'm going to make it because God is on my side.

So instead of thinking about quitting, the first thing we got to do is get quitting out of your thought. Life you got to stop thinking about quitting and you got to start thinking about what the word has to say in the midst of quitting, you remember what, the Bible says he says as a man thinketh is in his heart, so is he. So you are in your heart based on what you're thinking about and if you keep thinking about quitting and that's all you think about is quitting, you know what you're going to develop that on the inside of you and it won't be long before you start quitting and you start, seeing quitting as the answer, but there's nothing better on the other side of quitting.

No condition is too dark. No situation is too impossible. No problem is so severe that God can't in a moment, in an instant overturn, intervene, interrupt and reverse the course of events. Abraham and Sarah were old and barren one day then stunned and pregnant the next. Joseph went to sleep one night as a prisoner in Egypt. He went to sleep the next night, as the Egyptian Prime Minister. The Red Sea was uncrossable, one minute and a pathway the next. Joshua marched seven times around the city of Jericho after the sixth circle, the walls were still standing, but after the seventh they were rubble. Goliath defied Israel for forty days morning and evening belching his boasting in the valley of Ela. Nobody came until that shepherd boy showed up and down went the giant. The lions wanted to eat Daniel one moment, but they couldn't because in the next moment their mouths were wired shut. Are you seeing the rhythm in God's hands? No script is predictable. Storyline is inevitable, no outcome is certain. God is the God of grand reversals and who's to say he doesn't have one in your future's. Let the middle of the story, confuse you do, be thrown off, don't be thrown off, because you can't see the ending and what you expected to happen has not happened. Set your eyes on the author of your salvation: listen, no person is beyond the influence of God. No person, no personis beyond his sovereign hand, the scripture says, the Lord directs, the king's thoughts he turns them wherever hewants to God is writing. History and, God is charge, is in charge of history. Just keep praying, keep trusting your story's, not finished reversals happen. But you got to stay in the game.

Do you go to God before you consult or pursue any human effort and that's what God wants hewants to be first place in your life? He wants you to look to him before you give up cave in and quit and he says if you do, I'm going to give you strength and I'm going to make sure that that that caving in doesn't take place. That quitting doesnot take place. Second Corinthians, 4 16-18. He says that is why we never give up though, our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day, I'm not going to give up. Next verse,  For our present troubles are small and won't last very long, yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever that's a powerful thing. That he calls it small things and he says they won't last for long. So we don't look at the troubles we can see now. Rather we fix our gaze on things. That cannot be seen for the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will. Last forever, so what do we do we fix our eyes on the promises of God, we fix our eyes on what God is promising in this world and he says you know what the things you are going though, they have an expiration date they will soon be over and you've got to know that. So don't don't quit over something that 'temporary you're quitting over something that 'temporary, as if things won't change and they will do quit.

God is bigger than your problem. Because Jesus is with you in your storms as well as when he is with you on your sunny days and the fact of the matter is, you learn things in the midst of storms or hardships or trials that you will not learn anywhere else better to be in a storm with Jesus than anywhere else without him, so whatever you are going through if you're a Christian, Christ is with you. God has a plan for you And know this his plan, for you is better than your plan for yourself, so never be afraid to commit an unknown future to a known God.

You've got to understand that maturity's got to come somehow and you're, not going to mature when everything's, going to always be going great and, peachy, king and floating on account nobody nobody. Matures that way, that's just like saying you can go into a weight room  without lifting weight and think you're going to develop muscular definition. Thats not how that works.

The thing that we want removed, I mean think about the thing you want removed right now from your life. The thing that you want removed is the thing thatGod has chosen to use the thing that we're trying to pray away or pray out of our life which is completely understandable . is the thing that until God chooses to remove it, that God is using it or to say it a different way. The tension in our lives is it that is at the epicenter of God's activity in our lives, the tension in our lives, is the, epicenter of God's activity in our lives. What are you praying about right now? Isn't it true, This trial, this difficult time that you're going through this thing that you wish would change. It has your undivided attention, and this, what you're praying about! In fact, perhaps you haven't prayed in a long time and suddenly you find yourself praying why? Because that's what trials do. It exercises our faith and it is the epicenter of what God is up to in our lives. Thats why our trials inform our prayers. So James says this,  look, don't short change the process, bail out on the process, don't quit the process, and don't stop believing because there is an outcome and here's the outcome. He continue she says this. Let perseverance to finish its work so that you might be mature and complete not lacking anything and he's using a little play on words here. Here's what he's saying. Hes saying, let perseverance to complete its work so that you will be complete. Let perseverance, let the process play out. Let perseverance to complete its work so that you will be complete so that you will have grown up faith and, let's face it. The only way to have grown up faith is to face a trial and to experience God's faithfulness in the trial, so ask God to use this until God chooses to remove this now.

Lets look at these scriptures James chapter 1 verse, 2 through 4, don't be afraid of trouble. I mean you think you know, oh I have trouble. I must have Sinned, I must have done something wrong. No, you you you need to mature, you see, God prepares everybody that he calls. God doesn't call anybody Ready. God doesn't call anybody prepared. People have this idea,  "Well if God told you to do something you must be prepared for it". No, no, no God will tell you to do something and then maybe spend the next, four or five years getting you ready for it, getting your mentality ready for it. Let me give you an illustration. You remember the the illustration I gave about the two-year-old that's walking, and he learns how to walk.  And so as he is learning how to walk, he falls sometimes. You're learning to go through the process of learning how to walk. You know he'going to fall sometime, but the parent doesn't condemn him and say you no good for nothing little two-year-old, you walk you better, walk or I'm, going to punish you. And then he gets up and he walks a little bit further, but he falls again. Tell you what you're going to hell if you fall one more time? Thats not what happens each time he falls! God is there to pick him up, toencourage he come on, you can do it pick him up and come on to it and one day he's walking. That'what God does with us you're beating yourself up, because while you were learning how to walk and learning how to be a Christian, you fell back into some stuff and you thought God's going to get you and God was like come on. Let me encourage you to come on yeah yeah yeah. I know, I know yeah yeah Iknow you got drunk as a skunk last night, come on come on I'm gon na encourage you to come on let'swalk a little bit more and then you start walking and. Then you fell back and did something that stupid in you and God's. Like God's, not saying oh, you're going to hell, he says now come on baby. Let's keep walking. Lets keep walking I'm just training. You cause one day, yo are going to be able to walk without falling. That's what this is about. You're not going o, be afraid of trouble. You are an overcomer. The bBible Makes it very very clear,  you're more than conquerors. I'm, more than a conqueror through him that loved us, when you're more than a conqueror you overcome  God is with you. Don't give up, don't give up, don't give up.

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