Victoria Osteen

I love the fact that she did something about her discouragement.

She made a choice.

She took what she received on the inside, the encouragement she got from the ministry, and she began to encourage herself.

It says in Exodus 6 that when Moses was going to lead the children of Israel out of captivity, which God had promised would happen, when he went to them to tell them that this was their time, this was the moment that God was going to cause them to leave this burden of this yoke, this bondage that they had been under.

The scripture says this.

It says that they were too discouraged to believe.

They had been under so much discouragement that they couldn't even believe what God could do for them.

You know, that's a sad statement, too discouraged to believe.

But I'll tell you what it shows me.

It shows me the power of discouragement in our life.

It shows me that when we become discouraged, we can't even get the faith to believe that God can take us to the places we need to go, to take us over a challenge, through an obstacle.

You see, discouragement is heaped on us and we can't see.

You know, it's very interesting because the young girl that I talked about, when she began to encourage herself, when she began to take this encouragement that she had on the inside and encourage herself, you know, nothing had changed on the outside.

That man didn't come back to her life, but everything had changed on the inside.

And when hope rises in your heart, faith causes you to act.

Faith causes you to move forward.

The Scripture tells us that David, the mighty man of God who faced challenge after challenge, learned this secret.

He encouraged himself in the Lord.

You see, David had a warrior's mentality.

He took this place inside of him that he had built up, this place where he had encouraged himself,