Tidbits I've learned recently from reading His Word and from reading "Prayer Evangelism"

Note: these are not in any specific order.

1) We are all no strangers to discouragement and doubt in ministry. Progress on campus, in churches, in cities, in nations come at a high cost to us, our lives, our teams, and our families. BUT, there is hope. Here is a passage I would like to share with you from that book:
"In a moment of unhealthy self-pity I began to tell the Lord how badly wounded I was, how much our family and our team had suffered, how brutal the blows had been and how little return we had seen on our investment. The Lord's reply shocked me: Ed, you should see the OTHER guy! He is the one who looks really bad. You're on the winning team! If you think you look pathetic, just imagine how awful the loser must look....True, progress has come at a cost. And Satan wants us to focus on our cost so that we will not see what his cost has been!"

Conclusion: A Cost-Benefit Analysis
It is worth the cost when not only have you made progress (however little or big) but you have cost the other team more. We tend to focus on how much it cost us, how much we have suffered, but we forget (and put little value on) the fact that the opponent looks even worse for the wear! Hallelujah!

2) Along similar lines of thought: The greatest struggle in life is not the struggle against our flesh and striving to become more like Christ. "On none of those fronts--salvation, tribulations and sanctification--can the devil harm the followers of Christ. So the primary purpose of our struggles against the devil is to open the eyes of the lost to the gospel!...This is the only struggle where the devil has a fighting chance." (Emphasis mine)
What greater thing to oppose (for the devil) than the Great Commission? The greatest struggle in life is with the devil for the lost souls of this world.

3) I am in the process of reading through Leviticus right now. Did you know that the priests would have been the equivalent of doctors in our society? Leviticus 13 is basically God teaching the priests how to diagnose skin disease! It covers everything...rashes, sores, burns, boils, shiny spots, swelling, spreading skin diseases. It's no wonder that Jesus, our great High Priest, is also the Great Physician! I will read later on in chapter 14, how God treats skin diseases that are defiling or unclean. God invented diagnoses and treatment.
Even though I don't want to do dermatology, this is as close as I've come to feeling like it would be cool lol.

4) As I'm reading Leviticus, I'm learning that there are 5 main types of sacrifices: grain, burnt, sin, guilt, and fellowship offerings with specific purposes for each one. In each type, God makes exceptions for those who are poor and cannot afford bulls, goats, etc. The poor use doves or pigeons. And I realized more and more as I continued to read Leviticus that if I lived in those times, I would be sacrificing nonstop. However, I, like the poor, can't pay the debt that we owe God. And I was led to read Matt 18:21-35 this morning. I am like that servant who owes 10,000 bags of gold = 10,000 talents = 200,000 years of labor! I owe God a debt that I cannot pay off in this lifetime let alone MULTIPLE lifetimes! And yet, God provides and makes exceptions for the poor (me). He paid the cost Himself. He did so in the OT and now even more so in the NT. Praise be to God for His incomprehensible, infinite grace and mercy.