Overcoming Fear with Faith

For some time now God has been speaking to me about Fear. For those of you who know me well, you know that this is not an area that I enjoy talking about because it's actually an area that I struggle with alot. I have allowed fear to control many areas of my life that need to be operated by faith. However, God is saying this is not just something I am dealing with; this is something the body as a whole is struggling with. Fear is undoubtedly an attack of the enemy. Fear is meant to destroy our faith. It comes in many shapes and sizes but the overall outcome is to kill, steal and destroy. Fear is bondage. If we allow Fear to rule in our lives eventually fear will paralyze us to the point that we are no longer effective as a servant of God. We as a body have to learn how to recognize, defend and have victory over fear in order to be free from this bondage. Fear is the opposite of Faith, Romans 14:23 tells us that whatever is not from faith is sin. God's word also tells us that we should walk by faith not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). God does not give us a Spirit of Fear (2 Timothy 1:17). I believe that the enemy plants doubt in our mind that makes us doubt God's promises are for us today and after that seed of doubt is planted, fear begins to take root.

Quick story of how the enemy tried to stop me from being used by God by bringing doubt and fear in my life just this week. The other morning the Lord woke me up to pray for my brother in law urgently and I felt like God had a word for him. Immediately doubt entered my mind. Doubt that it was a word from the Lord and then fear struck me. What if he is offended or what if it causes problems with him and my sister and so I began praying Father your sheep know your voice and hear your voice, let me discern your voice above all others right now and after much prayer I went forth with the word God gave me via text message to my brother in law. Later that morning my mother informed me that he has a company phone and it does not allow him to receive text messages. So, once again doubt came forth. However, yesterday the Holy Spirit led a client of my sister's to speak a word to my brother in law, about an hour later my text message broke the barriers the phone company had in place and came through confirming the word he had just heard from my sister's client. I had to learn a valuable lesson in this to trust God's voice and not give place to the enemy in my mind. God's timing is always perfect.

We have to learn how to overcome fear and I think the first step is to recognize fear for what it is and to choose faith over fear. We need to understand God's protection and promises are for us today. To remain free from fear, we need to speak the word of God out loud (Isa 55:11), draw nigh to the Father (James 4:8), think about what you’re thinking about (2 Corinthians 10:5) and live according to his commandments (1 John 5:3). Whatever the devil is trying to convince you not to do is likely the one thing you need to aggressively pursue.

Please pray that you will easily recognize fear for what it is and walk by faith. Pray against fear this week in your life and of course pray against the same for our Pastor and Beverly. Remember that our leadership needs us to cover them in prayer in every area we are focusing on.

Scriptures References
Psalm 118:6
Isa 43:1-2
Isa 44:8
1 Corinthians 2:5
1 John 5:3
2 Corinthians 10:5
Isa 55:11


Payer List
1. Divine Protection
2. Holiness
3. Heart like Hur/strength when weary
4. Revival
5. Steadfastness
6. Surrender
7. Discernment
8. Worship in Spirit and Truth
9. Trust
10. Pray to be led by the Holy Spirit
11. Resist Discouragement
12. Offense
13. Unity
14. Fire of God to fall
15. Walk in Obedience to His Word
16. Overcome Fear with Faith

Walk in Obedience to His Word

As I was praying this morning, I asked God to please give me a word for our prayer group. I don't want this to come from me, I want it to be consumed by you, Father. I want you, God to saturate us with your presence. God spoke to me and said, I have already given you a word but you doubted my word and have sat on it. Immediately, I thought I didn't think this was something you wanted us to pray about and he said to me...Amy, I led you to pray about this last night over and over and then I remembered praying for the disobedient children of God, the black sheep, those Children that have turned from their faith, those blinded by the enemy. I prayed for God to prepare his Bride for his return and to bring those rebellious blinded, disobedient children back to their faith. So bare with me as I share with you what God laid on my heart earlier this week. Please forgive me for not sharing this with you when he gave it to me.

Read
2 Thessalonians 1:3-9 is talking about God's final judgment and Glory when the Lord returns.
8 in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power,

Look closely at verse 8 and it describes 2 groups of people that will be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord. The first are those who do not know God but the second group of people really grabbed my attention because it's referring to those people who do not OBEY the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. This in my opinion could very well be anyone of us, it could be the people sitting in the church pew Sunday after Sunday, living a life that does not line up with God's word, condoning things that are in total contradiction to his word and making choices based on how they "think" they should live or how they "feel" like living verses how the scripture tells us to live. God's word is infallible, it's unchangeable. Regardless of how the world has changed since the Scripture was written, God's word and his expectations of the body have not nor will they ever change.

Jesus was always about His Father's business. Jesus’ Gospel was “the gospel of the kingdom of God, Kingdom of heaven” and the message was specifically, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.”

Read
Matthew 10:7, Luke 4:43, Matthew 4:17, 2 Thessalonians 1:3-9

When you believe in something an action will follow. For example, if you believe your car needs gas to run than you won't try to drive it without any gasoline or if you believe a chair is broken you won't try to sit in it. The same applies biblically, if we believe the word of God to be truth, if we believe that the bible is God's instruction manual to us on how we should and shouldn't live than we will take heed to the word and apply it to our lives daily, not just when it feels good. We will be obedient to his word if we believe it.

Biblical "faith" is an action manifested through obedience. Obedience is obeying the word of God regardless of whether or not we like what it says. God's people are to live by faith and walk by obedience to His word. Jesus gave an urgent message saying Repent and Believe, turn from your wicked ways because the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. To repent is to change your mind. Our minds must be changed and renewed daily by God's word. At hand means, "Just around the corner" or "so close you can almost touch it". In other words, WAKE UP, time is running out people. Repent, Believe (obey) what I'm telling you, the Kingdom of God is upon us.

God is saying to me that we should be looking for the Lord's return and living in obedience to His Word without exception. Let's pray to walk in obedience daily. Not just momentarily or when it feels good but always walk in obedience to his Word.

Maranatha! The Lord is coming.

Prayer List
1. Divine Protection
2. Holiness
3. Heart like Hur/strength when weary
4. Revival
5. Steadfastness
6. Surrender
7. Discernment
8. Worship in Spirit and Truth
9. Trust
10. Pray to be led by the Holy Spirit
11. Resist Discouragement
12. Offense
13. Unity
14. Fire of God to fall
15. Walk in Obedience to His Word

Fire of God Fall

This week I feel very strongly that God wants us to line our prayers up with our leadership. This is so important to God that he has confirmed our prayer for this week to me through 3 different people, to make sure that I didn't miss it. I believe that God has aligned every week thus far for this very moment. Many times I have prayed for the Fire of God to fall upon me but it wasn't until just recently that I really learned what that actually meant. The fire of God is all consuming; it will burn up anything not of him and purify anything that is.

I want to show you a quick illustration of some key characteristics of how fire is used to refine gold. A refiner has to melt the gold to turn it into a liquid and purify it. This process is needed in order for the impurities in the metal to be revealed. Once the gold is in liquid form, the impurities will become a film on the surface of the gold that the refiner will than scoop out. During this process the refiner has to continually repeat these steps until he has removed all the impurities and can see nothing but his reflection in the liquid. Make sure you catch that last phrase; he keeps a fire under the gold until his reflection is all he can see.

In Hebrews 12:29 it says that God is a consuming fire. When we pray for the Fire of God to fall upon us, we are really asking God to completely consume us. To reveal and burn out anything in our life that doesn't bring glory to him, anything in our life that is not of him or from him (impurities). We are asking OUR refiner to refine us by revealing all the ugliness we have deep within us. It's a process, not an overnight fix but a process just as refining gold is a process. We're saying God, when you look at me I want you to see your son's reflection in my life, can you just pour that refining fire of yours down and burn everything out of me that would blind you from seeing Jesus in me. I know it may be painful and my flesh may want to hold onto all this ugly stuff but I desperately want more of you and less of me. God is looking for people who are willing to do whatever it takes to be in a closer walk with him. He's not looking for a mediocre Christian with one foot in the world and one foot in the church. He desires us to be holy, on fire for him, anchored in him and completely consumed and dependent in him.

My notes from Sunday's sermon say that without sacrifice there will be no fire and the key is Effectual Fervent Prayer. I want our scripture reading to be a review of the scriptures Pastor preached about on Sunday.

Read

Lev. 26:3-4
1 Kings 17:18
1 Kings 18:18
1 Kings 18:21
1 Kings 18:41-46
James 5:16-18
Hebrews 12:29

Heavenly Father, we come before you with repentant hearts, seeking to worship you and to be closer to you than ever before. Lord, we are asking for your Fire to fall upon us revealing every impurity in our life. Father burn out of us everything that is not of you or from you and purify by your fire everything that is so that your son may shine brightly through us. Let us not get caught up in the world by living mediocre, fearful lives but let us be a holy people desiring to please you. In Jesus name we pray Amen

Prayer List
1. Divine Protection
2. Holiness
3. Heart like Hur/strength when weary
4. Revival
5. Steadfastness
6. Surrender
7. Discernment
8. Worship in Spirit and Truth
9. Trust
10. Pray to be led by the Holy Spirit
11. Resist Discouragement
12. Offense
13. Unity
14. Fire of God to fall