Unleash Your Inner Warrior
For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. — 2 Timothy 1:7 My dear warrior, I will begin by being open about something in my own life: I have struggled with the fear of man for years without ever even recognizing what it was. I understand how easy it can be to be overwhelmed by the enemy, to become fearful in any given situation because it all seems so much bigger than you. It’s easy to look at all the crises around the world, to look at ISIS, or to see the influence of the Masons at work in the media and to simply feel like you’re being overtaken by wave after tsunami wave. It can feel like you are drowning in it all, but I also know that this feeling (which is so easy to get) is a sign that you are focusing on the wrong things. It is pure laziness to give into fear. It takes work to hold to hope, or to respond in love. But beloved, it is worth it at every moment. As you work to hold onto hope, as you intentionally choose love over fear, you are essentially training a muscle. The more you train that muscle, the easier it gets to choose love and hope, until it finally becomes your default and fear is no longer your lazy go-to option.
How can I say it is laziness? Pretty easily. Some of you might find it rather ironic that I’m about to quote a Disney film here, but Tomorrowland included a story that really got it right: There are two wolves who are always fighting. One is darkness and despair, the other is light and hope. The question is, which wolf wins? The one you feed. With this story of the two wolves, I am simply referring to your own focus in your inner life. Which are you feeding? If you are feeding fear, here is my two-word counseling ministry to you: Stop it. While it is important to know your enemy, it is far more important to know the God you serve. I’m sure the size, scope, reach and influence of the enemy have overwhelmed you before, and that you have simply forgotten how powerful God really is. We can become so overwhelmed by their power or influence at times that we resign ourselves to the idea that there is nothing we can do about it, and so we simply hide in our cowardice and let the enemy take territory that is rightfully ours. Excuse me for being so blunt, but you have a tiny view of God. Our God is not so small that the enemy simply wins. If you have such a small view of God that your fear of man is greater than your fear of the Lord, shame on you! Shame on you for magnifying the enemy and giving him power where he should have none. What kind of puny God do you serve? It almost certainly isn’t the God of the Bible. (If you think it is, go read the book again. I assure you that we serve a great and mighty God.) In our culture, things have gone wrong on so many levels. We have thrown out the idea of the fear of the Lord together with “hell-fire preaching.” Fear of the Lord it is not a popular reality right now, and has been reduced down to being defined as “reverent awe.” So many Christians are choosing to simply share what is comfortable, what they think others want to hear, and what they think will make people feel good. Christianity is not comfortable, and it is not a feel-good religion. “I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.” – C.S. Lewis The fear of the Lord is not simply "reverent awe". I dare you to stand before the One true living God who causes the earth to tremble when He speaks, who calls fire down from heaven, who parted the Red Sea; the God who spoke the universe into existence and hung every star in the heavens, who rends the heavens and shakes the earth; the God who created super novas, raspberries, and E-minor; the God who created the Fibonacci Sequence, Fractals and the Golden Ratio, the God of judgment who determines whether you live or die... and I dare you not to tremble in fear before Him. I dare you not to fall flat on your face in fear and trembling before Him when He shows up in His great and mighty power. This is not some puny God of fictional children's stories. This is the God of the universe! "For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ." – Galatians 1:10 If you live in fear of the Masons, of ISIS, corrupt corporations, of things in the news, of anything and everything that could go wrong, then I want you to recognize that you are not serving the God you claim to know. Offensive? No, not at all. The God of the Bible is not so small that these things are more powerful than Him, so why should your view be imbalanced? Let me show you something in the book of Judges, in chapter 6 (Gideon’s stories here are really cool. I highly recommend them!) There God said, “And I said unto you, I am the LORD your God; fear not the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell: but you have not obeyed My voice.” The word ‘fear’ is also translated as ‘worship.’ The people had become so fearful of these other gods that they fell into idolatry. Their worship was refocused from the Lord our God to false gods. How is that possible? When you begin to fear the gods of your enemies, that fear works to redirect your worship. You are made to magnify. Whatever you focus on, you magnify. See the effect of fear? It’s the same for us. If we allow fear into our lives, it will affect how we respond to the Lord. Fear infects our worship and removes our focus from God. We become hung up on whatever we fear. (So, for instance, if you fear the Masons more than you fear God, you trust them to be more powerful than God, you are more afraid of what they will do to you than you are of living out the calling the Lord has placed on your life, then you have effectively made them an idol in your life. You have placed fear of man over the fear of the Lord.) So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my Helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” –Hebrews 13:6 Some of you may know that I have a double MBA in Entrepreneurship and Marketing. While I was working on my degree, I realized that I wanted to be CEO of a major company. After finding out the absolute depths of corruption in giant corporations, I became fearful, thinking that if I ever made it anywhere near where I wanted to be, that I would have to compromise or that I would be ousted for my beliefs. I allowed fear to overtake me and begin to crush the call that I know God has placed in my heart. Then I had a wake-up call about the fear of man versus the fear of the Lord. I realized that intimidation is a tool of the enemy—and it is not all it is cracked up to be. It is one of the most powerful tools of the enemy, but it is nothing. Intimidation only has power over us if we give it power. It only has power if we submit ourselves to fear of man rather than the fear of the Lord. I realized: I am more afraid of disappointing Almighty God, of ignoring the call on my life, of falling into the hands of the living God, and of hearing “I do not know you” at the end of my life than I am of any enemy. I realized I do not have to give into fear and intimidation, but instead I can (and should constantly, intentionally) choose to live for God. "And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell." –Matthew 10:28 Romans 8:37 says that we are more than conquerors through Christ—it says that overwhelming victory is ours! Since God has said that we are more than conquerors, why would we listen to the lies of the enemy? Why would we submit to those lies? Why should we give up territory to the enemy? We should not give up territory that rightfully belongs to God because of fear. We should not rescind our rights and give our authority to the enemy simply because the task is too daunting, or because we are fearful or because we don’t know how to get where God has said to go. If God wants you somewhere, be faithful one step at a time and do not worry about the ‘how.’ God will take care of that part. Just partner with Him and do not compromise along the way. Whatever you bow your knee to on the way up the mountain will own you when you get to the top. Do not compromise – but also do not be intimidated by the challenges ahead. “I, yes I, AM the one who comforts you. So why are you afraid of mere humans, who wither like the grass and disappear? Yet you have forgotten the LORD, your Creator, the One who stretched out the sky like a canopy and laid the foundations of the earth. Will you remain in constant dread of human oppressors? Will you continue to fear the anger of your enemies?" –Isaiah 51:12-13 In our parents and grandparents’ generations, well-meaning Christians gave up their territory and gave up on what they were called to because they were sure that we were in the last days. They gave up positions of CEO's and Presidents of companies; they gave up roles of power and influence. The result is that corrupt people then were able to take power and control and have influence almost by default! No matter where we are in the times, no matter how corrupt the system may be, we are meant to reclaim that territory. Nowadays, because there is so much corruption, many Christians won’t step into their calling because they are afraid. Their fear of man is greater than the fear of the Lord. When we resign ourselves to the corruption of this world and say that there's nothing we can do about it, we are simply giving into fear. When we say we should not go for such places of power and authority such as CEO or other such jobs because there's no way that we could get into such a place of power, or that we would have to give into corruption in order to ever make it, those are all simply lies that keep us from serving our great King. "Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world." –1 John 4:4 Let me ask you this: if you are afraid of doing what you know God has put on your heart, what puny God do you serve? Is your God so small that He cannot make a way? Is He so small that He cannot get you where He wants you to be? Take a look at Joseph's life. God gave him a series of dreams showing him who he would be, and where He was taking him. God intended from the very start to use Joseph to bring all of Egypt into prosperity in the midst of famine so that His children could be delivered from Egypt later on with a great inheritance! But God had an unconventional way of getting him there: Joseph had to go through process to develop and prove his character (so he would not compromise) and God set him up with all of the right connections, and made sure he was at the right place at the right time so that he could become the right hand man of the most powerful man in Egypt. Don't limit God simply because you cannot see how God will get you from where you are to where He wants you to end up. My dear warrior, I challenge you to wake up today. Recognize the fear of man in your life, and recognize where you do not have a right view of God. Ask Him to give you a right view of Him—ask for a complete lens change if you need it! Then dust off your dreams that God never intended for you to put on a shelf, and live to serve Him. Put on your armor and take your first step onto the battleground and begin to take back the territory He intends for you to reclaim for Him. Whether that is in entertainment, government, education, business or otherwise, I challenge you to put aside your fear of man and live like the warrior you were made to be. "The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe." –Proverbs 29:25 Live in the battleground, Warrior Beloved ©Michèle Aimée, 2015
1 Comment
Harold H. Hendricks
11/4/2015 05:59:01 pm
Very well reasoned, Michèle, and strongly put forth. I took strength from your words today. Thanks for posting these eloquent essays.
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