This weekend after church and also late yesterday afternoon I crashed, sleeping for several hours to refuel from Leah’s birthday party. While sleeping, I had a bad dream, probably from fatigue. I dreamed the Smoke Monster from Lost was chasing Leah and me through a house, up the stairs. Then I woke up.
Many times in our lives, we deal with a real Smoke Monster – that of fear. I listened to the replay of Krista Dunk’s Breakthrough Conference from this week, and heard an excellent teaching tonight by Ericka Jackson on Fear and Fearlessness.
What Fear is NOT
Fear, she said, is NOT False Evidence Appearing Real. This has been taught so much in the secular world that now the Church is repeating it over and over. This explanation has no Biblical basis.
Actually, Ericka said, fear is real. This is the definition of fear: a lack of surrender or submission to God.
Fear illuminates the areas of your life where you do not believe and have faith in God and His word!
Fear means that you are not yet purified from uncleanness and darkness. It means that you are not yet perfected in God’s agape love, because perfect love drives away all fear.(1 John 4:18)
Like the Smoke Monster, fear will chase you down, fill you with terror, drag you off course, and eat you alive.
It will hinder your great purpose and destiny.
>Fear will keep you from manifesting your greatness.
God has called you and me to greatness, because we were made in the image of God, who is great. (Genesis 1:27) In Ericka’s mp3 audio Now Is Your Time, she challenges you and me to look at the areas of our lives where we are not living out our greatness in Christ.
>Examine your marriage, children, job, ministry, health, environment, finances. What currently doesn’t reflect your greatness, your full potential in God?
Wherever you are afraid, that is the area where you are not trusting God.
Ericka exhorts you and me to leave the past behind us, to let it go, and to choose to walk in step with God each day, trusting in Him.
Nothing is impossible with God
Because Jesus Christ lives inside of you, you have the power to overcome anything and nothing is impossible with God. (Luke 1:26-38) You are destined for greatness, and to do Jesus’ greater works. (John 14:12)
You must heed God’s urgent timing on your calling. Don’t put it off another day. Don’t let fear hold you back from your potential.
The time is now. Today is the accepted time, the day of salvation. (2 Corinthians 6:2)
Get focused, set your eyes on Jesus and on your purpose. Get rid of time thieves and distractions, catching the little foxes that spoil the vineyard. (Song of Solomon 2:15)
Ericka says removing distractions from your greatness doesn’t mean leaving your husband or kids because they are getting on your last nerve. It doesn’t necessarily mean you should quit your job today.
Get a new mindset- not having a spirit of fear, but of love, of power, and of a sound mind. (2 Timothy 1:7) In other words, thinking the thoughts of God, having His heart of love, doing what God does.
Time is short. Ericka exhorts us there is to be no more watering down of God’s vision for your life. There is no more time to play around. We need to be about our God our Father’s business, and do what we’re called to do and to be.
Maybe you feel that you have just been too hurt, or messed up too bad in your life. Ericka encourages us that the purpose of your painful past was to create the tools, insights and expertise you need today, not to just wound you.
God can turn your pain around 180 degrees and use it for His glory, like He did with Joseph whose brothers threw him in a pit and sold him into slavery. Later he was raised up by God to be second in command in Egypt and to deliver his family in the drought.
Your past has made you stronger. It has equipped you for your greatness. Your time for greatness is now.
Yes, the Smoke Monster of Fear is very real.
It will rob you of your full power and anointing in Christ.
It must be cast down through the blood of Jesus and through you standing in your rightful position through God. The battle against Satan was already won over 2,000 years ago through Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross.
We must give no place to fear, because it only wants to torment us and keep us from our great purpose.
We must learn to stand in our rightful place through Christ, co-heirs reigning with Him. Ask God to deliver you from fear and to cleanse you of its effects in your life.
Say no more to the Smoke Monster of Fear.
Say yes to God and your great purpose.
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