We are continuing with our series entitled, “Fear not; Trust God”. Do not be afraid, trust God; God does not want you going through life fearful; God does not want you going through life guessing concerning the outcomes of your life. God wants you going through life bold, knowing of a certainty that He is working on your behalf. You may not know or have answers to the things that you are presently faced with, the difficulties, the hardship, the complexities presently, the situations and circumstances that may seem to have besieged your life, you may not have the immediate answers, but God does.
What a comforting thought to know that if you are a child of God, your heavenly father is not taken unawares by your needs, your pains, your current circumstances. He’s not even taken aback nor is he unaware of your mistakes, your miscalculations, your faulty steps that you may have taken; that opened the door to the present situations that you are in. Thank God He is a deliverer, He is a rescuer.
I want you to know today that God has you on His mind; He wants you trusting Him because He can fix it. Just like one very great man of God, Jesse Duplantis once said, “leave the challenges of your life in the hands of a specialist”; God is a specialist and there’s no way your circumstance can have the upper hand over God, no way; the devil cannot get the upper hand for God is the ultimate authority in the universe and He is on your side. The most powerful being in the universe is on your side; the most loving being in the universe is on your side.
God says in Hebrews 13:5&6, don’t let your lifestyle, your conduct, the way you live your life upon the earth be with covetousness; don’t go around desiring what other people have, wishing that you were the other person; rather don’t let your conversation be without covetousness, be content with the things that you have for I have said “I will never leave you nor forsake you” so that you may boldly say, the Lord is my helper, I will not fear what man will do onto me (paraphrase).
God is on your side. Don’t be afraid of anything rather trust God. God wants you to give Him the opportunity to be involved in the affairs of your life by trusting Him. We have established the fact that satan can do nothing in the life of a human being or in the human race outside of fear. Fear is satan’s weapon of choice, fear is satan’s foremost assassin. We’ve also established the fact that fear came into the human race when man sinned, that was the first thing that showed up when man sinned.
Fear is at its base definition is anything that will get you to doubt the integrity of God’s commitment and His word to you. So the root of all fear or the mother of all fear is the fear that something that God said will not come to pass.
In Genesis 3:1 when satan addressed Eve and asked her, if God had said that they should not eat of the fruits of any of the trees in the garden, he knew well that God has said it, yet he challenged what God said, and eventually got Eve to shift her ground from trusting God to trusting the devil by discounting what God said and turning her back on God. So if satan can get you to distrust anything that God has said, he has got you indeed. Every movement of satan against you is to get you to the place where you begin to doubt something that God has said to you relative to whatever situation you are in.
If satan is moving against your life in anyway, you should rejoice because that means that he has seen that God has released a word over your life and he’s trying to get you to doubt it. So satan moves against your finances to make you doubt God’s ability to provide for you, he moves against your health to doubt God’s ability to heal you, he moves against your family and your life to get you to doubt God’s ability to manifest Himself in your life.
Understanding this simple truth will make you know the root of fear, fear is of the devil. God cannot do anything in your life outside of faith, just like satan cannot do anything in your life outside of fear. All over the scripture we find out God reacting sternly against fear, telling us what do to with it because the moment fear is gone out of one’s life, God begins to manifest Himself.
Isaiah 54:4 says, fear not for you shall not be ashamed, neither be confounded. The word confounded means to be totally confused, to lose concentration, to be perplexed, but you shall not be put to shame. God said, don’t be afraid, you will not be ashamed, don’t be confused, don’t be perplexed for you will not be put to shame. He said you will forget the shame of your youth and you will not remember the reproach of your widowhood anymore.
God is telling you to trust Him and refuse to be ashamed because He will perform these things in your life. Now you have two paths upon which to walk, you have two options, two choices and two decisions to make, two roads to travel on. You can choose to travel the road of fear and be consumed by the devil and your circumstances or you can chose to travel the road of trusting God and allow Him to consume your circumstances and manifest His salvation in your life.
He said, if you will trust me, I will see to it that you will not be ashamed, confounded or be put shame; He’ll see to it that you’ll forget the shame of your youth or your past, no matter what has gone on in your past; God can bring you to a place that you totally forget about it. You will not remember the reproach of your widowhood anymore; this is what God is undertaking to do for you.
But fear is that which moves against what God has said. Situations and circumstances may question, has God said He’ll do that? Are you sure He’ll do it for you? Are you sure He loves you enough? But you can lay hold upon trusting God and understand that He will help you but you must make up your mind to refuse to fear.
2 Timothy 1:7 says God has not given us the spirit of fear but the spirit of power, courage and a sound mind. Fear is of the devil, don’t tolerate it. Whenever you begin to see yourself afraid and asking, how am I going to eat? To survive? To pay my rent? Send my children to school? Live? How is my life going to be? What’s going to be the outcome of my life? Whenever you find yourself afraid about the outcome of any situation of your life, stand your ground.
You have the right to address fear because fear is of the devil and you have been delivered from it if you are in Christ for old things have passed away, behold all things are new (2Corinthians 5:17). Whenever you sense fear coming and you are losing your peace, you’re losing your joy, getting anxious, and afraid about the outcome of any situation in your life, stop yourself right there and say, in the name of Jesus, I refuse to fear and go ahead to say, fear I bind you, I command you to go from me in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ; I refuse to permit you in my life but rather I choose to trust God.
Every time you do that, you open the door for God to begin to manifest in your life and you shut the door on fear. You may not know or have the slightest idea or clue concerning how your deliverance will come but you don’t need to have a clue, God knows, God has it; what you need to be doing is trusting the One who does. Trust the One who knows how to get you out. You may not know how to come out of that situation but God knows. Trust His infinite wisdom, ability, in His infinite love for you and know that right now as you are reading this, God is working on the circumstances of your life. He is always working on your deliverance.
Do you want to know what God is thinking about right now? He’s thinking about you, He has you on His mind. God is the only parent that has the ability to father billions of people at the same time yet deal with each one as though they were the only one in His life. God is dealing with you right now as though you are the only one on the planet; He has that ability and He’s dealing with every one of His children like that. Right now, God is working on that situation you are in, He is working on your healing, your finances, your job, your career, your family, the things that concern you the most, so do not be afraid, refuse to be afraid, rather trust Him.
Trust God, trust that He is working in your life’s circumstances right now. You may not see or know the answer immediately but know one thing, God does and as you trust Him, He’s causing the answers to come to you. Trust in God’s unlimited and infinite resources. God has infinite options because He has infinite resources. God has unlimited options because he has unlimited resources and as you trust Him, you will open the door for Him to bring His unlimited potentials, resources and options to bear in your life and circumstances. If God be for you, who or what can successfully be against you?(Romans 8:31).
Let’s further see what God has said about the subject of fear and why you must refuse to tolerate fear in your life because fear tolerated is faith contaminated. If you tolerate fear, your faith will shut down, if you refuse to tolerate fear, your faith will activate itself. Isaiah 52:12 says, you shall not go out with haste; neither shall you go out by flight, for the Lord will go before you and the God of Israel will be your rearward. God’s plan is not for you to live life on panic mode, God’s plan is not for you to live life afraid of what to eat, how the outcome of your life will be, what to wear, what to eat, how you are going to live. God does not want you living like that because it is not His plan for you. How does God want you to live? God wants you living and trusting Him. Psalms 56:3 says, what time I’m afraid, I will trust God.
Isaiah 12:2 says, behold God is my salvation and my deliverance, therefore I will trust and I will not be afraid. Behold God is my salvation, God is my deliverance, therefore I will trust. Trust is an act of my will, I must exercise my choice, I must exercise my will. It’s an act of your will to trust God, so you can decide to trust God and you can decide not to trust Him, you can decide to be afraid and you can decide not to be afraid. If you are a Christian, it is in your power to decide not to be afraid. Because you are born again, the root of fear which is the nature of the devil, has been removed from you because you have confessed Jesus as your Lord and savior; but if you are not a believer, you cannot successfully deal with fear because satan has the right to keep you in the bondage of fear because fear stems from the fact that satan’s nature is in you if you are not born again. But the moment you get born again, 2 Corinthians 5:17 says he removes the nature of sin, puts in you the nature of God which is righteousness and you become a child of God.
God does not want us going into an uncertain tomorrow. It’s not God’s plan, it’s not God’s will for us to go through this life not knowing of a certainty that tomorrow is going to be better than today, not knowing of a certainty that no matter what we are faced with, we are going to come out fully and totally delivered and in a better position than how we came in. These are the guarantees that are kept for those that trust God.
God’s guarantee to those that trust Him according to Isaiah 54:4 is that you will not be ashamed. That means that no matter what you are passing through today, if you are in Christ and you are trusting God, you are giving Him the opportunity to maneuver Himself in your life and in your favour; you are opening the door for Him to exercise His unlimited options and infinite choices to deliver you. You will find yourself consistently in this position called not ashamed. There is a position in this life called not ashamed, and if you want to live in that place you have to be the one that trusts God.
Now we have also seen that you must understand that if you are born again you have a right to refuse to tolerate fear, fear has only an absolute right over those who are not born again because fear is the first thing that shows up as a product for a fallen man; it is the nature of sin, but when you get born again according to 2 Corinthians 5:17, old things are passed away, behold all things are new and all things are of God.
Now you see that everything in you is of God so God does not have fear in Him 2 Timothy 1:7 says God has not given us the spirit of fear, but the spirit of power, love and a sound mind. So you have the right to resist the devil according to James 4:7, which says submit yourselves unto God, then resist the devil and he shall flee. So say, satan, I resist you, fear, I resist you (because fear is of the devil so resisting fear is resisting the devil), say, fear I resist you in the name of Jesus, I refuse to tolerate you in my life, I break your power over my life and my mind and my heart in the name of Jesus, leave me, go from me in the name of Jesus.
You have every right as believer in Christ to resist the devil that way so don’t sit down and tolerate fear for anything, fear concerning your finances, fear concerning your future or any aspect of your life, how your children will turn out, how your life will turn out. Maybe you are going through some delay or disappointment in your life but do not tolerate fear concerning the outcome of your situations. God does not want you to go through this life, guessing, hoping and just wishing that things will turn out right. God wants you to go through life with divine guarantees, his word offers us divine guarantees.
If we can be sure that if we confess Jesus as our Lord and savior according to God’s word and promise, we will be saved. Then we should be assured about any other thing that God has said. And, if God said in Isaiah 54:4, fear not, do not be afraid for you will not be ashamed, don’t be confounded, don’t be confused, don’t be perplexed because you will not be put to shame. If He has said that, then we can be certain that when we trust Him, we will certainly not be put to shame. When all is said and done, we’ll find ourselves in a position of advantage and better off coming out of every circumstance than we went in.
Now fear is an enemy, fear is not to be tolerated; fear is anything that will cause you to be in doubt concerning the integrity of God’s word, anything that will challenge the integrity of God’s word, to make you think twice about God’s word coming to pass in your life. The moment you find yourself being taken in by fear, stop yourself and resist that fear in the name of Jesus and break its power over your life and open your mouth and hear yourself speak the word of God. Make yourself say these words to your own hearing, I refuse to be afraid, in the name of Jesus, fear go from me, I break your power over my life, I choose to trust God, I choose to believe that God is working out my highest good, my greatest benefit, my highest advantage in every circumstance of my life.
We need to be very mindful of what the Bible says about fear. In Isaiah 8:10, the Bible says, take counsel together and it will not come to pass. No matter what kind of counsel that satan or people that are yielded to satan take against you, if you will trust God, it will not come to pass. It says, speak the word and it shall not stand, whatever words are spoken against your life and your destiny by satan or his agents, as long as you stay trusting God they will not come to pass, for God is with us. Verse 11 says for the Lord spake thus to me with a strong hand and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of these people by saying. So what you say is the way you walk in. How do you walk in the way of the people and how do you walk in the way of lack? By talking lack. How do you walk in the way of sickness and diseases? By talking about it consistently. How do you walk in way of frustration and failure and defeat and fear? By talking about it consistently.
The Bible says don’t walk in the way of these people don’t say what they are saying. Verse 12 says, say ye not a confederacy or a conspiracy to all them to whom these people shall say a confederacy, neither fear their fear, neither be afraid. So God is telling us practically how to refuse to fear. Don’t go around saying things are hard; don’t go around saying who is going to help me? I have no one to help me; don’t go around saying things are not working out for me; don’t go around saying I have no money, I’m broke, nothing is working out for me. Don’t go around saying those things.
People who don’t understand the word of God will go around saying, you see these preachers they are teaching you to deny reality. No, I’m not teaching you to deny reality; God’s word does not teach us to deny reality, but God’s word teaches us to refuse to accept our present reality as the outcome of our lives. There’s a reality that is higher than the present reality and that is the reality of God’s word.
You may be facing sickness and disease in your body right now but there is something that is more real than that. What is more real than what you are facing is what God has said about it; and what did God say about it? The Bible says in 2 Peter 2:24, that “Jesus Christ Himself bore our sins on His own body on the tree, that we being dead to sin might live unto righteousness and by His stripes we were healed”. The Bible says that He bore our pains and He took our sickness and our disease so that we will not have to bear it. As you speak those words over your body and say Jesus took my pains, He took my sickness, He took my disease therefore I declare that I am healed in the name of Jesus, you will surely be healed. You are not to deny that you are sick, you are not to deny the symptoms of sickness in your body but you are to say I am healed according to the word of God and you are to curse the sickness and disease in your body and say to it, you have no right to exist in my body because Jesus took this on His body for my sake, so I declare in the name of Jesus I am healed. That is what faith is all about.
Faith is not denying present reality; faith is refusing to accept the present reality as the ultimate reality because God’s word is the ultimate reality. The same thing with your finances, the same thing with your money, the same thing with any situation in your life; you are to receive God’s provision and insist on God’s provision over and above and against anything else that is going on in your life.
God is saying, don’t walk in the way of these people, don’t fear their fears, don’t go around talking about lack, don’t go around saying I’m broke, life is hard, things are not working out, and things are tough. Don’t talk like that because Proverbs 6:2 says you are snared and held in captivity with your own mouth; you create the trap or dig the pit that will imprison you as you speak wrong words. Proverbs 18:20 &21 says, life and death are in the power of the tongue, they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof. Proverbs 13:1 says a man shall eat good by the fruit of his mouth.
Now there is so much to say about the words of our mouth and the Bible says don’t release fear by speaking fearful words. Don’t go around saying I know this sickness will kill me, these children will kill me, the situation in the country is so bad, we don’t know how we’ll eat, how we drink, it’s so bad. Don’t go around talking like that; rather, talk about God’s provision and your trust in God because what you talk about consistently will manifest and show up in your life.
We are talking about putting the principles of God’s word into action; how to practically trust God to refuse to fear by refusing to speak words of fear and choose rather to trust God by speaking what God’s words has said. Speak concerning His provision, His ability to take care of you, His ongoing acts of mercy in your life. Declare that He is at work in your life today and that you will not be ashamed and you will not be disappointed because He has spoken it out of His mouth.