One Step Further
Pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation Church preached a sermon called "Handle It" a few weeks ago. In it, he said this:
In other words, when faced with a situation that causes us to wonder what will happen, we will either anticipate a faith filled result or we will anticipate a fear filled result.
Good, right?
I sat quietly on my bed after the sermon ended, that phrase still ringing in my mind, and I felt God begin to speak to me. In my life, I have allowed my anticipation to have power over me. I hadn't realized before Steven Furtick said that line that I actually have power over what outcomes I will anticipate in my life. I can choose to react in faith and believe that the best will happen. I don't have to look at what lies before me and crumble into anticipation that a nightmare is about to violently unfold before my eyes. I can choose faith. You can choose faith.
So why do we choose fear?
God showed me in that moment a picture of Himself with a circle drawn around Him only a foot away. And then He told me this:
But once you step into God and you're surrounded by His goodness and you're held in His arms, no lie that the enemy throws at you will be able to stick. Once you're with God, every twisted perception that you might have believed is straightened into truth and all that you'll know is peace and love and that this God is so good that there's no place for fear in Him.
So its that one step further that determines everything.
Will you take it?
Will you choose to go into the place where your fear can't follow?
You can allow fear to be silenced by love, but it all depends on where you decide to stand. We can choose to be people who anticipate faithfully instead of fearfully, but in order to do so we need to be a people who choose to immerse ourselves in God - because only God can provide the faith that we need.
I hope that today you choose to take your fears to God and discover His great, great love that washes over everything. Fear truly cannot be found in Him.
(1 John 4:18)
(2 Cor. 10:5)
The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;
my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge,
my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
(Psalm 18:2)
"fear and faith come from the same place - anticipation."
In other words, when faced with a situation that causes us to wonder what will happen, we will either anticipate a faith filled result or we will anticipate a fear filled result.
Good, right?
I sat quietly on my bed after the sermon ended, that phrase still ringing in my mind, and I felt God begin to speak to me. In my life, I have allowed my anticipation to have power over me. I hadn't realized before Steven Furtick said that line that I actually have power over what outcomes I will anticipate in my life. I can choose to react in faith and believe that the best will happen. I don't have to look at what lies before me and crumble into anticipation that a nightmare is about to violently unfold before my eyes. I can choose faith. You can choose faith.
So why do we choose fear?
God showed me in that moment a picture of Himself with a circle drawn around Him only a foot away. And then He told me this:
One step past fear is faith.
I realized that so often we stay put on that line that's just far enough from God to make a difference. On that line, we look at God, but we haven't stepped into God yet. The Bible says that God is love and that perfect love casts out fear, and I believe that. I think that when we experience fear, its because we haven't stepped fully into the goodness and love of God yet. We've allowed ourselves to stand back from Him a bit.
It's that last step over the line that's crucial to determining whether we will anticipate in fear or faith.
God is so good. So completely and thoroughly just good. But we only become confident of His goodness when we know Him and have spent time with Him. But I believe that the place where we're most vulnerable to the enemy is on that line where we see God but haven't stepped into Him. Because on that line we're still positioned where the devil can lie to us about God and we'll believe it. On that line, where we look at God but haven't yet gone fully to Him, the devil can distort our perception and keep us just untrusting enough where we aren't sure if we want to go that one step farther towards God. If you don't know God, you can't identify or fight the lies about God. On that line, the devil can manipulate what we anticipate.
So its that one step further that determines everything.
Will you take it?
Will you choose to go into the place where your fear can't follow?
You can allow fear to be silenced by love, but it all depends on where you decide to stand. We can choose to be people who anticipate faithfully instead of fearfully, but in order to do so we need to be a people who choose to immerse ourselves in God - because only God can provide the faith that we need.
I hope that today you choose to take your fears to God and discover His great, great love that washes over everything. Fear truly cannot be found in Him.
There is no fear in love.
But perfect love drives out fear,
because fear
has to do with punishment.
The one who fears is not made perfect in
love.(1 John 4:18)
We demolish arguments and every pretension
that sets itself up against the knowledge of God,
and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.(2 Cor. 10:5)
my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge,
my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
(Psalm 18:2)
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