Sweet Grace For Your Journey

Episode 090--The Conundrum

A conundrum is a difficult or confusing problem or question. It’s like a mystery we can’t solve. In Romans 7, Paul shares a conundrum that I identify with and I expect if you are honest, you do too. 

Like any problem or mystery, I want the conundrum to be solved in 30 minutes like a good tv show. I don’t want to be left hanging to find out how things are solved for a week! Good or bad, I want it brought to end right now! However, for years I had no idea how to solve this issue that kept turning over and over in my mind. 

Paul is really bold about his issue. He doesn’t tell us what the exact thing is he is referring to, but in Romans 7:19 he tells us straight out: “I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.”

Why can’t I do anything right? Why can’t I do the things that are pleasing to God? I want to do them, but many times I end up doing the opposite. Why is that? These are the questions Paul, is grappling in this chapter. And they are the questions we all struggle with.

None of us are perfect, even Christians, and we shouldn’t purport to be. In this chapter Paul makes that clear. He also tells us how the law shows us our sin, why we struggle with sin and what we can do about it.

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Sweet Surrender: Breaking Strongholds: https://www.amazon.com/Sweet-Surrender-Teresa-Shields-Parker/dp/0986159247/

Episode 089--What War?

We are in a war. We may not realize it as we walk through our daily lives but we are. Romans 5:17-6:23 talks about this as a war between the power of sin and the greater power of God’s wonderful grace.

If we belong to Jesus, sin has no legal control over us. We are free to follow God. However, we are just as free to be entangled again in the pull of sin. 

Romans 6:6 TPT: “Could it be any clearer that our former identity is now and forever deprived of its power? For we were co-crucified with Him to dismantle the stronghold of sin within us, so that we would not continue to live one moment longer submitted to sin’s power.”

The whole purpose of Romans 6 is to remind us that we can choose to disentangle ourselves from the power of sin walk freely following God. 

Romans 6:23 MSG: “Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God’s gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master.”

Find the Spirit-Led Transformation course with action steps, challenge, transcript and video by joining Overcomers Academy. Go here: teresashieldsparker.com/overcomers/.

Episode 088-Patient Endurance

If you’re like me, somewhere along the line in Sunday School you learned the nine fruit of the Spirit which include: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. These are all great virtues we should be incorporating on our Spirit-Led Transformation journey. As I was reading Romans 5 this week, I realized that as Christians there is one of these virtues we rarely talk about. That might be because along the way someone somewhere told us to never pray for patience because if we do something difficult will happen that will teach us the hard way how to be patient. How to endure. 

After the list of virtues, Galatians 5:23 TPT says: Never set the law above these qualities, for they are meant to be limitless. In other words, all nine virtues are things we should desire to have in our lives in limitless quantity, especially patience.

We may not like learning to be patient, but apparently God feels it something we need. In Romans 5:3 we read a bit about why this is. “With joy let us exult in our sufferings and rejoice in our hardships, knowing that hardship, distress, pressure and trouble produces patient endurance.”

All the bad stuff we have to go through in this life helps to produce a virtue God wants us to possess. We need patient endurance to get through whatever is going to be thrown our way in this life. 

Hebrews 10:36 TPT really sums up what this entire episode is all about “You need the strength of endurance to reveal the poetry of God’s will and then you receive the promise in full.” 

As always the action steps and challenges for this lesson will be in the Spirit-Led Transformation course along with the video and transcript. This course is only available in Overcomers Academy.

Go to: teresashieldsparker.com/overcomers/ to join.

Episode 087--This Thing Called Faith

Faith is foundational on our Spirit-Led Transformation journeys. Without it, we have no transformation. Without it we cannot be Spirit-led. So what just what is faith and how do we know if we are really living our lives based on faith?

I’m a words person, so let’s see what the dictionary says faith is. First definition is “complete trust or confidence in someone or something.” Second definition says it is a strong belief in God.

Hebrews 11:1-2 has long been the go-to verse to explain faith. In NIV is says, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.” But we read that and say what does that mean?

To help us understand better, let’s read this scripture the Amplified Bible, which has a way of explaining things better.

It says, “Faith is the assurance, title deed, confirmation, of things hoped for or divinely guaranteed, and the evidence of things not seen or the conviction of their reality. Faith comprehends as fact what cannot be experienced by the physical senses. For by this kind of faith the men (and women) of old gained divine approval.”

Remember the dictionary definition of faith we see that faith in God, or complete confidence in Him, comes from our foundational knowledge that we can trust Him to lead us. In other words, we must have complete assurance that God is leading us and the eventual outcome of where He is leading us is for our good and His glory (as it says in Romans 8:28). We have the title deed to whatever the outcome is that God wants to happen. We have the title deed to whatever God has already put in our hands!

Several years ago we reached a milestone on our financial journey and paid off our house. We now have the title deed to our home. It is ours. Whatever God is telling you and me, if we have faith then we have the title deed to that. It is ours. It’s not just guaranteed by a financial institution, it is divinely guaranteed by the God of the Universe, who just happens to be our Daddy. 

The next part is harder to understand because it is in the future. “Faith comprehends as fact what cannot be experienced by the physical senses.” God already sees it. He has called what we can’t see as if it has already happened because He stands outside of time and can see the whole picture of our lives. 

Our faith in God has to help us comprehend as a fact what we cannot actually see, touch or feel right now. We cannot experience it by our physical senses right this moment but we trust God and have faith that what He has said will come true. This goes back to 2 Cor. 5:7 where Paul tells us, “We walk by faith not by what we see.”  Friends, it wouldn’t be faith if we could see it!

In the Bible, especially Hebrews 11, it lists men and women of faith who have gone before us and gained God’s approval because of how they lived lives of faith. They are examples for us of how to walk in faith even when we cannot see the future. We, like they did, have a divine promise, which is our guarantee of what will happen when we put feet or action to our faith.

In Romans 4, Paul seems to go off on a tangent about Abraham, whom he calls our forefather according to the flesh or humanly speaking. For this series, I was originally going to skip over this passage, but God kept calling me back it because faith is a foundational pillar on any Spirit-Led Transformation journey. 

However, my big question with Abraham’s story was why does God call Abraham a man of faith when he failed so many times? As I read his story, I saw that every time Abraham failed, he recognized his failure. Whoever he had wronged forgave him and so did God. He is not our forefather of faith because he was perfect. He is the forefather of faith because at critical junctures in his life, he listened to God and followed Him.

To understand why Paul is talking about Abraham we need to begin in Romans 3:22 NIV. “We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are. “

In continues in Romans 3:27-28 NIV:, “Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on obeying the law. It is based on faith.  So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law.”

In these verses Paul is trying to get those who are still following Jewish laws and sacrifices for their salvation to understand that faith is the foundation for salvation, not the law. Although the law is good, it is no longer how God counts salvation.  We are not saved by what we do, but if we have faith, it will move us to appropriate actions without following a set of elongated rules.

Paul explains in Romans 4:14, 16-17 NIV: “If God’s promise is only for those who obey the law, then faith is not necessary and the promise is pointless.

“So the promise is received by faith. It is given as a free gift. And we are all certain to receive it, whether or not we live according to the law of Moses, if we have faith like Abraham’s. For Abraham is the father of all who believe. That is what the Scriptures mean when God told him, ‘I have made you the father of many nations.’ This happened because Abraham believed in the God who brings the dead back to life and who creates new things out of nothing.”

How did Abraham’s life show He believed in the God who brings the dead back to life and who creates new things out of nothing? I see three times his life revealed this belief.

First, Abraham left his homeland to go to a place God would show him. In doing that God promised to give the land to his descendants. This was when Abraham had no children at all. 

Hebrews 11:8-9 NIV says, “It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going. And even when he reached the land God promised him, he lived there by faith—for he was like a foreigner, living in tents.” 

His actions revealed that he believed God could create new things out of nothing. My friends, that’s faith!

The second time God brought the dead back to life for Abraham was when He opened Sarah’s womb at age 90, way past child-bearing age. Abraham was 100 years old! 

In Romans 3:18-20 NIV Paul explains, ”Even when there was no reason for hope, Abraham kept hoping—believing that he would become the father of many nations. For God had said to him, ‘That’s how many descendants you will have!’ And Abraham’s faith did not weaken, even though, at about 100 years of age, he figured his body was as good as dead—and so was Sarah’s womb.”

Now we understand why they both laughed when God told them Sarah would have a baby. (See Genesis 17:17, 18:11-15). I would have too!

When the baby was born, Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter. All who hear about this will laugh with me. Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse a baby? Yet I have given Abraham a son in his old age,” (Gen. 21:6-7 NIV). They named the baby Isaac which means “he laughs.”

The third time was when God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, his son of promise from God. Yet, Abraham trusted what God had said and by faith believed that somehow even if he had to go through with sacrificing his own son, God would bring him back to life.We see this clearly in Hebrews 11: 17-19 NLT: “It was by faith that Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice when God was testing him. Abraham, who had received God’s promises, was ready to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, even though God had told him, ‘Isaac is the son through whom your descendants will be counted.’ Abraham reasoned that if Isaac died, God was able to bring him back to life again. And in a sense, Abraham did receive his son back from the dead.”

Ok I have to say it again, Friends, that’s faith. I really don’t think I have that level of faith to even begin the process to sacrifice either one of my children.

Lest we think Abraham was godlike, we need to remember the two times he passed his wife off as his sister and in trying to protect himself stepped right into a few messes. He lied about her partly out of fear because she was so beautiful and was afraid someone would kill him for her. In truth it was a part lie because she was his half-sister to whom he was married, which is the part he failed to mention. At the time it was a legal union and wasn’t forbidden in scripture until much later.

God got him out of both situations by sending plagues on Pharoh who had taken her to be his wife (Gen. 12:14-20) and revealing the truth in a dream to Abimelech, who also wanted to marry her (Gen. 20:3). In the first instance, he was lucky to be escorted out of the country with his wife and possessions. In the second, we see clearly that he was sorry and paid restitution to Abimelech. 

Another decision that wasn’t Abraham’s finest moment was listening to Sarah who told him to sleep with her maid Hagar in order to have a child because Sarah felt she couldn’t get pregnant. It’s clear from scripture that Abraham did this willingly. It likely made sense to him because God had promised to make his descendants as numerous as the stars, (Gen. 15:5). 

God used both Ishmael, the son of the servant, and Isaac, Sarah’s son to accomplish that promise. But God made it clear that Isaac was the son of promise. When Isaac was about to be weaned, Abraham prepared a celebration. During the party, Sarah saw 13-year-old Ishmael making fun of Isaac and demanded that Abraham send Ishmael and his mother away.

Scripture tells us that this upset Abraham because Ishmael was also his son. Then in Gen. 21:12 God tells Abraham to do what Sarah says because “Isaac is the son through whom your descendants will be counted.” He added that he would also make a nation out of Ishmael’s descendants. So Abraham sent them away.

The promise Abraham was given was a promise only Isaac inherited. In Gen. 26:4 NIV, after Abraham’s death, God tells Isaac, “I will cause your descendants to become as numerous as the stars of the sky, and I will give them all these lands. Through your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed. I will do this because Abraham listened to Me and obeyed all my requirements, commands, decrees and instructions.”

Did you get that last part? It’s really why God called Abraham the forefather of faith. It’s because “because Abraham listened to Me and obeyed all my requirements, commands, decrees and instructions.” It’s not because of the times he messed up. It’s because his actions revealed that at critical times in his life, when God showed him what to do, he trusted God and did what He said.

The first part of the book of Romans is really about the struggle between those who still wanted a law book to follow and those who understood that Jesus was teaching a deeper truth—the spiritual truth of living by faith, living in God’s grace.

As people we tend to want a rule book, but then we don’t follow it! We say, “Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.” This seems easier than trusting God to lead us. I remember when I was in my 20s I would say to God, just tell me what to do like you did Noah in giving him the exact dimensions of the arc. I think I failed to understand the extreme ridicule he went through spending years building a huge boat. He was the laughing stock of the neighborhood, until the floods came!

Faith is not a difficult concept to grasp. We have faith that when we go to work that we will get a paycheck, right? There have been a few times when we were newly married that my husband was working at small businesses and his paychecks started bouncing.That will cause you to lose faith in your boss really quick. We think when we do xyz, we are promised a certain result. For instance, if I follow the latest, greatest diet to a tee, I will lose x amount of weight. This might work, but nine times out of 10 it doesn’t work like promised because we are all different.

When I was into diets, I would always blame myself because I never could follow the diet perfectly. When I did I might lose some weight. The issue was when I stopped following the diet and went back to normal eating, I gained it all back plus more. 

Why? I hadn’t learned anything. I was following someone else’s rules. I had no intention of making those any part of my ongoing lifestyle. This is the same thing with the law. God doesn’t want us to just follow a set of rules. He wants us to follow Him. And that’s so much more difficult than following the rules. At least then we think we know why we failed. When we are following God it seems more difficult to discern what to do. Maybe that’s because our faith is in the rules, rather than in God.

Faith in God has to be the main ingredient in any Spirit-Led Transformation. What that means is we trust God no matter what He says. Our faith, then, will always result in Spirit-Led action. Any other action is useless.

James 2:21-24, 26 NIV adds, “Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did.  And the scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,’ and he was called God’s friend.  You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone … As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.”

Fear many times keeps us from stepping out in faith. What if I didn’t hear from God right? What if that wasn’t even God? But Abraham gives me hope. He definitely didn’t get it right all the time. Maybe Ishmael wasn’t in God’s plan, but somehow that act did not get counted against Abraham. What God saw were all the times Abraham’s faith moved him forward on his own Spirit-Led Transformation journey.

Romans 4:20-24 NLT says it this way: “Abraham never wavered in believing God’s promise. In fact, his faith grew stronger, and in this he brought glory to God. He was fully convinced that God is able to do whatever He promises. And because of Abraham’s faith, God counted him as righteous.  

“And when God counted him as righteous, it wasn’t just for Abraham’s benefit. It was recorded  for our benefit, too, assuring us that God will also count us as righteous if we believe in Him, the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.”

The important thing about Abraham’s life is that he showed God he had faith when he did something God told him to do. Like when he left home headed to who knows where or when he trusted God to give him a heir of promise or when he raised the knife to sacrifice that same beloved gift from God. His faith led to action. Now any of these actions without direction from God would not have the same result. We can’t go out and copy Abraham’s actions and be counted as faithful. That was Abraham’s journey.

Ours may seem even more difficult than his. How can we see a way to pay the insurmountable amount of debt we have? How can we restore the broken relationship in our marriage, with our children, with our friends? How can we lose the mountain of weight that has attached itself to our bodies? 

FAITH in what God asks you to do is always the answer. But that FAITH must be backed by whatever action God is telling you to take. It might be to wait for the promise, like it was with Abraham. I hope you don’t have to wait until you are 100, but hey he lived to be 175 so there’s that, too. It’s all relative, my friend.

I feel like I really started living by faith around 2009, when I was 56. It took me lots of years to lose 250 pounds. First I had to totally surrender to God and trust Him for the next step on my journey. I had to get His lifestyle change plan for me and do what He said to implement it. I made a lot of mistakes on my journey and as such I am well-equipped to steer others away from my same mistakes.

One of the most beautiful and spiritual part of any transformation journey is learning how to have faith Jesus Christ, and to be led by the Holy Spirit in each step we take. Then the grace, mercy, favor and glory of God will surround us as we walk in tandem with Him. 

Is it easy? I mean some of the things Abraham did look easy. Who knows, maybe he was glad to get away from his mother and father and go somewhere that he had inkling of. However it definitely wasn’t easy waiting for the promised son. And I don’t think for a minute it was easy preparing to sacrifice his promised son.

Yet, through it all, He trusted God. I like to think it all started with that first step out the door of his homeland, going to a place God said He’d show him. That’s faith.

Let me ask you, what would it look like for you to have that kind of faith on your Spirit-Led Transformation journey? What would it take to do whatever God is whispering in your heart to do? It’s time. He’s calling you. Will you have the faith to take the next step? 

Father God, I lift your children to You today. Give them clear directions. Remind them of Your promises and help them take that next step on their journey whatever that may be. Make it clear to them. Give them faith to take action.

As always the action steps and challenges for this lesson will be in the Spirit-Led Transformation course along with the video and transcript. This course is only available in Overcomers Academy. Go to: teresashieldsparker.com/overcomers/ to join.

Episode 086--Why Forgive Others?

An important step on our Spirit-Led Transformation is forgiving others. It’s actually a command from God. He demonstrates exactly what He wants us to do for others when He forgives us. He is teaching us by example.

Most of the time, this feels like a really hard thing to do so we sort of just put it in the back of our minds and leave it there. We have a problem with forgiving someone who has done us wrong because we want them to be brought to justice. 

However, you aren’t bringing them to justice or hurting them by not forgiving them. You are only hurting yourself. It does you no good to hang on to the wrongs someone did to you. It’s only keeping you further away from God because God clearly says we must forgive others or He won’t forgive us.

Forgiving Others Is A Process

Forgiving others is a process we go through to disentangle or release ourselves from others who have hurt us and let God take care of us and them. 

It’s the reason Jesus tells us in Luke 6:37 to “forgive others and you will be forgiven.” It’s the reason Paul reiterates that in Colossians 3:13, “Forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.”

God wants us to demonstrate His principles of forgiveness in our personal lives and interactions with others. We want retribution, but He asks that we show them mercy and leave everything else up to Him.

Why Should We Forgive Others?

-Because God forgave us.

-Because God asks us to forgive others.

-So we demonstrate God’s forgiveness to the world.

-Because we understand God is the only one who can judge.

-Because it releases us from that person’s control over us.

-Because it is the only way for us to be at peace.

God wants to use His not-so-secret weapon of forgiving others to set you free to live in peace and demonstrate His forgiveness to the world at the same time.

Action steps and challenges for this lesson and others in the Spirit-Led Transformation series can be found in Overcomers Christian Weight Loss Academy: https://Teresashieldsparker.com/overcomers/

Episode 085--Forgiven

Forgiven. It’s such a great word. This is the second in our series of Spirit-Led Transformation because understanding the depths of being forgiven can set us free to follow God with all that we are and all that He made us to be. However, when we feel like we are not forgiven and feel deep shame and regret, we are stuck and cannot move forward. 

Forward motion on our transformation journey is what we want. The devil will continually remind us of our sin if we let him. He knows that will keep us from any forward motion. 

Before we are ready to begin our Spirit-Led Transformation, we have to accept Jesus as our Savior. Then we can begin to walk in tandem with God. Some of us, and I have lots of fingers pointing back at me, have had to learn that the hard way.

On this episode I share how I came to know Jesus as my Savior. Crazy enough, it happened because I stole candy from the grocery store. At seven years old, it made me realize I was a thief, which made me a sinner.

After accepting Jesus because of God’s grace, I was forgiven for everything I have ever done. All my flaws, mistakes, debts and sins have been wiped away by an Almighty God, who could rightly hold me guilty for everything I’ve done wrong. Instead in His grace, He forgave me. And let me tell you, that’s a really good thing because I’ve had to confess a lot of stuff since then as well.

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Episode 084--Flesh Versus Spirit

This episode is going to be the first in a series I’m doing based around the book of Romans. It’s really a book that talks to us about Spirit-led Transformation so that will be a topic we’ll be exploring for the next several months.

Because these episodes are so foundational I am putting them into a course that will include the transcript, action steps and challenges. Those last three will only be available to those in Overcomers Christian Weight Loss Academy. So if you want the deeper dive you will need to join us there to get this course and all the other things we provide in that group.

In talking about the flesh we need to define what it is, what sin is, why if we allow our flesh to lead us it will lead us astray and why following the Holy Spirit is the right way but we many times resist it until we have no other choice.

Two favorite scriptures from this episode are Romans 2:2 TPT, “God is always right, because He has all the facts.” And Galatians 5:16 TPT, “As you yield to the dynamic life and power of the Holy Spirit, you will abandon the cravings of your self-life.”

Then there are two of my favorite quotes, “Your flesh doesn’t care about your eternity because it’s not going with you.” And “Flesh cannot fix flesh.”

Overcomers Academy link: https://Teresashieldsparker.com/overcomers/

Episode 083--From Faith to Frustration

Life can be frustrating. Just when things are going good, something always happens to throw a wrench in our plans which then casts a dark veil over our futures. It leaves us feeling like life has thrown us a curve ball and we have no recourse, no avenue to go forward, no way to the future we thought we could have. We are just … frustrated.

Frustrations come from rehearsing and going over and over again the possibilities scenarios that may happen in the future when something happens in our present. Then we become fixated on the negative prospects that brings. Instead of focusing on our frustrations, we need to step into faith and realize God is still leading us despite what we can see with our eyes. 

It can either be frustrating or it can be a great adventure. It all depends on our point of view. It all depends on how much we trust God. It all depends on whether we want what God has next for us or we want only what we can gather in our human strength.

Frustration is overcome by believing that God has plans for our good and not our disaster, plans for our future. It’s that hope that we must cling to. It’s knowing He has a bigger dream for us than we ever have thought about. 

If you are frustrated and feel out of control about your present and afraid of what may happen in the future if you don’t figure out how to live healthier, please join us in Overcomers Academy. 

Overcomers Academy Link: https://Teresashieldsparker.com/overcomers/

Episode 082--Fear God Not Fear

Fearing God will help us surrender to Him which will then in turn, allow us to work with Him in order to remove the things that make us afraid in this life. First, we need to understand that fearing God means to have a reverential fear of displeasing the God who loves us and whom we love in return.

Proverbs 15:33 TPT says, “The source of revelation-knowledge is found as you fall down in surrender before the Lord. Don’t expect to see Shekinah glory until the Lord sees your sincere humility.”  

I love this wording because it tells us what we need to do each day to receive revelation-knowledge or wisdom. We must revere God and not challenge Him. We fall down before Him in surrender.

This won’t happen until we recognize who we are and who God is. We honor Him, by humbling ourselves before Him and recognizing His power and ability to set us on the right path. 

Internal Fears

There is a category of fear we have as humans that I will call core fears. These are internal fears that are harder to recognize than things like fear of spiders or mice. 

One huge fear in this category is the fear of feeling abandoned and rejected. Another big one is the fear of being controlled, stepped on or manipulated by others. Both of these can result in a feeling a loss of meaning, purpose and identity. 

We are struggling through life without really knowing why we are here in the first place. Identifying our core fear may explain a lot of things to us and help us begin to move past any childhood moments which might have been the start of that fear.

It was also my core fear that had been driving me to self-protect by allowing myself to keep eating. Identifying the place where this fear started, forgiving the person involved, renouncing the lie that God will treat me the same way and hearing God whisper His truth to me set me free from my core fear in a profound way and has allowed me to lose over 250 pounds and keep it off since 2013.

All-In With God

When we go all in with God, we start in motion an unstoppable season of blessings that He just keeps on pouring out on us. Without total submission to God, without trusting Him with everything, without releasing everything we think we have to have to the One who has the abundance of the universe, His blessings won’t flow into our lives. 

Being all in with God means to fear and reverence Him instead of being afraid of the fears of this life that seek to control us. Surrender that thing you’ve been holding back just for yourself and watch fears begin to crumble and blessings begin to flow.

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Episode 081-Straitjacket of Fear

God designed the acute stress response to help us overcome fear. This fight or flight response to happens whether we are actually in danger or we just think we are in danger. 

The definition of fear is “an unpleasant emotion caused by being aware of danger.” This definition doesn’t take into account that the evil one loves to make false evidence appear real. These are irrational fears. That’s why God gives us things to help guide us through this and result in us becoming more rational.

2 Timothy 1:7 AMP says, “God did not give us a spirit of timidity or cowardice or fear, but He has given us a spirit of power and of love and of sound judgment and personal discipline, abilities that result in a calm, well-balanced mind and self-control.”  

In this podcast episode we are talking about how to get rid of irrational fears that the enemy loves to perpetuate. These fears can become strongholds that keep us stuck in the straitjacket of fear. 

God gives us some tools to combat the enemy’s barrage of fears.  Here are steps to get rid of fear:

-Recognize the lies and irrational fears the enemy tells you.

-Call him out on them by replacing the lies with the truth of what God’s Word says about you. 

-Ask God to activate the spirit of power, love, sound judgment and personal discipline.

-Begin to accept that you have a calm, well-balanced mind.

-Make daily surrender to God a top priority.

-Understand the value of having Spirit-led self-control.

-Remember to rest in God. It’s in resting in Him that fear loses and love wins. 

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