How Are We as Christians to Combat Fear?

In order for us to really press forward in our life for God's Purposes, we've got to get free of our fear. Johnson Bowie, at http://www.fusionatl.org/p/12081/Default.aspx, continues his "Know Fear" series, titled "I Ain't Afraid of No Ghosts" by saying that we have to know the stuff that spiritually comes against us. In order for God to set us free, we have to ask God to expose us. Until we know who God is, we will continue to put the approval of man in front of Him. If we know what God says about us (He smiles when He thinks of us and He rejoices over us when we sleep), then we can step boldly into life. (picture labeled for reuse on flickr)

Last year, Johnson went skydiving at a Fusion event. The crazy thing about that is, Johnson was wildly afraid of heights. But he was determined to conquer his fear. In a funny tale about the episode, Johnson talks about the details leading up to the jump, his experience as he jumped and then the slow descent with the parachute. He was connected to a guide, which which made him feel safe, "but then he did one of the top ten stupidest things in my life." The guide reaches back and starts undoing buckles which absolutely freaks Johnson out. Even though Johnson was terrified as the parachute straps loosened, things obviously turned out okay. Johnson says he was not so much afraid of the height, it was fear of what was on the other side of the height, i.e. the fall and the hit after the height. Likewise, it's not so much a fear of the dark, but it's about what's in the dark.

What Johnson is talking about today is a fear of the supernatural. Are angels or demons normal? Is speaking in tongues natural? We're talking about the reality is that there is another dimension. God is with us despite the fact that we can't see Him. The supernatural events happen when the spiritual realm steps into the physical. Demons, weegie boards, bodily possessions, Satan and angels are all real. This isn't just a fluffy world. There are nearly 300 references in the Bible about angels. In Ephesians 6:12, it addresses this hidden world; "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." (picture labeled for reuse at http://www.gallery.mobile9.com/)

Johnson personally experienced this when he was involved in a healing service and six guys couldn't lift a 100-pound unconcious woman who seemed possessed!  When we encounter stuff like this, it scares us because we don't understand it, but the Bible gives us guidance. In Isaiah 14:12, it describes the story of Satan. Lucifer was an angel who wanted all the power of heaven. He attacked the armies of God, but was cast down. Lucifer is but a fallen angel. He is not the mini-me of God. In Revelation 12:9, it again talks about the great dragon cast from heaven. The word demon is a scary word; much scarier than "fallen angel". But if you hear the words fallen angel, it gives you the perspective that Satan has been defeated and we have God on our side. One of the keys to conquering our fears is to demystify the supernatural. Demons and devils were created and, at their core, they want to be worshipped. If we give them fear, we are effectively worshipping them.

 
Have you ever been in a service and someone stands up and screams?  It's because they are trying to pull the attention off Jesus. When we give Satan a foothold in our lives, they hold on to it and torment us with it. "Something inside of me says, 'no'...I will not worship Satan. I will worship Christ." Most of the time, as Christians, fearful things get worse in our lives because of our new power as believers. There's power in the name of Jesus and, when we start talking about Him, the entire world seems to come down on us! There are strongholds everywhere. "When I decided to do this series on Fear, I came down with the flu and Jeremiah, my son, started having nightmares..." Johnson says, "Oh, it's on now, man. You're going in the room of my kid?" When leaders step into their positions at Fusion, there are so many blessings, but at the same time, they get a ton of resistance.
 

New level, new devil.
Johnson Bowie

 
But we are armed and dangerous!  Colossians 2 talks about how we were dead to the sin of the enemy and Jesus went down to satan's domain, took the keys and gave him the Tyson one-two punch. We need to know that God created hell for the demons, not for people. They are going to burn in an everlasting fire, but some of the world actually chooses to go the route of the devil!  Demons are encouraged by this and they are trying to deceive us to burn with them. We need to encounter demons with the knowledge that they are already a defeated foe. Revelation 20:10 retells the fate of Satan.
 
Who then, can be against us? God is omnipresent. He's everywhere. "He's inside your earball." Satan is NOT omnipresent. "He's in Antartica somewhere." God is all-powerful. Satan is finite as a creation. God is everlasting, while we know the fate of Satan. Big God. Little devil (go to your high voice when you say "little devil"). God even assigns His angels to us. When we think about angels, though, we have a huge misperception. "So cute little naked baby angel...thank you for coming off your cloud...play me a song on your harp...But that's not what angels are!...Angels are stinkin' kickbutt warriors." We have these amazing warrior angels assigned to each of us!
 
Genesis 3:24 is the first description of the cherubim (angel). Seraphim have six wings and are covered with eyeballs! "What!! They don't have pictures of those on the front of Guidepost!" The archangel Michael, single-handedly defeated thousands of demons. In Revelation 2, there will be 4 angels on each corner of the earth to hold back the winds. Why is it that whenever people in the Bible encounter angels, the first thing they say is, "Fear not."?  These are unbelievable creatures!


 
Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.  What we have to grasp is that we, as his followers, have the power of God already in us. In Exodus, Moses comes to the edge of the Red Sea as they are running from the Egyptians. Moses calls on God, but God tells Moses that he already has the power and to use his staff! We can't call the angels down ourselves, but we have authority here. Multiple times, Johnson describes times when he was just minding his own business and this super lustful dream comes or this gory, bloody dream comes or he is scared by an experience. In the dream, he is stuttering trying to say, "Jesus". When he finally says it, everything leaves. There is no power in anything we say alone, but there is power in the name of Jesus. Phillipians 2 says that the name of Jesus is above the name of any other to the glory of God the Father.
 
It is Easter coming up (when Johnson delivered this message) on Sunday, "but I think so many of us are stuck on Friday." Something changed Johnson and the way he thinks about his life. "If you really want to find out about what God says about your power and authority, go through Ephesians a couple of times." God exalted Jesus to the highest place. In Ephesians it says that we are seated with Jesus in Heavenly places!! We are armed and dangerous and we don't even know it! Think about that! We are seated with Christ in the Heavenly realms. Luke 10:19 & John 14:12 tell us about our authority. Isn't it crazy that Jesus actually expected us to do what He did; even greater works!! It's because we are seated with Him. James 4:7 tells us to resist that devil and he will flee from us. Oft times, we only remember the "flee from you" part. But we must resist the devil.
 
One morning, Johnson was coming into a very dark church at night. "The only light I had was the demonic exit signs; you know what I mean?" Here he was, preaching about fear, and he was afraid. Then a little voice in him says, "I called you to flee from temptation, not to flee from the enemy. Johnson had a change of heart; "Armed and dangerous, baby...seated with Christ" Years ago, Johnson had this dream where he is on a mountain top. The wind is blowing and lightning is around him. On the other side of the mountain, there is this huge warlock who is about to fight him. Toe to toe, Johnson remembers how he had just been reading Elijah, so he screams "Fire of God!!" and this tornado comes down and scoops up the warlock.
 
"Stop asking God to rescue you when He gave you the authority." Submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. "I'll give you a double cheese burger promise." Step into who God called you to be!

What Are Some Basic Biblical Financial Principles?

As a guest of Lifechurch.tv, Dave Ramsey gives a 3-part series online. After a standing ovation, Dave graciously says how amazing it is to see the changes that are being made in peoples' lives. "Money's fun...if you got some." But most people aren't doing so well. If you've made big time mistakes with money, that makes you over 12! It's easy to fall over in this money thing."

"When I went broke and had to start completely over, I thought I was the only one...I have a PhD in D-U-M-B." When Dave got married, he and his wife had little money. But he went into Real Estate and made a small fortune. "It didn't fix our problems, it just made us more of what we truly were." During a banking crisis, Dave's loans were called on him by the bank. Over the next several years, he and his wife lost everything.

The number one cause of divorce in America today is money. "Sharon would have divorced me, but she didn't have the money...we hit bottom...I was on one of these news stations and...they asked me how I bounced back...'Dude, when you fall that far, you don't bounce. It's more of a splat.'" Dave met God "on the way up" before his downfall, but he got to know God on the way down. Some guy told Dave that the Bible had a lot of things to say about money. After studying the concepts by experts on the subject, Dave found that there are really easy principles that are really hard to implement. Most of the problems with money are strictly behavorial. "The biggest problem I had with money was this guy that I shave with... the guy in the mirror."

Dave recommends 5 things to change our financial lives. "Now, it's gonna take a while." There are no instant fixes, though. It, like most great character changes, is a long process.

1. GET OUT OF DEBT. Debt=Risk. "I've found that 100% of homes in foreclosure were mortgaged." In the Bible it says that the debtor is slave to the lender. "Slaves don't have choices." When we have debt, our money goes straight out to the auto loan and mortgage. "Some students have taken so long to pay off their loans that they think it is a pet." Dave has been around thousands of families who are less than blessed with credit cards. Get plastic surgery. Get rid of all practice of debt. Get the plasectomy. "What if you didn't have a car payment? Did you know the average car payment in America is $478 over 84 months? If you take $478 and invest that in a decent growth stock mutual fund from age 30 to age 70, you'll have $5.6 million dollars. Hope you like the car!!!!"

You're trapped by buying stuff you don't need with money you don't have to impress people you don't really like. 
Dave Ramsey

We have to make a decision in our lives. We have to draw a line in the sand. But it turns out that if God wants you to do something, He will send you the money. Quit whining about what you want! The people we are trying to impress think you are dumb if they know what you are doing with your money. McDonald's did a study and found that we spend 47% more with a credit card than with cash!

2. ACT YOUR WAGE. "A foolish man devours all he has." This is a Biblical quote. The Bible says you are a BIBLE FOOL if you spend everything you make. We have to live within our means. This leads to another scripture; "Godliness with contentment is great gain." This is probably one of the greatest lessons in money that you can learn.

3. GET ON A BUDGET. If you managed money for a corporation called "You Inc." the way that you manage your finances, would you fire you? Those that manage well get to do more. Corporations do not promote those doing poor jobs. "When my son is 16 behind the wheel, he is incompetent!...Do you think that I am going to give him a Viper?...No, I am going to give him a '92 Chevette...because I'm a loving father."

Jesus once said, "For which of you building a tower does not first count the cost?  Does he, rather, build a tower and then find he doesn't have enough money to do so?  Would he not then be a fool?"  If God is going to give us $10 million dollars, we've got to act like we can manage it.

4. LEARN TO SAVE MONEY. You can't outearn stupidity. Save! Save! a) Save for a rainy day. Seventy eight percent of us will have an unexpected financial event in our life time. Be ready. Life is coming. "It's kind of cool when life comes up and you are ok." Murphy's law passes the wise by. b) Save for purchases with cash. If you save money, you can c) Invest money.

5. GIVE. "This is the most fun thing you can do with money!" Tything is different, but giving is a fun, fun thing. Someone who works for Dave has a ministry where she and her husband will pray and go find people that God puts before them who need money. One time, they left a $400 dollar tip for a pregnant woman in Waffle House. "Poor people can't do that."

None of these things make sense unless we do all of them. God has a plan for us and He is saying to us that, if we live this way, we can win. He wants us to live at a level we've never lived before. He's got a game plan for our money. It works every single time! Does it work without bumps in the road? No, but being a servant has bumps in the road too. Be encouraged by the poor people who discourage you.

Become an awesome, abundant giver. That is when you know you've made it. Live like no one else so you can live like no one else.

How Do We Define Ourselves?

Guest Speaker Steve Saccone titles his message for Mosaic, "Fresh Start on Destiny".   We just finished a decade, which is kind of cool.  Television shows talk about all the special events that reflect on this decade and everything that happened in it.  There are so many things that change in any given decade and there always defining moments that identify or mark this time.  The same is true for our lives, good or bad.  Many of us have God encounters where our lives expand and we feel spiritually close.  But on the other hand, many times in our lives we have times where God seems nonexsitent.  It is so hard during these times to deal with this.  In both of these type of defining moments, in some ways, we can get paralyzed. 



Today, Steve reviews what happend in the story of Moses.  When we hear a story like Moses', we might think, "Well, what do I have in common with a guy who delivered a nation from slavery or from a guy who saw a buring bush?...This is a guy who parted the Red Sea and lived a couple of thousand years ago."  What do we have in common?  Moses had failures and stumbles even while he was still keeping his eyes on God .. Clearly, this was a guy who experienced the ups and downs of God.  Moses' life can be divided into 4 seasons.  Along the way, he learned to reconcile each seasoon and he pushed through.   

In the Book of Philippians 1:6, Moses believed in this verse.  he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.  So, when we read this, we can learn to have more faith that God is at work for what he wants to do through us. 

Moses got off to   a rough start.  He was born as a Hebrew, but he was placed in slavery by the Egyptians. Exodus 1 says, "Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt. 'Look,' he said to his people, 'the Israelites have become much too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.'  So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly. They made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their hard labor the Egyptians used them ruthlessly."  This was the world Moses was born into .  And then you see in verse 22, "Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: 'Every boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.'

Then in chapter two, "Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. (photo from http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/)

 

Now imagine being Moses' mother and you hid your child for three months, but you can no longer hide him because he is crying, so you put him on the river!  Imagine going through the same emotions with your child and being in this situation.    

"Then Pharaoh's daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the river bank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to get it. She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. "This is one of the Hebrew babies," she said. Then his sister asked Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?"

'Yes, go,' she answered. And the girl went and got the baby's mother. Pharaoh's daughter said to her, 'Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you." So the woman took the baby and nursed him. When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, "I drew him out of the water."

So, Pharoah's daughter finds the baby and, instead of killing him, she takes him as her own.  When you think of Moses, he was born of a people who believed in One God, but he was raised in the house of "many gods".  Born to a slave, but raised by an Egyptian prince.  What an identity crisis!  If there wasa anyone who would have a crisis of faith, it would be Moses.  I would imagin that Moses frequently asked where God was.  But when we read the story, we see that God was at work all through Moses' life.  Sometimes in our own lives, defining moments that are in the negative camp leave us wondering where God is and we sometimes let the negative side of the circumstances derail us in our faith.  But what God wants us to know is His hand is at work in our lives whether we feel His presences or not. 

As Moses grew older, he began to make his own decisions and as his second season of life began, but it aslo didn't begin very well. He was about 40 years old and saw an Egyptian beating a slave.  He then killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand.  Later, he saw two Hebrew slaves fighting and when he went to break up the fight, they asked how he could be their judge after he himself had killed.  Moses thought nobody knew!  It's not like the Internet existed back then which could spread the word quickly, but word had indeed gotten around amd Moses was now afraid for his life. How did Moses react?  How did he respond?  He ran like many people do!  They hide.  As in our own lives, Moses hid.  But we don't need to run from life, rather we need to run too God.  We don't have to earn our way back to God.  He extends Grace to us. 

A week ago, Steve and his family went to Chicago for the holidays and he was reminded of the notion of God's grace.  As they walked onto the plane, he noticed looks he was getting from the other passengers because he was bringing on board his one year old son, Hudson.  People were anxious because they knew a young child usually cries.  Steve worked his way towards the back of the plane and sat where a woman sighed so loud her dread was obvious.  Inevitably, his son started crying and 30 minutes went by without a break.  Sherry, his wife, was apologetic, but the woman next to them was stiff and almost not acknowleding their pardons at all.  We live in a world like this, don't we?  People don't give us grace.  God is not like this.  In the world, if you don't benefit people, they don't give you grace, but God does.  Our world has made it tough for us to swallow the concept that God wants us to come to Him! 

In Chapter three, the beginning of Moses' third 40 year period, now 80 or so, "Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, "I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.  When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, 'Moses! Moses!' And Moses said, 'Here I am.'  'Do not come any closer,' God said. 'Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.' Then he said, 'I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.' At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

The Lord said, 'I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.  So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them.  So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.'

Wait a minute, did you see what happened?  This was Moses who was a murderer!  But God appears before him in a burning bush.  Imagine Moses hearing that God had chosen him.  Moses was thinking, "hold on, I don't know if you have the right guy.   People may have questioned themselves if Moses was the right guy, but he was.  Have you experienced times when you were judged by someone based on one of your worst moments?  Isn't that painful?  It drives us to define ourselves by our worst moments.  We become paralyzed and unable to be courageous for the Kingdom because the shame that others won't let us forget.  Thank God, He sees us at our best.  Thank God, He sees us for what we can be in Him.  God has a plan and He will be faithful to complete it.  He wants us to take part. 

Moses tells God that he is not the right man, but God says he is and that His people will celebrate in worship on this same mountain where they are.  Then Moses asks who he shall say has sent him to free the Israelites and God says, ''This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.'  God also said to Moses, 'Say to the Israelites, 'The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.'  This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.'"

These men God named are the heros of the faith and God basically says Moses is to tell the people that He is the doorway of deliverence and freedom; the pathway to peace and the roadway to life and joy.  Like Moses, our instinctive reaction is to think we are not capable and we fall from our call. But God can finish a great work in us! 

As we get to the end of Moses third 40 year period, we get to an interesting time in his life. The last chapter of Deuteronomy talks about Moses climbing Mt. Nebo and how God shows Moses all of the land that He delivered the Israelites.  It was on this mountain top with God that Moses died and was buried in an unknown place.  He was 120 when God called him to climb a mile high mountain.  Was this a metaphor of his life?  There were many mountains he had to climb.  God was with him at every climb as he led his people to freedom.  God showed up.  Somewhere along the way, Moses learned to trust Him.  What else strikes Scott is that God buried Moses. God was there in the beginning and He was there in the end.  Who goes to a funeral when someone dies?  Friends and family go, right?  God seems to say here that He is a friend of Moses.  God is a friend of ours, too.  He wants to walk with us and share life with us.

So if there are 3 things to take from this message, they would be:

1) God doesn't want us to be define ourselves by our worst moments. 

2) If we do our part, God will do His.

3) God wants to send us out of our Egypt.  That place where you can bring others to freedom.  God wil give you strength.

There will never be any one like you.  The last three versus in Deuteronomy talk about how there was no one ever again like Moses.  There is no one quite like you either.  You cannot be the best version of someone else.  You have to be you and trust that God is bringing out the best for our lives.  God will not ask us why we were not like David or Moses.  He will want us to be what we were ordained to be in ourselves.  Will we?