Fear not, trust God (18)

WE left off sharing life changing thoughts from James 4:7 where the Spirit of God tells us in that wonderful scripture; Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Precious friends, the devil is not to be tolerated but he is to be resisted. Wherever you see him in manifestation, the Bible instructs us as children of God to resist him.

Now God will not tell you to do anything that He has not anointed or authorized you to do. After you embrace the word of God, submit yourself to the authority of His word and then you can rise up in faith, resist the devil and he will flee.  And we know that one of the primary manifestations of the devil here is the spirit of fear or we can say he manifests himself through the spirit of fear.

So resisting the devil is resisting the spirit of fear. You cannot successfully stand against, resist or oppose the spirit of fear except you know how fear manifests itself. You cannot do that except you are able to identify how the spirit of fear manifests itself. The spirit of fear manifests itself through thoughts, ideas and suggestions. It is so important for us to understand this because many people in an attempt to operate in the spirit or fight spiritual battles, are unsuccessful or fail because they do not understand what to look out for and what to do.

So in this business of resisting the spirit of fear which the bible commands us to do, we understand that fear manifests itself through thoughts, ideas and suggestions. Please understand that your mind, your thought life or the world of your thoughts is the gateway to your life. The Bible says the life of a man does not consist in the abundance of things that he possesses.

If that is true, then what does the life of a man consist of? The life of the man consists in what the man thinks. Proverbs 23:7 says; For as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. This is a very important truth you must understand that your mind is the gateway into your life. The life you live is dominated by your thoughts.

Both God and Satan are trying to rule in your thought life and the one that wins rules your life. I like the way the great woman of God Joyce Meyer said it; wherever the mind goes, the man follows.  Another great man of God Dr. Mike Murdock said this; “Your life will always go in the direction of your most dominant thoughts”. What is going on in your mind; what you are thinking about is what will eventually dominate your life.

Satan seeks to dominate your thought life, to take your life where he wants it to go; to a place of wasting and destruction. God is also interested in your thought life. He wants you to give Him access to your thought life so He can control your thought life; to move you into His world of blessing, preservation, protection and abundant provision.

Thoughts are very important and in this matter. We have to understand and reckon with the fact that it is through thoughts, ideas and suggestions that the spirit of fear seeks to manifest in our lives and take control of our mind. You are the owner of your mind and the owner of your thoughts. You must take control the thoughts that you think.

Know that as a free moral agent, God has authorized you and given you authority over your thought life – over the things you think. You may not be able to control every thought that goes through your mind, but you can decide which thought will remain there just as you may not be able to stop a bird from flying over your head, but you can stop it from landing on your head and building a nest there. This is the authority that God has given you.

The spirit of fear seeks to dominate or seize control of our lives by taking over our thinking. The devil has already been defeated by Jesus as we see in Hebrews 2:14-15 but he seeks to control the life of the believer through thoughts, ideas and suggestions. In fact, the power of suggestion is the devils greatest power. Outside of that, he has no power and it is through the power of suggestion that fear seeks to rule and control our lives.

1 Peter 5:8, it says Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. Your adversary is the one that is arrayed against you. Why a roaring of a lion? Nature has shown us that whenever a male lion roars, it induces fear that paralyses its prey. In a group or pride of lions, you typically find a dominant male, many female lions and various levels of cubs in the process of growth. Now when they go to hunt, you find that it is the female lions or lionesses that go out.

The females are the aggressors that go out to hunt but they do not have the roar. The roar is given to the male to paralyze its prey. When a male lion roars, the prey usually does not know what side of the jungle the roar is coming from. So they begin to run in different directions and then the female lions take advantage of the confusion, isolate a weak member of the herd, attack it, kill it and they have their prey. This is how the devil operates too.

The Bible does not call Satan a lion but says that he goes about “as” a roaring lion. Fear is described like the roaring of the lion. The devil knows he cannot do anything to you outside of fear so he roars to induce fear. He will use your circumstances and things you are faced with to shoot thoughts, ideas and suggestions into your mind. Thoughts like how will you ever survive? Will you escape this terror? Are you sure you will not be the next victim of kidnap? Are you sure you will not be the next victim of assassins? Will you make enough money to feed your family? …and all kinds of thoughts.

The devil will use such thoughts to sponsor fear in you but you must understand from this scripture that he only goes about “as” a roaring lion, not a real lion. Those thoughts are to get you to panic and to drift your mind and mental attention from God. The moment you enter into panic mode, you start voicing those thoughts out in fear and you start acting in fear not realizing that you have authorized the devil to steal, kill and to destroy in your life.

Satan has no power but the power you yield to him through fear.  If you understand his tactics and refuse to yield to the spirit of fear, you will shut the door to him. The truth is Satan uses the power that God has given you against you when he gets you to panic and to yield to that spirit of fear.

Friends, that is the operation of the spirit of fear but the good news is that you do not have to yield to it. Resisting the devil is resisting those thoughts, resisting those ideas and saying no to those suggestions.  Saying I refuse to think that way, I choose to believe my God; I choose to believe the salvation He has kept for me. I choose to believe that He is bigger than anything that can come against me.

I choose to believe that He is able to provide for me, He is able to protect me, to defend me and my family. He is able to preserve me. No matter what is going on in this world, I choose to believe that God is bigger.  You see, when you yield to God, you authorize Him to operate in your life and when you yield to the devil, to those thoughts, ideas and suggestions of fear, you authorize him to function in your life.

Friends, this is good gospel news but the truth of the matter is that if you are not a child of God, you will not have access to His covering. You will not have access to His abilities, authority and His power. If you are not a child of God, the good news is that you can become one today. The Bible says in Acts 2:21 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. John 6:37 Jesus said whosoever cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.

Today, come to Jesus, hide in Him. Become a child of God and then all of God’s resources; His authority, His power, the name and the blood of Jesus, all these weapons that have been given to us to enforce the defeat of the devil will become available to you. Praise the Lord!