Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.

• 2 Timothy 1:7

Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

• Genesis 2:25

But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

• Genesis 3:9-11

“I kept mentally proclaiming over and over that this spirit of fear is not from God (2 Timothy 1:7). Therefore, it had to be coming from my enemy. As I put the suit on the cashier’s conveyer belt. As I swung the plastic bag into the front passenger seat of my car. As I drove home feeling this strange and unfamiliar courage welling up from very deep within. As I popped the tags off. As I tugged it on and tied it up. As I stood there, completely alone in the privacy of my bedroom, facing the hardest step of all, turning to face myself in the mirror.
“And that’s where the fear intensified to the most painful level yet. I had to face myself if l was ever going to face this fear.
“The enemy wants us paralyzed and compromised by the whispers and doubts and what-ifs and opinions and accusations and misunderstandings and all the other hissing handcuffs crafted by fear.”

• Lysa TerKeurst, It’s Not Supposed to be this Way

Lysa TerKeurst makes a triple comparison in the Scriptures.  Before the fall of Man, Adam and Eve were not ashamed of their nakedness.  They had nothing to be ashamed of.  Once they have the knowledge of good and evil, they feel shame.  They feel lust, although that is not mentioned in the text.  But by lust they have a reason to be ashamed.  And notice that with that shame comes fear.  Then the first Scripture declares victory over fear by trusting in God.

Lysa TerKeurst says we have to do a few things.  First, in her quote, she declares the victory.  For a while she feels good, but then she must look at herself in the mirror, and the doubts start to emerge.

Then the part of the quote that most touched me.  It is worth repeating.

“The enemy wants us paralyzed and compromised by the whispers and doubts and what-ifs and opinions and accusations and misunderstandings and all the other hissing handcuffs crafted by fear.”

• Lysa TerKeurst, It’s Not Supposed to be this Way

We must renounce the lies.  We must declare the truth that God has already defeated Satan, but we must renounce the lies that are the seeds that grow the fear.

Jesus told us not to worry.  What is worry other than a carefully packaged fear?  And what is worry directly?  An outward sign that we are not living by faith.

The bottom line is that we have faith.  We trust God has this, whatever the “this” in your life is.  John 3:16 speaks of believing in Jesus, but that word believe contains trust.  We are not believing that Jesus died 2000 years ago to save us from our sins.  We are believing that the resurrected Christ is not only able to handle our burdens, but He wants such a relationship with us that He would carry our burdens as if we were the only one who loved Him.  Remember that God is infinite, and He can take care of every cell in my body and have plenty of time left over to do the same for you.

The important thing to remember is that God loves us so much that he really wants to carry our burdens.  It glorifies Him by us relinquishing those burdens and letting Him carry them.

Thinking of burdens?  What does that have to do with our fears?  But the burdens in our life are in themselves often what we fear.  If God is carrying our burdens, what do we have left to fear?  If you can think of something, remember that the earlier step was to renounce the lies.

God has this.

Lord, guide me. As I start a new journey, or is it an old journey started anew, let me trust in You to the point where You are carrying my burdens.  I renounce the lies of Satan.  As I see them crop up in my life like a persistent weed, let me take that hoe of faith and keep my garden clean of the weeds.  And keep me in Your Word.  Through Your Word, we can speak truth that causes those lies to wither away.  In Your name I pray.  Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.