Thursday, 3rd September, 2020

Weekly Anchor Scripture: “Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.”

Focus Scripture: “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” – 2 Timothy 1: 7

Admonition

I bring you greetings from the Throne of Grace.

One legend has it that a terrible king sometimes ago told his chief warrior that a particular town has offended him and that he would like the chief warrior to go there and kill them all. The people of that town got wind of the king’s order to his chief warrior, and knowing how terrible that chief warrior was, many of them had died even before the king’s warriors got to them. When the king heard, who had had a change of heart shortly after discharging his warriors on the murderous mission, he accused the chief warrior of being heartless. But the chief warrior replied that he and his men did not kill one person in the town. Asked who did then, he replied, “FEAR.” He told the king that they had all died before they got there.

One of the greatest enemies against our faith is FEAR. Fear is a serious enemy of faith because it increases our doubts and dampens our spirits. Thus, fueling our unbelief and incapacitating us from acting on the Word of God which describes our faith. But what are those things that put us in the bondage of fear?

The greatest thing that puts Christians in fear is the lack of the knowledge of the Word of God. In Hebrews 4: 12, the Bible describes the Word as being sharper than any two-edged sword. Psalm 107: 20 assures that the Word of God is able to heal and deliver from any kind of destruction. But what happens when the knowledge of the Word of God is lacking in the life of a Christian? The Psalmist in Psalm 27: 1 – 2 declared that he fears nothing and no one. And finally on this this morning, our Focus Scripture says what we are blessed with at the point of our New Birth is the Spirit of sonship, not of fear! A clear understanding of the spiritual concept of our sonship and joint heirship with Christ in God should settle every form of fear. However, it is so unfortunate today that the spirit of the end-time is fast catching up with the church in that supposed people of God have developed itching hears (2 Timothy 4: 3) and to worsen the case, most preachers today are what I usually call “men of the pulpit” NOT “men of God” because most of them no longer preach the true Word of God. Over 95% of what’s coming from the pulpit now is about prosperity. That is why many abominable things are happening in the world today and the church has no answer to them.

To buttress the importance of the knowledge of the Word of God to conquer fears, I have told us sometimes ago the story of how the Word of God helped me conquer the fear of dying young when I was in my first years in the university. In summary, something was always coming to tell me that I will soon die and upon hearing this, I will cry my life out because I didn’t want to die. But one day while reading the Bible, the Holy Spirit led me to Isaiah 65: 20. That was the day that fear ended. Anytime that whatever it was came back to tell me that rubbish, I confronted it with that Scripture. And up till now, I always tell people that come what may, I can’t die until I am hundred years plus.

Another thing that is closely related to the above and that puts man in fear is unconfessed sin. In Genesis 3, if Adam had confessed his sin of disobedience to God’s command, he wouldn’t be in fear when he had God walking towards him in the Garden of Eden. God Himself would have forgiven them, but their lack of remorse and repentance was what cost them the luxury of the Garden of Eden. When we refused to confess our sins, there can never be any genuine repentance from us to God, our Maker and the Owner of our souls. That will put an impervious wall of separation between us and God. At that point, the spirit of sonship that chases away our fears would have departed. That is why a supposed child of God fears virtually anything and everything.

I was once a member of a large congregation here in Nigeria where every message coming from the pulpit every time we went to church was always about household wickedness and how they hold people in bondage and waste people’s destiny. This is the crest upon which that church is built and upon which it rests. That is why when you see the people in that congregation, they are suspicious of every one and seeing an ordinary rat or cockroach in their house, don’t even talk about wall gecko and spiders and their web, they will quickly run for their anointing oil and start shouting “Holy Ghost Fire” until they wake the whole neighbourhood up. That is the kind of spiritual bondage under which many “worship” God in our Christendom.

As we close this morning, we are called to be free, so says the Word of God, and apart from sin that we need to overcome by bringing our body under, the other thing that could shipwreck our faith easily is fear. But if we live in the light of the Word of God and the reality of our New Birth, we can overcome all fears that are out to destroy our faith. Beloved brethren, we MUST conquer our fears to FINISH STRONG. Both God and His Holy Spirit are very read to help us, but we must observe the two things discussed today.

Till tomorrow when we shall meet again on this beautiful journey of FINISHING STRONG together, please, keep keeping on in Him!

Jesus loves you!