We are continuing on grace today. John 14 is Jesus’ “last will and testament”
to His disciples. He says He is leaving
us His peace. This is Shalom peace—also translated
as prosperity, and means “nothing missing and nothing broken in your life.” It also means you have health, wealth, joy,
peace, and are highly favored. This
peace helps us understand our purpose and operate in it. Jesus was never worried when something
threatened His destiny. He was always in
control of His destiny and never was at the mercy of anyone else. He even said they could not take His life
from Him unless He gave us.
Today we are focusing on the phrase “Do not let your heart
be troubled and do not be afraid.”
Perfect love casts out fear.
There is no fear in love. Joshua
1:8 encourages us not to fear or be discouraged. Proverbs 4:23 encourages us to keep healthy
boundaries in our life, because what we allow into our heart determines our
future. If we let fear into our heart,
our boundaries get smaller, and we limit our potential. If we let Christ in our heart, our boundaries
become limitless. Proverbs 3:4-6 says
that as we trust in God, He makes our path straight. Straight does not mean easy, but it does mean
direct. A straight path can go over
mountains and through valleys, but it won’t meander around aimlessly. We can either have faith in God or accept
fear and have faith in what I do not want to happen. Facts can change, but the truth does not. What exactly is our heart? The heart is our soul—our mind, will and
emotions. We defeat fear by keeping our
heart from being troubled.
We have never seen our face, but we trust that the mirror
shows us accurately what we look like. Thus
we should also trust that God’s Word accurately tells us who we are. You may have been abused or been through very
tough things inflicted by someone else.
That person is accountable for what they did, but you are accountable
for what you do moving forward. This is
not meant to discount what you went through, but God wants you to attach to His
word and move forward into your destiny. We are to forget what is behind and press
forward. If God can forget our sin, then
we with the mind of Christ can truly forget those hurtful things that happened
to us and move forward as if they never happened. Instead of going back looking for stuff that
may have caused problems you experience today, just focus on who you are today.
We are new creatures in Christ. 1 Peter 5:8-10 we see that the enemy is going
about pretending he is a lion, looking for those who will believe his lies and believe
he can devour them. Go back to verse 6-7. It reminds us to cast our cares on Christ so
we can be self-controlled and alert.
I believe we create what we speak. Satan also gathers information about us by
what we speak in order to attack us successfully. I speak the Word in order to convince myself
and let the enemy know He can’t attack me.
We need to get to the point where our first reaction when an attack is
to go to the Word. Then we know we’ve
have defeated fear in that area. When
the enemy attacked Jesus after fasting for 40 days, Jesus used the Word to
defeat him. If we try to live by the
law, we will be subject to it, and the enemy will enforce it. Once we get into faith and grace, we step out
of Satan’s system.
To listen to the entire sermon go to http://ahwatukeechurch.com/ and click on
online media. To learn more about Living
Word Ahwatukee, visit http://ahwatukeechurch.com/.
