Breaking Free from Fear

Season 2 Episode 49 Master 1(0:00 - 3:23)Oh, I know that's good sure but things don't work together for me. That must be for somebody else. I don't know.I know that's good sure but you know no no it's God's promise. God didn't play around. God is God.Do you hear me? God is speaking to you right now and he's saying to you right now I will make everything in your life work together for good. He's saying that to you. Welcome to the Ignite with Barry Meguiar podcast where Barry's book and passion for spreading God's love are guaranteed to ignite your life.Now listen in and prepare to have your life ignited. Hi everybody. I want to talk to you for a few moments about fear.Apparently it's a big issue. Karen and I have had no fear for for decades so I had to go back and actually remind myself what it's like to be fearful. But I was reading a study the other day that said that over 70% of all Christians now I don't know what they mean by Christians.There's Christians and then there's Christians. It didn't stipulate. But it did say that over 70% of Christians are living in fear.I mean how is that possible? You have holy God Almighty all over you directing your steps and protecting you and doing everything. You're living in fear? Do you know that it's been said I actually have a sign in my house that says 365 times in the Bible. The Bible says fear not.Now I don't know if that's accurate up but but it's certainly in that area it's a lot. If there's anything that God says to us is don't fear. Fear not.I thought about that a bit and you know when when you're living in fear what you know what you're saying to God you're saying to God I don't trust you. What does that say to God? I mean what does that really say to God? How does that hurt God? How would you like your child to say dad mom I don't trust you. It stabs you to the heart.And according to this poll over 70% of Christians are doing exactly that. You know what's worse? The author of fear is Satan. You do know that right? And when he traps you in fear he's laughing at you.Now now think about those two things. One you're telling God you don't trust him and the other hand Satan's laughing at you. I don't think either one of these are good options.So how do you get out of fear? How do you get how do you escape fear? And the more you want to escape it the more you have right? And there's so many things to be fearful about. My health, my marriage, my kids, my schooling, my job, my country, the world. You know most of the time we're worried about stuff.I'd be really worried about things we can't change anyway. So why are we worrying about it? It doesn't matter. But that's that's where we are.We love to fear. Satan's the author of fear. I think fear is his number one weapon against Christians.(3:25 - 6:43)There's about 10% of us in America, 30 some odd million of us, that actually know God are born again and believe he's on the way to heaven. And our goal and our mission is to ignite that 30 million and we ignite America Revival one person at a time. We can do this.Over 70% of the of the church already have a Christian friend in their life. We can do this. We can actually do this and spend no money.I mean we just need to do it. But we're not. Why? Mainly because of fear.Because he has paralyzed the church in fear and laughing at us. I would go beyond that. He's sterilizing the church.He sterilized the church. You know why? Because if you're living in fear, you can't share your faith. You just can't.How do you share your faith out of fear? You don't have faith yourself. Without faith it's impossible to please God. I mean the scriptures are overwhelming on this subject and yet we practice it.I've heard it from the pulpit. Pastors talking about how they're struggling with something. They're worried about what are you worried about? God's on your side.If God's in it, God's ahead of you. How do you get to that place? I've no fear. It's very easy.I can explain to you right quick. But this thing of God dealing with your fears. The scriptures are plentiful in explaining what it means when you have fear.He also explains what it means when you don't have fear. Okay, let me give you a little bit of a contrast here. James chapter 1. Don't you love James? I mean it's the only book in the Bible I've actually memorized.I've memorized a lot of scripture. James is the one book I've memorized in totality. It's so rich.In the first chapter of James he says, I'll answer your prayers. I will. I'm the holy guy.I'll answer your prayers unless you're wavering. Unless you're mixing fear with faith. And you know what he says.He says it's like you're like a wave of the sea driven by the wind and tossed. You're a double-minded man, unstable in all your ways. And then the killer shot.I mean the debilitating shot. The thing just wipes you out and tells you, you can't live there. He says don't let that person expect to receive.God can do anything. Thank God he's answered my prayers when I didn't deserve it. He can do that.He's sovereign. But he says don't let that person think that I'll answer their prayers. Believe it.Trust that I'll answer their prayers because there's no reason for that trust. That's where it would sound like most Christians are today. Walking around in fear because they they don't believe.They can't have it. They don't have a status to believe that God is going to direct their steps. Oh but when you have wholehearted faith.(6:43 - 16:52)When you have faith then everything happens. Everything happens. That verse you all know.Proverbs 3.5. Trust in the Lord with your whole heart. Right? Not half-hearted. When you love God you love God.I mean there's no there's nothing even remotely close. Love God fills your life and it pushes the darkness back. When you trust God it pushes fear back.And fear is gone. It's banished from your life. You can live there.Would you like to live? If you're living and you're struggling in fear right now and you can't imagine how to get out of the grips of fear with all the stuff that's going on. Would you like to know how to escape? I'm going to tell you right now. It's so simple.And you never would have guessed it. It is the solution is doing the one thing you don't want to do and may never have done. Share your faith.What? What does sharing my faith have to do with getting rid of fear? I'm afraid to share my faith. And that's part of it. I'm afraid to share.Oh I don't have the right words. I won't know what to say. I'll embarrass myself.I don't have the right person. We have all these excuses. You know we actually have a place on our website most frequent excuses.That takes every one of those excuses and destroys them. He didn't say go into the world all you who are gifted or all you who can quote eloquent scripture. Do you know the most most most aggressive faith sharing Christians are new Christians? And they don't even know scripture.You know who they know? They know God. And they're open and God is overwhelming them and their heart is so big and God's filling their life and the God flows through them out to everybody else around them. That should be you.That should be all of us for the rest of our lives. And that pushes back fear. There's actually a promise to that.If you've watched me very much you know the promise but I'll bring it more pointedly now and that is the scripture says all things work together for good. Do you understand if you could really believe that God is promising you to make everything in your life work together for good that's the end of fear. There's no more fear.There just isn't. But how do you get there? Oh I know that scripture but things don't work together for me. That must be for somebody else.Yeah I don't know. I know that scripture but you know. No no it's God's promise.God doesn't play around. God is God. Do you hear me? God is speaking to you right now and he's saying to you right now I will make everything in your life work together for good.He's saying that to you. If you follow the two provisos in that scripture. You know we're not good at quoting whole scriptures.We paraphrase. We don't like to paraphrase but we do. All things work together for good.We leave it there. Oh some sermons will say when you love God. I grabbed a hold of this scripture 50 years ago and I've heard it preached a hundred times since and maybe four or five times I've ever heard him quote the entire scripture which says I'll make everything work together for good to those who love me and that's all out love just flat-out I love you God more anything else I just love you I love you God you owe me totally everything to those who love me and then he he gives the scripture what that means to those who live for my purpose Oh what's God's purpose well you don't have to question that you know there's a lot of theological arguments going on I can't even figure out how theologians spent a lifetime hung up on a certain scripture that's meaningless as far as getting saved but people do this and they don't you know what God's purpose is everybody knows what God's purpose is God made us for heaven he didn't make his birth he made us for heaven and his his purpose to those who live for his purpose his purpose is to seek and save the lost we say that so freely we say so often lives its minute it's meaning he said when you live your life to seek and save the loss it mimics what he said earlier it duplicates what he said earlier when they asked him what's the most important commandment if you love God you'll keep his commandments what's the most important commandment he says when you love your neighbor as yourself it is just as important as loving me in fact the two go together you can't love God without sharing your faith I gotta tell you if you love God you're gonna share your faith whatever you love whatever you're excited about you're gonna talk about guaranteed I had a great hamburger last night I have to say this but I had another one last night it was it was crazy good and I've been telling people about it whatever you're excited about and love you're gonna talk about it's natural it's human it's what you do you can't stop yourself how often you're talking to people about God the degree to what you're talking to people about God is the degree to which you love God I'm not saying you're not on your way to heaven I'm not saying that but does he does he owe your heart are you excited what he's doing in your life holy God lives in you and has a plan for you and it's taking you to heaven and he's giving you the opportunity to lead other people to it are you excited about that or not if you're not you need to do an inventory check you need to start thinking about what's the priority of your life yeah but when you do the bottom line is it's so simple I think it's the second most important promise of Scripture in the entire Bible after John 3 16 because he says John 3 16 of course is you accept the Lord Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior and he gives you eternal life but after that he says from now until you get to heaven I'm gonna make everything in life work together for good if you do two things love me and when you love me you'll share me and when you're in that mode nothing can hurt you nothing can stop you unless God allows it and that's freedom it's freedom it's unbelievable I told this story also but it bears repeating right now I had a joint venture part of my family sold to a joint venture partner and after five years he took over my board and and I found out the next words gonna throw me out of my business I was 65 years old it's my family business my grandfather started 1901 and now I'm 65 years old and my joint venture partner owned half the company took over the board and tomorrow morning to throw me out of my business okay and this is my response that night I've heard the shortest part of my life you've heard this story probably many times it bears repeating because some of you haven't heard it but but it proves the point I'm living proof I'm 83 years old I live I've lived the life he talks about I'm a product of the promise he's given to all of us and I said God I ask you for nothing nothing because you know I live for your purpose no it's not a gray area all day long I'm focused on moving everybody closer to you all day long there's no gray area here you know I live for your purpose and I know you under your word and you said all things you make all things work together for good for those who do what I do and I went to sleep here's the proof positive and I say often say God strike me dead this moment if it's not exactly what happened because it is I crawled in bed I went to sleep immediately I did not toss and turn I never got up I woke up fresh the next morning and went to my attorney's office or taking this conference call everybody was in their conference rooms and and I won't go to the details now I can't tell you this within eight minutes he turned God turned my joint venture partner upside down to the point where he was cussing at me he and his team and they're saying GD this and F this and I weren't they couldn't see me and I'm belly laughing I just couldn't believe it I just I just said when all in as a God I had nothing I was toast but I had you that's all I needed and you came through for me as I knew you would this is the promise when you have the promise when you're sharing your faith is no fear do you get it I brought this book ignites your life it'll ignite your life this is the message of our ministry it will ignite your life when you share your faith when you share God that's the only thing he's asked for you to do for the entirety of your life when you do that it ignites your life and the byline our book is defeat fear effortlessly effortlessly automatically just by living the life and the promise and the direction he's given he's called the Greek Commission to move everybody every day closer to Jesus starting right now God bless you if you enjoyed today's episode let us know and don't forget to subscribe rate and review to help us reach more listeners remember sharing your faith ignites your faith see you next time on the ignite with Barry Meguiar podcast